It is becoming clear that the Coalition Government is continuing down Labour's path of undemocratic and costly co-governance due to pressure from the Wellington bureaucracy, LGNZ, and the various special interests who are "experts" in tikanga.
To recap, Te Mana o te Wai was first introduced by the John Key Government (pushed hard by then Māori Party Co-leaders, Pita Sharples and Tariana Turia). The concepts were promoted and radicalised as part of the Jacinda Ardern Government's freshwater reforms. It prioritises the health, well-being, and mauri (i.e. "life force") of the water above all else, including the health and needs of people and communities.
As put by a vocal supporter of Te Mana o te Wai:
As put by a vocal supporter of Te Mana o te Wai:
The concept of ‘te mana o te wai’ recognises the power and significance of water to all life, its life force, the integrity of a river. Te mana o te wai recognises and aims to protect the mauri, the life force of water. It recognises the river or spring has a right to be, for its own sake.
In te Ao Māori, a river is often regarded as atua or tupuna, and oftentimes given personhood. In a pepeha, by which Māori introduce themselves, rivers – and mountains, ocean, creatures and the land itself – are identifying parts of their whakapapa or lineage. These are reciprocal relationships of mutual care and guardianship.
This Māori worldview can lead us to treat the land and water with the respect we give our family. As a concept te mana o te wai signifies the respect we should give the water that gives us life.
Literally, this is the framework regional councils are tasked to interpret. No wonder regional council rates are skyrocketing!
Te Mana o te Wai introduced spiritual and subjective concepts like mauri (the life force of water), which had no clear, measurable standards and left councils around the country spending millions contracting consultants to advise on how to implement it.
I last wrote shortly after the Taxpayers' Union had exposed that in my region alone (Otago), tens of thousands of dollars per ratepayer was being spent by the Regional Council to figure out how to protect the 'spiritual health' of the water according to local iwi/custom.
The reason for such a high cost? Well, under Te Mana o te Wai, water taken from one catchment or water body cannot mix or be discharged into another catchment or body without the "mana" being compromised. This is what is being forced upon councils (and ratepayers).
Te Mana o te Wai lives on...
At the end of last year, the team thought that we had won. Every indication was that the Government had decided to pull back on this policy (albeit slow-walking the actual changes).
But sadly, it seems our optimism that the Government was set to just scrap this spiritual nonsense was misplaced.
The Government is currently consulting on three options - two of which keep Te Mana o te Wai!
So, despite the Government's electoral mandate to scrap this sort of nonsense, there is a real risk of capitulation to the vested interests and rent seekers.
What the Government now proposes
An option Minister for RMA Reform Christopher Bishop is favouring is to no longer apply Te Mana o te Wai to urban development consents, but keep Te Mana o te Wai for the purposes of regional water planning and regulation.
That option means David Parker's Te Mana o te Wai would be kept for all the other aspects of regional and district plans!
That means for those whose livelihoods rely on water allocation (i.e. farmers and agricultural exporters), the expensive nonsense and uncertainty will remain.
It's economically crippling for those who need certainty right now.
Co-governance of Water 2.0
Look, I know it's unfashionable to take on these sorts of issues, and the media will no doubt have a go at me and the Taxpayers' Union for highlighting the issue. But the continued spiritualisation of what should be solely a scientific regime needs to be called out.
Keeping in a law with vague and spiritual concepts like mana of the water itself, inevitably leads to co-governance of water. That's because only local mana whenua are recognised experts in the spiritual "health" of water and water bodies.
This isn't about the degradation of the environment or water quality. It's about not having environmental/water regulation subject to subjective veto and spiritual oversight.
We're asking for 30 seconds of your time to ask the Minister to go with what officials are calling "option three", and scrap Te Mana O te Wai, once and for all.
Will the Coalition give in to water co-governance?
Our contacts in the Government support parties – and even some backbenches in National – are specifically telling us that the Nats are strongly favouring options which keep the underlying concept of Te Mana o te Wai.
