Jack Tame related in the NZ Herald last week how he had recently driven around the Nelson area and found fewer billboards protesting against Three Waters than earlier in the year.
The Newstalk ZB host and anchor of TVNZ’s Q&A thought this tallied with his observation that “much of the anger around Three Waters has dissipated since Kieran McAnulty took over the [Local Government] portfolio and the government reset the plan”. He also reckoned optimistically that the project is “probably more popular and less contentious than some of the pushback would have us believe”.
Presumably unbeknown to Tame, the Taxpayers’ Union, which provided most of the Three Waters signs, has moved on to protest against the replacement RMA legislation with a new batch of signs around the country saying “Stop Central Planning Committees”.
Nevertheless, on Tuesday last week, the TU asked the 200,000 people who subscribe to its newsletter to help put pressure on the government to scrap Three Waters and co-governance: “Our polling shows that the public haven’t fallen for the rebrand. Three Waters, or so-called ‘Affordable Water Reform’ — whatever you call it — is an electoral stink bomb that the government no longer wants to talk about.
“Chris Hipkins wants Kiwis to forget about Three Waters, and matters involving co-governance — at least until after the election. If we can mobilise our supporters, the government won’t get away with not talking about these terrible policies before the election.”
While Tame acknowledged there is still anger “spilling out of some Facebook groups”, he saw Three Waters as no longer being “the single issue that [might cost] the government the election”.
It’s true that there is stiff competition from a plethora of issues that may well sink the government, but Three Waters would singlehandedly deliver the coup de grace if the public were made aware of how much direct power is being handed to iwi via the right to issue binding Te Mana o te Wai Statements. A recent legislative amendment underscores the fact that the 84 per cent of the population who don’t have Māori ancestry are second-class citizens.
In April, when the Prime Minister announced a reset to Three Waters that would expand the number of Water Services Entities from four to ten, he announced, “We’ve introduced an equivalent [to Te Mana o te Wai Statements] for other significant interested parties in water use to also have a say in that.” However, the promised “Community Priority Statements” in the amended legislation have turned out to be nothing more than a cheap consolation prize for the vast majority of the population. They are certainly not anything approaching an “equivalent” as Hipkins promised.
While iwi and hapū have extensive rights to manage water policy through Te Mana o te Wai Statements that will direct their local Water Services Entity, the Community Priority Statements granted to the rest of the population are only their pale shadow.
Rather than being directives that the Water Services Entities (WSEs) must give effect to, Community Priority Statements will merely constitute suggestions that the more remote, co-governed Regional Representative Groups — which will appoint the boards of the WSEs and oversee strategy — “may consider”. The RRGs — which approve the entities’ strategic direction, with no role in their day-to-day governance or running — may also “consider” the statements “as part of any comments the group makes on the Water Services Entity’s planning and reporting documents”.
In short, while Te Mana o te Wai Statements are exclusively available to iwi and must be acted upon, the Community Priority Statements available to the other 84 per cent of the nation’s citizens are not binding and can be ignored with impunity.
Iwi and hapū can dictate policy over any freshwater, coastal or geothermal water body in their local territory. Those unbounded dictates can include everything from spiritual and monetary concerns to employment opportunities. And, yes, those spiritual concerns may include accommodating the presence of a taniwha. When Act MP Simon Court asked the then Minister of Local Government Nanaia Mahuta last October: “Are spiritual beliefs — such as the existence of a taniwha on a bend in the river — permissible subject matter for Te Mana o te Wai Statements?”, she did not deny that possibility.
Two of the nation’s most astute journalists — the NZ Herald’s Kate MacNamara and Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis Allan — have covered the proposed Community Priority Statements, but such an outrageous, race-based breach of equal rights for New Zealanders cries out for extensive coverage by all the mainstream media before the election. Unfortunately, most journalists seem to simply prefer to look the other way.
It doesn’t help, of course, that the Three Waters legislation is complicated, and — with regard to Te Mana o te Wai Statements — arguably ambiguous. But part of a journalist’s job is to make complex policy understandable by the public.
