Three Waters Makes Stealth Transformation into Five Waters
November 14, 2022
Even Blind Freddie could see that Mahuta was never going to give up on that fundamental element of the reforms. Since the beginning, the minister has made co-governance a non-negotiable bottom line in any discussion of changes to Three Waters.
Astonishingly, the media failed to identify the actual bombshell.
The really radical move in the report — also overlooked entirely by Jack Tame on TVNZ’s Q&A and by Andrew Dickens interviewing Mahuta for Newstalk ZB — was the proposed extension to the scope of Te Mana o Te Wai statements.
Only iwi have the right to issue these edicts, which are binding on the Water Services Entity in their region. That right is denied to non-Maori, who make up the remaining 84 per cent of the population.
The select committee has proposed that such statements, issued exclusively by iwi, should apply not only to freshwater but coastal and geothermal water as well.