Pee Kay, Why Every New Zealander Should Fear a Ngai Tahu Victory

The Trial that could re-shape New Zealand’s future and why the Ngai Tahu case threatens NZ democracy!

There will be many people around New Zealand awaiting a hugely significant High Court judgment in the Tau v Attorney-General action, expected before the November 7th election. This case has the potential to spark significant political anxiety, conflict and certain Maori action regarding freshwater rights.

The case concerns Te Maire Tau’s argument that Ngai Tahu never ceded authority over freshwater and they are seeking a co-governance regime rather than mere compensation. I have no doubt they are actually mean “co-governance… for now!”

Graeme Spencer: The CCO That Put Culture Before Consumers

Timaru District Council after a suspect consultation process have finally formed a CCO (Council Controlled Organisation) with MacKenzie District Council.

The result - a subscale entity, too small to deliver real efficiencies but big enough to add cost and distance from accountability. The worst of both worlds.

Insights From Social Media: National’s ‘Service Delivery Plan’

Re National’s ‘Service Delivery Plan’ Graeme Spencer writes.

Since the inception of the "Local Water Done Well" reforms, I have always questioned what the end game is.

Forgive my scepticism, but anything involving water reform now tends to raise the hackles. After years of "improving water quality", we’ve seen millions, possibly billions, flow steadily into consultants, strategies, delivery plans, reform programmes, governance models, transition frameworks, and then revised versions of all of the above. None of this expenditure has reached our pipes, plants, or reservoirs.

Peter Williams: National about to lock-in co-governance of local water

The following was written in Peter's capacity as Taxpayers' Union board member

In 2022, I joined the Board of the Taxpayers’ Union to fight Nanaia Mahuta’s plan to confiscate community-owned water assets and put them into ‘co-governed’ Three Waters entities.

And with the Luxon-led Government being elected with such a clear mandate, I thought we had won.

So it gives me no pleasure to give you the bad news. Co-governance of local water is back.

John McLean: Sabotage?!

Did the departing Labour Government try to burn down the house?

Don your tinfoil hat. Let’s explore the unspeakable possibility that, once it realised it would lose power, the last Labour Government conspired to sabotage New Zealand, economically and societally. As preposterous as it sounds, there’s realpolitik logic to this proposition; if the current parlous state of the New Zealand nation persists until the next election, it’s predictable that a desperate and despondent Aotearoan populace will elect a Labour/Greens/Māori Party coalition to govern in 2026.

David Farrar: Christchurch leaves LGNZ

Radio NZ reports:

Christchurch City Council has announced it is resigning from Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ).

Councillors at a meeting today decided to no longer be part of LGNZ, after its annual membership costs rose by more than $20,000.

David Farrar: Hipkins tells the truth

In this interview, Chris Hipkins states that the money given to councils for Three Waters was compensation for taking water assets off Councils, the exact opposite of what Nanaia Mahuta said.

Derek Mackie: Water, water everywhere, but not free for all to drink!

Water, water everywhere; in hoses, baths and sinks 

Be it storm or waste for treatment; or the fresh stuff that we drink 

In lakes and rivers, pumps and pipes; enjoyed by all and sundry 

Flushing poos and wees away; keeps us clean and does our laundry 

Some say it’s “indigenous”; part-Maori owned, they claim 

Others say nobody owns it; we’re all entitled, just the same 

A basic universal right; an essential part of life 

Unless tikanga rules the court; woke judges causing strife 

David Farrar: A good summary of Three Waters

grant duncan writes:

Labour's original proposed governance structure, even if you overlook the co-governance aspect of it, was a complicated beast: it had unelected ‘representative' bodies that appoint board-appointment committees that appoint boards that then appoint advisory panels that monitor the boards and report to the representative body. Confused?

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 14/2/24

Three Waters go down the legislative gurgler – but what should we make of Local Water Done Well?

Local Government Minister Simeon Brown – it seems fair to suppose – was flushed with success after the repeal of Labour’s divisive and unpopular Three Waters legislation.

As he explained, repealing this legislation is a necessary first step in implementing his government’s Local Water Done Well policy and a key part of our Government’s 100-day plan.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 14/12/23

Three Waters legislation will go down the plug early next year – but new govt is still distributing corporate welfare

Going, going – gone.