The most troublesome clause is found deep in the Water Services Entities Act 2022: “A response to a Te Mana o te Wai statement for water services must include a plan that sets out how the water services entity intends… to give effect to Te Mana o te Wai, to the extent that it applies to the entity's duties, functions, and powers.”
Behind the scenes in social media groups, some senior journalists have argued that this clause does not mean Te Mana o te Wai Statements are binding. They emphasise that while iwi and hapū can make statements about Te Mana o te Wai, there is a difference between giving effect to the general concept of Te Mana o te Wai and giving effect to a specific statement about that concept. That is to say, in their view, the Water Services Entities are only obliged to give effect to the concept as they have interpreted it themselves. In this way, they envisage the specific statements by iwi are advice which the WSEs can simply note as having been received.
However, if the right to issue Te Mana o Te Wai Statements is as inconsequential as they claim, why did Tainui-Waikato grandee Tuku Morgan — iwi chair of the Northland-Auckland water entity — crow loudly in April about assurances they would retain their power in the rejigged Three Waters? Why did he declare triumphantly that no matter what legislative amendments might be introduced to Three Waters, Te Mana o te Wai Statements would lose none of their force?
He told the NZ Herald: “Even though there’s [going to be] a provision for communities to have a priority status, it will not in any way shape or form, overshadow, minimise, or compromise the standing of Te Mana o te Wai Statements being provided by iwi and hapū.”
Does Morgan’s effervescent glee make any sense if they are merely suggestions that can be acknowledged with a brief reply from the WSEs such as “Submission noted”?
Given that the senior journalists note the clauses in the Water Services Entities Act relating to Te Mana o te Wai Statements are ambiguous, it is baffling why they continue to ignore the evidence from Parliament and the Department of Internal Affairs that they are intended to be binding. Both make the legislative intent of the Act clear.
The principal arbiter in this debate must surely be Nanaia Mahuta, who, as Local Government minister, shepherded the Water Services Entities Bill through Parliament. During the first reading of the bill on 9 June 2022 she made it clear that the statements are binding: “The bill contains robust mechanisms to provide for and promote iwi Māori rights and interests. Mana whenua whose rohe or takiwā [tribal area] includes a freshwater body can make a Te Mana o te Wai Statement for water services which the board must give effect to.”
And to reinforce Mahuta’s view, the summary of the Three Waters legislation issued by the Department of Internal Affairs makes exactly the same point. Under the heading “Opportunities for Iwi/Māori in water services reform”, the DIA states unequivocally:
“Statutory recognition of Te Mana o Te Wai — Each [Water Services] entity will be required to give effect to Te Mana o Te Wai both in legislation and as articulated by mana whenua over a defined waterbody.”
That makes it abundantly clear that the general concept of Te Mana o Te Wai not only has to be given effect to as a general concept but also in the specific way it is defined by iwi and hapū in their statements.
If any Doubting Thomases in newsrooms are still dazed and confused, another entry on the DIA fact sheet — under the heading “Te Mana o Te Wai Statements” — confirms the point: “Legislation will broadly describe Te Mana o Te Wai, however the emphasis is that mana whenua define what Te Mana o Te Wai means to their specific location. Operationally, a statement can take the form of an Iwi Management Plan, Cultural Impact Statement or the like.”
Journalists turning a blind eye to the evidence aren’t the only ones keen to avoid analysing the power of Te Mana o te Wai Statements and explaining why Community Priority Statements are so insignificant in comparison. When Heather du Plessis Allan asked Local Government minister Kieran McAnulty about that discrepancy, he was not keen at all to answer her questions.
Du Plessis Allan: “Why are you forcing these new water bodies to do what iwi want but they don’t have to do what the rest of us in the community want?”
