Ele Ludemann: Te Mana o Te Wai even worse than co-governance

Co-governance of the assets to be taken from councils under the government’s Three Five Waters legislation gets a lot of attention.

John Roughen shows the costs and risks from Te Mana o Te Wai statements are much, much worse:

. . . Hipkins’ line on Three Waters has been that the Government had not explained it very well and that if people knew more about it they would be less concerned. I doubt that he believes this and I wish television reporters who take this line would read the reform prospectus and the legislation.

I am fairly sure that if most people read these documents they would be more worried, not less.

Two months ago, when Hipkins was preparing the ground for a retreat, Maori speakers at Ratana and Waitangi were saying we had “nothing to fear from co-governance”. Having read what is proposed I think we have reason to fear it.

The power to be given to iwi and hapu within the territory of each Three Waters entity goes further than their collective representation as mana whenua in the “governance” (choosing a panel that appoints the board) of the entities.

Each iwi and hapu (there could be hundreds within the territory) would also have the right to issue “statements” to which the entity would be legally obliged to respond. These, directives in effect, are called “Te Mana o te Wai” statements, a phrase not clearly defined but it is the governing principle of the legislation.

Māori cultural explainers tell us that in te ao Māori (Māori worldview) each body of water has its own mauri and tribal identity is closely linked to freshwater. For Māori, great care must be taken in managing human impacts on it. The implications of these values deserve more attention.

These statements would affect all waterways and the use of the water from them.

They could override consents for water supplies for people, stock and irrigation.

It is one thing to set up co-governance arrangements for geographic features that require mainly conservation, quite a different matter to impose these arrangements on vital economic resources. Water is used in just about every economic activity, its efficient allocation and delivery should be decided by objective measures of economic value, not just its “mana”.

It’s not just economic activity, water is essential for animal and human survival.

If there is a case for co-governance of a natural body of water – a lake, river or sea coast claimed under Article II of the Treaty – it is hard to see a case for co-governance of the infrastructure that brings water from those sources and carries it away for treatment and disposal.

These facilities have been financed and built since colonisation by communities that should not be deprived of their democratic control.

Co-governance is just part of the plan to remove water infrastructure from accountability to those who pay for it. And that is the plan, stated shamelessly in the case for Three Waters reform, readable online. . .

The government has tried to placate us by saying we’ll pay less in rates. They conveniently don’t add we’ll be paying for our water and the layers of bureaucracy imposed on us by the new system, over which we will have no control and from which there will be no accountability.

Nor have they been open about lack of certainty we’ll be subject to with the power given through Te Mana o Te Wai statements.

There’s no doubt that many councils have been poor managers of water infrastructure and that getting it up to the required standard for human and environmental health will be expensive.

But that does not require taking council assets, creating new bureaucracies, and taking away accountability.

People are not fooled by the argument Ardern used to offer – that Three Waters removes the costs from ratepayers. The entities’ borrowing would be secured by consumers who would no longer have an effective vote.

This is not only an outrage to democratic rights, it is economically unhealthy for any supplier of goods and services to face no possible resistance from its consumers. It is a recipe for over-investment, over-staffing, over regulation and waste.

The Government will surely produce its revision of Three Waters sometime this month. If the changes are merely cosmetic the Government will be April’s fool and risk October’s regret.

That regret will be nothing compared with what we will all be faced with if we’re forced, as the legislation dictates, to give effect to Te Mana o Te Wai.

Co-governance replaces democracy and accountability with an expensive bureaucracy. Te Mana o Te Wai makes that even worse.

Ele Ludemann is a North Otago farmer and journalist, who blogs HERE