NZ Government officials caught red handed helping Chinese companies take NZ water

41 Comments

1. I think a lot of people don’t realise fresh water is not a short term renewable resource. It has taken hundreds if not thousands of years for water to fill the aquifers and be naturally filtered so NZ water, on the whole, has the purity denied so many other countries. Rain does not replace clean drinkable water if it flushes agrarian and urban pollutants into the waterways. In Christchurch a Chinese company has already illegally pumped more than 10 million litres of water from an aquifer so honest business dealing doesn’t uppermost for overseas owned bottling companies. Something needs to be done to stop the destruction of a necessary resource.

   1. Singapore is the only Asian nation with secure drinkable tap water. We couldn’t hope to plug the supply with bottled water from New Zealand. It’s just total National Party incompetence. And Iwi leaders have the cheek to go on about Labour when they’ve got no idea, at all.

   2. Has this stopped, its criminal.

      1. It’s just business. Its no good gaining a reputation for signing contracts and reneging. Should never have been negotiated in the first place.

         1. Water becoming more valuable than gold (CNN 2014)
            https://money.cnn.com/2014/04/24/news/water-gold-price/index.html

            1. +1 GRANDMA MOSES

               We have plenty of assets the world wants, weird that our government is giving it away then no doubt can be sued under various stupid agreements when they decide to charge for it or stop the practise which is another industry out of control with massively polluting plastic and dangerous to our water supply drying up!

         2. I don’t agree this deal and all the others should be stopped, so what if we get a bad name. It is just blackmail we should do what is right. If we are to give water away it should be to countries that need it. Not to a country that will make vast profit from it.

   3. more to the point something needs to be done by the govt. to stop overseas companies buying our liquid gold

      1. Only sensible thing is to go full Water Protector Dokota style just more people.

2. Unbelievable. What else have National done?? Imagine if they were still in.

3. Yes National set this up alright…Deals were done from long ago, but Christchurch funding came in to play for theirs…donkey dirty dealing was done and now it’s stuck. China will not be happy, but nor are we…having to buy foreign water bottles if I forget my fresh rain water irks me…Save our wai and ban the shit that is dropped in it…for we are getting poisoned…

4. The government will now be predictable and get to work on their levy – as though $$$$ will justify the huge volumes of plastic this industry creates and the risks to our drinking water supplies. We don’t need a levy to further incentivise jaded officials to grant consents that shouldn’t be granted (on environmental grounds). Water bottling needs to stop. We’re banning single use plastics – we can ban this too.

   1. +100…NZ should not be exporting water

      …where is NZF on this?

      …NZF platformed on this ie no NZ water being exported

5. Similar things are happening in other parts of the world. I recently watched a documentary on net about Nestle pumping billions of litres for bottled water in a US state and paying just a few hundred bucks annually to the local council.

   1. +1 KATH

      Nestlé pays $200 a year to bottle water near Flint – where water is undrinkable

      https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/29/nestle-pays-200-a-year-to-bottle-water-near-flint-where-water-is-undrinkable

      Nestlé Makes Billions Bottling Water It Pays Nearly Nothing For

      The company’s operation in Michigan reveals how it’s dominated the industry by going into economically depressed areas with lax water laws.

      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-09-21/nestl-makes-billions-bottling-water-it-pays-nearly-nothing-for

      Residents Forced to Buy Bottled Water As Coca-Cola Sucks Water Wells Dry

      https://thefreethoughtproject.com/water-coca-cola-sucks-wells-dry/

6. Many Whakatane residence voted for national so they get what they voted for those tory mongrels didn’t just sell our water they sold assets to the rich they sold land and utilities and they brought in thousands of cheap labourers to push our wages down. When are people gonna fucken wake up and smell the coffee. NZders kept voting for them believing in the bullshit brighter future now we have huge social problems and division.

7. The sub-text is that terminating the water contracts or imposing significant new charges risks an investment dispute under the NZ China FTA through the investor-state dispute process (ISDS) that Labour and NZ First have denounced – but which remains in the review of the FTA with China. China has become a fan of these special investor rights and ISDS, and i think it will only be a matter of time before we see Chinese investors bring a dispute brought against NZ. Meanwhile, the potential for such a dispute is likely to have a chilling effect on government’s willingness to respond to concerns.