McAnulty tried to brush away the question as a “misrepresentation being pushed by right-wing parties” but du Plessis Allan wouldn’t be fobbed off. She pressed the point: “The [water] entities have to give effect [to Te Mana o te Wai Statements], whereas the Community Priority Statements [are only] “may consider”. There’s a vast difference there.”
McAnulty turned tetchy. He claimed Te Mana o te Wai Statements have “been around since [John Key] was in government” and said he was “not going to get into a fight about something that was already established”.
But while the concept of Te Mana o te Wai was indeed introduced into freshwater legislation under Key’s government, iwi have never previously been given the exclusive right to make binding statements over how water bodies are managed.
The pseudonymous political analyst Thomas Cranmer explained the problem last November regarding the conflation of “Te Mana o te Wai” and “Te Mana o te Wai Statements”:
“Both are similar, but nonetheless separate concepts… The former relates to the concept as defined in the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management and has been in use since 2014. The latter refers to statements issued under section 140 of the [Water Services Entities] Bill by mana whenua, which are a totally new statutory mechanism developed for these reforms.
“Conflating these two concepts in response to questions over many months has allowed Mahuta to effectively hide the ball when it comes to examining the scope and unbridled nature of Te Mana o te Wai Statements.”
The reason McAnulty doesn’t want to get into a fight, of course, is because he guesses he will get a badly bloodied nose. And like the Prime Minister, he also knows that if the vast majority of the public really understood how thoroughly they were being side-lined in Three Waters, Labour would be crushed in a wave of voters’ revulsion on October 14.
Graham Adams is an Auckland-based freelance editor, journalist and columnist. This article was originally published by ThePlatform.kiwi and is published here with kind permission.
Nevertheless, on Tuesday last week, the TU asked the 200,000 people who subscribe to its newsletter to help put pressure on the government to scrap Three Waters and co-governance: “Our polling shows that the public haven’t fallen for the rebrand. Three Waters, or so-called ‘Affordable Water Reform’ — whatever you call it — is an electoral stink bomb that the government no longer wants to talk about.
“Chris Hipkins wants Kiwis to forget about Three Waters, and matters involving co-governance — at least until after the election. If we can mobilise our supporters, the government won’t get away with not talking about these terrible policies before the election.”
While Tame acknowledged there is still anger “spilling out of some Facebook groups”, he saw Three Waters as no longer being “the single issue that [might cost] the government the election”.
It’s true that there is stiff competition from a plethora of issues that may well sink the government, but Three Waters would singlehandedly deliver the coup de grace if the public were made aware of how much direct power is being handed to iwi via the right to issue binding Te Mana o te Wai Statements. A recent legislative amendment underscores the fact that the 84 per cent of the population who don’t have Māori ancestry are second-class citizens.
In April, when the Prime Minister announced a reset to Three Waters that would expand the number of Water Services Entities from four to ten, he announced, “We’ve introduced an equivalent [to Te Mana o te Wai Statements] for other significant interested parties in water use to also have a say in that.” However, the promised “Community Priority Statements” in the amended legislation have turned out to be nothing more than a cheap consolation prize for the vast majority of the population. They are certainly not anything approaching an “equivalent” as Hipkins promised.
While iwi and hapū have extensive rights to manage water policy through Te Mana o te Wai Statements that will direct their local Water Services Entity, the Community Priority Statements granted to the rest of the population are only their pale shadow.
Rather than being directives that the Water Services Entities (WSEs) must give effect to, Community Priority Statements will merely constitute suggestions that the more remote, co-governed Regional Representative Groups — which will appoint the boards of the WSEs and oversee strategy — “may consider”. The RRGs — which approve the entities’ strategic direction, with no role in their day-to-day governance or running — may also “consider” the statements “as part of any comments the group makes on the Water Services Entity’s planning and reporting documents”.
In short, while Te Mana o te Wai Statements are exclusively available to iwi and must be acted upon, the Community Priority Statements available to the other 84 per cent of the nation’s citizens are not binding and can be ignored with impunity.
