Three Waters Reform Proposals and the Lies:
On June 14, 2021, cabinet agreed to a mandated approach to the Three Waters reform and spent the next four months telling councils that the plan was voluntary and councils could opt out, according to Cabinet papers which have been released.
Radio New Zealand reported this at the time after it was announced that the introduction of a Three Waters bill would be delayed.
Discussions (during the consultation period) would have been “quite different” if councils had been told about the mandated plan from the outset. The fact that this was never divulged to the councils is one of the main reasons that Masterton Councillor Tina Nixon was quoted on the front page of the Wairarapa Times-Age in October last year, as using the phrase “a deceitful, lying pack of bastards” in talking about the Government and the Three Waters Reforms.
It had become very clear to everyone that the “consultation” on the Three Waters Reforms had been a sham all along with many different hidden agendas at play.
According to sources in Wellington, there is a standoff between Labour’s Maori caucus (who want co-governed water) and the provincial Labour MPs and Cabinet Ministers who are feeling the political heat from widespread opposition to the Government’s proposal.
Let’s be honest the whole basis for the so-called Maori Caucus to be pushing extremely hard for the Three Waters reforms to be enacted under urgency is solely to ensure their unelected tribal elite get control of the water resources and infrastructure in New Zealand whilst they are still in Government.
Given that the water infrastructure which has been developed and paid for over many generations by ratepayers and taxpayers, both Māori and non-Māori alike, the fact that 16 per cent of the population will get to decide exclusively what is best for the remaining 84 per cent in the management of water and the infrastructure is outrageously divisive and entirely undemocratic.
The proposed transfer of control of the water infrastructure and management of the water to Iwi, through these proposals is no more than theft of our assets and implementation of apartheid into the management of the Three Waters in New Zealand.
It doesn’t take much understanding of the Three Waters Reform Proposals to work out that the hidden agenda in this whole process is the transfer of direct control of the water resources and infrastructure from the owners (the ratepayers of NZ who have paid for this over many generations), across to unelected Iwi/Maori tribal elite.
Given the current political climate with the Labour government poll numbers dropping like a stone it is highly likely that they may be in opposition after the next election in 2023 and the chances of the so-called Maori caucus having any power or influence over parliamentary decision making, in opposition to a new government, is extremely remote.
There is no need to push this reform at such a breakneck speed if you take the transfer of control, to Iwi, out of the equation. But of course that is just what the so-called Maori Caucus doesn’t want as they realise that if they fail to achieve their hidden agenda of gaining control now they will have no chance of achieving that control from the opposition benches.
Dozens of local councils have rejected critical aspects of the Governments water reforms yet despite opposition; the government’s current timeline anticipates that a second piece of Three Waters legislation will be introduced in parliament before Christmas.
The Prime Minister’s record on telling the truth about Three Waters is as shameful as that of her Minister of Local Government, Nanaia Mahuta.
The recent Local Body elections where many new mayors and councillors, opposed to Three Waters, were elected around the country showed that the lies and the undemocratic nature of Three Waters handing unbridled power to iwi, was rejected by a large number of voters across the country.
Opposition to Three Waters is becoming more firmly entrenched in the minds of a majority of the NZ voters.
Given the growing level of opposition to the Three Waters Reforms, the only thing that is absolutely time critical about the reforms, is the ability for the Maori Caucus to influence the decision making on this proposal. If the decision was delayed until after the next election in 2023 the only thing that may change is that if the current government lost the election then the Maori caucus would not be in a position to influence the decision making from the government benches where they currently sit with a simple majority.
The main opposition parties in the next election (National, Act and New Zealand First) have all come out and declared their opposition to the reforms in their present format and therefore the chances of Iwi being gifted control of the three waters infrastructure and assets should the government lose the next election, would be zero and that is why they are pushing so hard to get the decisions made before the election whilst the government still has a simple majority.
Unfortunately for the Maori Caucus the lies regarding the Three Waters are now starting to affect the current government and Jacinda is starting to backtrack as she realises that the poll numbers are showing that they will lose the next election by a large margin if they carry on with their race based agendas. Maybe the “deceitful lying pack of bastards” from Tina Nixon’s quote won’t be successful after all.
Maybe democracy will survive this government and their hidden socialist agendas and lies, after all.