   1. I think the only way to massage investor confidence is to sort out the Emissions Trading Scheme and set a price on carbon. We went through the same process with the reserve bank act, set a price for the New Zealand dollar and then boom, all these industries just popped up and we can do the same again with a carbon price and out manoeuvre investor fears.

   2. @ JANE KELSEY re “China has become a fan of these special investor rights”

      imo China FTA is a liability to NZ

      ….we don’t need China

      …and we especially don’t need a China with ‘special investor rights’

      … lets terminate the agreement with China before we are sucked dry…and New Zealand is taken over…the way Tibet has been taken over and sucked dry

      …do any of the political parties and politicians have the balls to do this?

      (…and lets trade with Russia instead)

   3. Why does Labour and NZ First support such badly worded trade agreements that do not protect people or allow change to occur if it is for social good?

      I understand why the Natz are all for corruption and lining their pockets with slush money and short term profits, but why are NZ First doing a u- turn (co-insiding with their dramatic drop in the polls) and Labour who also are barely able to be elected with their Neoliberal focused Lite policies in particular blind addiction to free trade and globalism at the expense of the people and country who they are supposed to be governing?

      Can they not learn from the democrats and Blairite governments? Voters don’t want to be tenants in their own country while multinationals profit and we have one government with neoliberalism and tax cuts and one with neoliberal lite and tax increases. What a choice!

      Apparently the locals are expected to be grateful our government have given our assets away and now even our security forces are their to defend FOREIGN and domestic economic outcomes rather than the security of the people who live in the country?

      What a bizarre world we live in! Saying that some of our politicians who have the best policy are so busy reclaiming the word cunt, worrying about rental WOF that are concerned with the amount of foliage around a letterbox when people now live in cars, and getting worked up about trivia or fail to see the big picture and the long term effects and how long those benefit increases might last for (ahhh less than 5 minutes), that they have failed to notice the expanding rot… and miss out on actually becoming a major player for NZ voters and winning a lot more hearts and minds…

8. Is that not corporate fruad or corporate sabotage it is disgusting and shows what low quality pooliticians and indeed sad individuals whom run our country prison would be to good for the likes of nz power whores R.I.P Aotearoa

9. “…and simply handing over millions of litres in fresh water for nothing is pure insanity, no other country that I can see allows their water to be taken for free.”

   Yup. Only the morons in National think this is “good business”. Nina Foster above asks what other dodgy dealings did the Nats get up to in their 9 years in power? What secret deals? What undeclared meetings and contacts?

   At least Clare Curran wasn’t planning to sell our country from under us!!

10. The trouble is that all these New Zealanders who are upset at their water being taken, will also rise up in arms at the very thought that a value is placed on it, especially if they think Maori are in any way involved.

    1. …and valuation/privatisation of water I am afraid would encourage Maori corporations to sell it the Chinese to maximise their profits…not to mention any Pakeha who have water rights

       …it would only advantage the wealthy and then be sold off as a commodity to the highest overseas bidders

       1. when you say Maori you should say some Maori corporations cause you are assuming we all would sell the water to the Chinese we many wouldn’t. Yes we have some greedy ones.

11. I smell corruption.

12. yes Mosa the medium were inferring it was the current government they are showing they are true blue

13. What the actual fuck???!!! Does anyone know when National was planning to sell the air we breathe to the Chinese as well?

    1. A guy in ChCh is selling our air to China – pure Mt Cook air. Heaven knows how he gets up there to get it.

       The richest man in Hong Kong and 23rd richest man in the world owns Wellington Electricity, the lines company. Their disputes service is International Infrastructure Services , a Hong Kong company registered in the Virgin Islands. Being in dispute with them is v tough.

       1. sam stubs from simplicity said with kiwi saver with can buy back the
          country 50 year stable money a lines company is perfact for pension funds they are the best owners even better than the government because bloody nation cant get there hand on the assets i think thats
          one reason nact hates kiwisaver they dont want the masses owning new zealand

    2. Nope but the residents who live or work near ports are expected to pay for the air pollution from the equivalent of up to 1 million cars a day for cruise ships to dock in NZ that our councils are rolling out the red carpet for, similar to the water issue.

       (I also seem to remember the a council imposed water restrictions of the city but allowed a cruise ship to dock and take a significant amount of water, recently, residents are now considered 2nd class citizens).