Iwi and hapū can dictate policy over any freshwater, coastal or geothermal water body in their local territory. Those unbounded dictates can include everything from spiritual and monetary concerns to employment opportunities. And, yes, those spiritual concerns may include accommodating the presence of a taniwha. When Act MP Simon Court asked the then Minister of Local Government Nanaia Mahuta last October: “Are spiritual beliefs — such as the existence of a taniwha on a bend in the river — permissible subject matter for Te Mana o te Wai Statements?”, she did not deny that possibility.
Two of the nation’s most astute journalists — the NZ Herald’s Kate MacNamara and Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis Allan — have covered the proposed Community Priority Statements, but such an outrageous, race-based breach of equal rights for New Zealanders cries out for extensive coverage by all the mainstream media before the election. Unfortunately, most journalists seem to simply prefer to look the other way.
It doesn’t help, of course, that the Three Waters legislation is complicated, and — with regard to Te Mana o te Wai Statements — arguably ambiguous. But part of a journalist’s job is to make complex policy understandable by the public.
The most troublesome clause is found deep in the Water Services Entities Act 2022: “A response to a Te Mana o te Wai statement for water services must include a plan that sets out how the water services entity intends… to give effect to Te Mana o te Wai, to the extent that it applies to the entity's duties, functions, and powers.”
Behind the scenes in social media groups, some senior journalists have argued that this clause does not mean Te Mana o te Wai Statements are binding. They emphasise that while iwi and hapū can make statements about Te Mana o te Wai, there is a difference between giving effect to the general concept of Te Mana o te Wai and giving effect to a specific statement about that concept. That is to say, in their view, the Water Services Entities are only obliged to give effect to the concept as they have interpreted it themselves. In this way, they envisage the specific statements by iwi are advice which the WSEs can simply note as having been received.
However, if the right to issue Te Mana o Te Wai Statements is as inconsequential as they claim, why did Tainui-Waikato grandee Tuku Morgan — iwi chair of the Northland-Auckland water entity — crow loudly in April about assurances they would retain their power in the rejigged Three Waters? Why did he declare triumphantly that no matter what legislative amendments might be introduced to Three Waters, Te Mana o te Wai Statements would lose none of their force?
He told the NZ Herald: “Even though there’s [going to be] a provision for communities to have a priority status, it will not in any way shape or form, overshadow, minimise, or compromise the standing of Te Mana o te Wai Statements being provided by iwi and hapū.”
Does Morgan’s effervescent glee make any sense if they are merely suggestions that can be acknowledged with a brief reply from the WSEs such as “Submission noted”?
Given that the senior journalists note the clauses in the Water Services Entities Act relating to Te Mana o te Wai Statements are ambiguous, it is baffling why they continue to ignore the evidence from Parliament and the Department of Internal Affairs that they are intended to be binding. Both make the legislative intent of the Act clear.
The principal arbiter in this debate must surely be Nanaia Mahuta, who, as Local Government minister, shepherded the Water Services Entities Bill through Parliament. During the first reading of the bill on 9 June 2022 she made it clear that the statements are binding: “The bill contains robust mechanisms to provide for and promote iwi Māori rights and interests. Mana whenua whose rohe or takiwā [tribal area] includes a freshwater body can make a Te Mana o te Wai Statement for water services which the board must give effect to.”
And to reinforce Mahuta’s view, the summary of the Three Waters legislation issued by the Department of Internal Affairs makes exactly the same point. Under the heading “Opportunities for Iwi/Māori in water services reform”, the DIA states unequivocally:
“Statutory recognition of Te Mana o Te Wai — Each [Water Services] entity will be required to give effect to Te Mana o Te Wai both in legislation and as articulated by mana whenua over a defined waterbody.”
That makes it abundantly clear that the general concept of Te Mana o Te Wai not only has to be given effect to as a general concept but also in the specific way it is defined by iwi and hapū in their statements.
