Peter Williams: The Government scuttles ‘Te Mana o te Wai’

I’ve got some great news: we’ve won Te Mana o Te Wai.

You’ll recall Te Mana o Te Wai came about as a result of David Parker’s National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management and required councils to figure out what the “mana” of the water entailed and how best to preserve it. That included the spiritual health of the water and was, apparently, different in every region or iwi’s rohe (geographical area).

Jordan [Williams] called me last night and said “turn on Parliament TV right now – the Government is about to snooker the regional councils rushing through their Te Mana o Te Wai rules”.

Despite the new Government being clear that Councils did not have to continue work on the Te Mana o Te Wai work, many (in fact, most) regional councils were ploughing ahead anyway!

Officials were literally spending millions to determine what Te Mana o Te Wai meant and were set to impose rule that would have cost every local ratepayer tens of thousands of dollars.

My local regional council (Otago) is literally set to meet today to formally notify the new plan changes. The Government’s law change last night snookers them.

Last night’s urgent law now prevents councils from notifying new regional freshwater plans until after the Government has developed a new Fresh Water National Policy Statement.

This will draw to a halt plan changes that were likely to be notified over the next few months in Southland, Otago, Canterbury, Wellington and Taranaki. It means that councils will have to wait for the new resource management laws which are expected in the second half of next year.

So while the law change doesn’t unwind any of the existing and complex water quality regulation, at least it stops the new rules about the water’s ‘stipital health’ and the so-called ‘mana of the water’.

As you can imagine, the luvvies were going ballistic on social media last night, and today’s ODT front page is predictably a little over the top.

“The Otago Regional Council will not vote today on tougher rules for the environment after an ’11th hour’ intervention by the government.

After urging the council to pause work on its plan for the environment since late last year, yesterday the government moved to block any council from approving new rules before a new national policy statement for fresh water management (NPSFM) was in place.”

But make no mistake, this is a win for the Taxpayers’ Union (and our friends at the Federated Farmers). Reasonable minds can differ on how stringent water regulation should be – but these rules, based as much on race-based religious considerations as science, were always a step too far.

Jordan tells me that as recently as last week, Government Ministers were equivocating about whether to overrule the Councils and formally withdraw David Parker’s Policy Statement. Ngi Tahu in particular have been pressuring the Government that te mana o te wai is required under the Treaty. Our concern also was that many regional councils would probably try to put through the rules anyway, even if the policy statement was withdrawn.

So last night’s last minute move in Parliament came as a very pleasant surprise. But make no mistake, this win (at the very last minute) should not be underestimated. Just a few months ago, the Nats were still telling the farming sector that te mana o te wai “is required by the Treaty”.

So this is a win. Now comes the main event: the replacement Resource Management Act and ensuring that race-based planning and environment laws are rightly put on the scrap heap.

Peter Williams was a writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines. Peter blogs regularly on Peter’s Substack This article was first published HERE