Or flushed down a legislative plughole, in the case of Three Waters.

David Farrar: So who approved five year contracts?

The Herald reports:

prime Minister Christopher Luxon says big cheques will have to be written to pay out the many contracts canned as a result of repealing Three Waters. …

Luxon admitted there were employees under the scheme who were only one year into five-year contracts who would have to be paid out.

Graham Adams: Wakey, wakey, mainstream media!

The rise of independent media challenges journalism’s staid bastions.

Last week Newsroom’s political editor, Jo Moir, seemed surprised to discover that co-governance and its various policy manifestations aren’t popular.

On X — the social media site still known to everyone as Twitter — she wrote: "Exclusive poll! Okay, Newsroom hasn’t entered the poll race, but we do have fascinating new data from Talbot Mills showing more people surveyed opposed Māori wards, co-governance and the Māori Health Authority than supported them.”

Mike Hosking: Our water problem should be easier to sort

Aside from the ongoing scandal at Three Waters headquarters that we talked about yesterday, is the news from ratings agency S&P, who tell us the real issue around water and what to do about infrastructure is not Government debt but local council debt.

Now at this point Labour will yell "I told you so".

John MacDonald: Three Waters money down the drain

If you thought the election campaign lasted forever, it seems the counting of the special votes is taking forever too.

It’s also looking like this drawn-out process is going to cost a lot of money. Because it’s looking like Labour is going to keep the money tap running all the way until the bitter end.

It is nuts, even though it knows full-well that the incoming government wants to scrap the Three Waters reforms, that Labour seems to be turning a blind eye to truckloads of money still being spent on its reforms.

Muriel Newman: Coup in New Zealand

Finally, the mainstream media is reporting that a coup is underway in New Zealand – by the Maori tribal elite.

Admittedly that observation was penned by former Labour Minister and ACT Party leader Richard Prebble in an opinion piece for the Herald – but the newspaper published it and RadioNZ reported it.

The on-line Herald headline read, “Three Waters is a coup — an attack on democracy”.

That bold and compelling headline, however, didn’t last. It was changed to remove the words “a coup” and now reads: “Three Waters is an attack on democracy”.

The obvious question is why?

Graham Adams: Will co-governance drive a counter-revolution?

Seymour is not for turning on a Treaty referendum.

Despite the well-documented failures of the Ardern-Hipkins government — whether in health, law and order, education or homelessness — it has been extraordinarily successful in one particular area. That is, the stealthy insertion of an interpretation of the Treaty as a “partnership” — manifested as co-governance — into a broad swathe of New Zealand law and policy.

Muriel Newman: The Toxic Co-Governance Agenda

The Rotorua District Council (Representation Arrangements) Bill is dead – and long may it stay that way. The Bill attempted to introduce co-governance with the effect that it advantaged voters on the Maori Roll over all others.

The final blow was the ruling by the Attorney General that by breaching the constitutional principle of equal representation for everyone – a cornerstone of our representative democracy – the Bill was discriminatory.

This fact that co-governance has now been found to be discriminatory must surely signal an end to this whole toxic agenda.

Graham Adams: Government quietly changes advice on Three Waters

With only six weeks until the election on October 14, it is clear that Labour has no intention of campaigning on its record. That is hardly surprising given the Ardern-Hipkins government has earned a well-deserved reputation for incompetence in most areas it has wandered into — including housing, health, law and order, and education.

Mike Butler: Iwi leaders feeling heat?

A comprehensive rant from a spokesman for the National Iwi Chairs Forum is a rare display of a privileged and powerful elite apparently feeling the heat of public criticism.

In a piece titled “Co-governance is good for us”, published in E-Tangata on August 27, 2023, Te Huia Bill Hamilton tries to counter Julian Batchelor’s Stop Co-Governance campaign. (1)

Hamilton, who declares that his ancestry is “Ngati Kahungunu, Ngati Raukawa, Nga Rauru, Scotland”, is described as “a Treaty of Waitangi and human rights specialist and a lead adviser for the National Iwi Chairs Forum, who has spent 25 years educating Pakeha and tauiwi about Te Tiriti through his company Treaty Solutions”.