If any Doubting Thomases in newsrooms are still dazed and confused, another entry on the DIA fact sheet — under the heading “Te Mana o Te Wai Statements” — confirms the point: “Legislation will broadly describe Te Mana o Te Wai, however the emphasis is that mana whenua define what Te Mana o Te Wai means to their specific location. Operationally, a statement can take the form of an Iwi Management Plan, Cultural Impact Statement or the like.”
Journalists turning a blind eye to the evidence aren’t the only ones keen to avoid analysing the power of Te Mana o te Wai Statements and explaining why Community Priority Statements are so insignificant in comparison. When Heather du Plessis Allan asked Local Government minister Kieran McAnulty about that discrepancy, he was not keen at all to answer her questions.
Du Plessis Allan: “Why are you forcing these new water bodies to do what iwi want but they don’t have to do what the rest of us in the community want?”
McAnulty tried to brush away the question as a “misrepresentation being pushed by right-wing parties” but du Plessis Allan wouldn’t be fobbed off. She pressed the point: “The [water] entities have to give effect [to Te Mana o te Wai Statements], whereas the Community Priority Statements [are only] “may consider”. There’s a vast difference there.”
McAnulty turned tetchy. He claimed Te Mana o te Wai Statements have “been around since [John Key] was in government” and said he was “not going to get into a fight about something that was already established”.
But while the concept of Te Mana o te Wai was indeed introduced into freshwater legislation under Key’s government, iwi have never previously been given the exclusive right to make binding statements over how water bodies are managed.
The pseudonymous political analyst Thomas Cranmer explained the problem last November regarding the conflation of “Te Mana o te Wai” and “Te Mana o te Wai Statements”:
“Both are similar, but nonetheless separate concepts… The former relates to the concept as defined in the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management and has been in use since 2014. The latter refers to statements issued under section 140 of the [Water Services Entities] Bill by mana whenua, which are a totally new statutory mechanism developed for these reforms.
“Conflating these two concepts in response to questions over many months has allowed Mahuta to effectively hide the ball when it comes to examining the scope and unbridled nature of Te Mana o te Wai Statements.”
The reason McAnulty doesn’t want to get into a fight, of course, is because he guesses he will get a badly bloodied nose. And like the Prime Minister, he also knows that if the vast majority of the public really understood how thoroughly they were being side-lined in Three Waters, Labour would be crushed in a wave of voters’ revulsion on October 14.
Graham Adams is an Auckland-based freelance editor, journalist and columnist. This article was originally published by ThePlatform.kiwi and is published here with kind permission.
6 comments:
When a legislated statement makes one group of folk having that statement be a 'must' over another legislated statement for the other group of folk being a 'maybe', then you have apartheid.
Labour have curated apartheid into New Zealand through legislation and frankly whether you vote left or right, this cannot pass any reasoned thinking persons sniff test.
Labour are abhorent and IMO have betrayed the citzens of New Zealand through this and all their other seperatist policies and laws.
Sadly the list of these is now long.
Jack Tame is a brainwashed bought and paid for Labour Party mouthpiece still wet behind the ears from real world experience. What adult with a reasonable IQ would really give a toss what his opinions are. He should save them for the idiots who voted this bunch of racist incompetents into power. Kiwialan.
What a barefaced lie by, McAnulty to essentially suggest that 'there's nothing to see here' and it's as equally as absurd and galling as his claim that the Treaty requires us to embrace co-governance. These MOTW Statements are worse than the latter and it is truly astounding that in this age of enlightenment, what with its DIE and UNDRIP principles, that these clowns could suggest that this race-based favouritism is in anyway appropriate.
To paraphrase Don Brash, come this October 14, one hopes these 'racists' will be gone by lunchtime.
McAnulty is as slippery as an eel.
Labour betrayed New Zealand.
Those of us who have bothered to investigate 3/10 Waters know only too well what the consequences will be (esp. with TMOTW statements) which is why its important to vote for a Party that says it will abolish the whole project. The same goes for co-governance. I see October as the last chance to stop the nation coming under tribal rule.
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