Farming and industry groups are being told the same thing.
Ultimately, the decision is with Minister Christopher Bishop. We have to strengthen his and his National Party colleagues' resolve to scrap Te Mana o te Wai.
In politics, the squeaky wheel gets the oil, so let's make sure there's noise. We need people to step up to have their say before the submission closes next week.
The Taxpayers' Union team has forced the Ministry officials to now also accept submissions by email. That means you don't have to answer the 33 sets of questions officials have set out (but you can if you want to here).
You and I both know the media won't cover this issue. That leaves it to groups like the Taxpayers' Union to mobilise opposition and ensure the message is received in the Beehive.
Let’s replace this vague, spiritual framework with clear, practical rules that protect water without punishing communities or spending the earth to define spiritual concepts.
If we don’t act now, councils across New Zealand will keep using Te Mana o te Wai to justify costly new rules — and we'll keep paying the price.
For more information about the three options being put forward by Minister Bishop, see https://environment.govt.nz/assets/publications/RMA/package-3-freshwater-discussion-document.pdf#page=15 and the "Interim Regulatory Impact Statement" here: https://environment.govt.nz/assets/Interim-RIS-Replacing-the-NPS-for-Freshwater-Management.pdf
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 sourced HERE
10 comments:
National will see more support shift to ACT and NZ First. But are those 2 parties also supporting this as we are not hearing much pushback. I would expect David Seymour as deputy PM to say NO but will he?
Water is global. It comes here and it leaves here. It gets a spiritual significance when it is here. It has no significance before or after. There are those who are wanting cash from this significance. There are the fools that are too scared to call it for what it is and go into a religious trance. Then there is the majority who know it for what it is but have no say. To those who allow this rubbish to happen - grow up and grow a spine
Although, as Peter points out, no decisions have been made. It is reasonable to ask why not?
Maori mumbo jumbo has its place at the start of rugby games, in our tourist offerings, and for Maori communities, but that's where it ends.
Stop the nonsense and invest the money in proven wrap around services to remove Maori and other lower socio economic groups from crime and dependency.
Stop giving money to the maori leaders who use it to build houses to extract rent from their poor.
I never fail to be astonished that politicians and local government functionaries can be sucked in by unscientific nonsense surrounding the origins, nature and use of water. The origins of water from evaporation off the land, sea and freshwater bodies to its atmospheric deposition as rain, its terrestrial run-off and eventual drainage into streams and rivers; the hydrological cycle is nothing but chemistry and physics with water molecules doing what they have always done; two hydrogen atoms and one of oxygen moving onwards with no semblance of a personality or an imagined 'life force'. As pointed out by Peter, this spiritual inanity may be believed by the delusional, but it is more likely a grab for power, being enabled by people who should know better but do not have either the guts or brains to oppose this lunacy.
Yes.
Instead of Shane Jones bashing Regional Councils he needs to bash this type of insidious insertion of racism in to local government by Central Government.
Hands up all those who have had a gutful of National's duplicity and pandering to all this nonsense. They need top stop messing around and stand for something sensible ... or be doomed to irrelevance.
I conscientiously opened the 33 sets of questions Peter - what a charade! Deliberately designed to repel anyone with a rational understanding of the use of language. Of course I gave up, not (entirely) because I am lazy. I expect better of Chris Bishop than to allow this bureaucratic bewilderment.
People in real democracies must read these articles in disbelief !
It has to be a joke site ? Surely ?
When Luxon travels the world greasing up to world leaders, do they ask him why he is running NZ on an apartheid system ?
Or do they just look at the tagalong haka team, and know that NZ has failed as a democracy, and self relegated itself to a Third World country ?
Yet another nail in the National coffin. The question is why Luxon is leading this self -destruction ?
National wont know why they will lose the next election, they wont be able to connect any of the dots!
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