       Air quality on cruise ship deck ‘worse than world’s most polluted cities’, investigation finds
       ‘Each day a cruise ship emits as much particulate matter as a million cars’

       “Speaking to the Dispatches team, Daniel Rieger, of the German environment association NABU (Nature And Biodiversity Conservation Union), said: “Ships cause not only greenhouse gas emissions, but also sulphur oxides, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter.

       “Per day one cruise ship emits as much particulate matter as a million cars. So 30 cruise ships pollute as much as all the cars in the United Kingdom.”

       https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/pollution-cruise-ships-po-oceana-higher-piccadilly-circus-channel-4-dispatches-a7821911.html

       The world’s largest cruise ship and its supersized pollution problem

       https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/21/the-worlds-largest-cruise-ship-and-its-supersized-pollution-problem

       Even ‘Green’ Cruise Ships Are Polluting the Earth at Incredible Rates
       https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/cruise-ships-polluters-ocean-sewage-particulates/

       Cruise ships dump 1 billion gallons of sewage into the ocean every year
       https://qz.com/308970/cruise-ships-dump-1-billion-tons-of-sewage-into-the-ocean-every-year/

       Cruise liner crews slave below decks
       Passengers enjoy luxury on the high seas, but a new study reveals the misery of those who serve them

       https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2002/sep/08/travelnews.uknews.theobserver

    3. national already sold the air -waves mate that supposingly nobody owns just like our water

14. “…why on earth were the officials under National actively trying to get Chinese companies to take our water?”

    Maybe it’s timely for research into NZ’s version of The Senior Executive Service
    that has recently been exposed in America.

    It seems all Five Eyes countries, at least, will have variants of this system.

    Learn about Senior Executive Service:
    https://aim4truth.org/2018/01/03/deep-state-shadow-government-revealed-senior-executive-service/

    Could this be another expression of this?
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12136207

    Make sure to watch the small 2min Australian video here:

    http://stateofthenation2012.com/?p=97997

    It would certainly explain a few things and shed light with a bit more focus.

    Cheers.

15. This will continue until we start putting public officials and public servants in prison for malfeasance and misappropriation of public assets.

16. Gateway 502 errors last time so I’ll try again from memory

    This typifies all that’s gone wrong in our public service.
    If we have to keep this corporate model and all its bloody purchase agreements etc, and there’s no bloody reason why we should, the FIRST thing in any and all agreements should be that CEOs and Senior Management must act in the public interest at all times – no ambiguity!
    There’d be associated KPIs of course, and IF that overarching requirement is not met, then those responsible get “moved on” (and not to the next cushy gig either).

    Btw, wasn’t this T&E CEO Chrisp? at one time prominent in the trade union movement with glowing endorsements from a Tollich? That’s a question – but if so then he should be bloody ashamed of himself.

17. David Parker and MFAT are currently renegotiating the China FTA so placing a levy on premium export water which impacts mainly on Chinese corporations in the immediate future would upset the trade apple cart and I strongly suspect is off the table for now.

    Secondly ,as so well pointed out by Prof Kelsey ,even if we were to change the regulations to charge for export water , these Chinese corporations could sue our Govt to get the money back under the ISDS provisions in the China FTA , similar to TPPA but already in place for the China agreement .

    This is a major fuck up , as a 10c per litre levy on premium export water at full consent for the NZ 75 water bottling plants would net 3 billion dollars per year in new Govt revenue . Some 9 billion dollars over the 1st term of a Labour lead Govt .

    Instead of generating revenue we are giving it away for free then having to buy our own water back at $ 3 per litre .Lunacy .

    Parker is not telling us the full story on water .

    Keep asking questions , this is not right. Recent surveys show 90% of Kiwis don’t approve of giving up our premium export water for nothing .

    Foreign water bottlers start to pay or go away !

18. what about jenny shipply judith collins and partners lining their own nest . over in china doing business a few years back . there has to be corruption here somewhere when mps are doing business when they are still mps . something very dodgy here. needs investigation

19. the water here in our country is owned…and owned by land owners on private property to which lakes rivers streams brooks and the like run thru private property…those owners of those properties are the owners to the water…..there is no dispute by that……and are free to do as they wish on private whenua….

20. Colonisers are being colonised and they don’t like it one bit.. Bloody idiots should have listened to Tangata Whenua.

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