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 built up 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.

 

Now we see in the NZ Herald on Thursday 3rd November, a report that the government has transferred approximately $70 million from the Covid Response and Recovery Funds to help cover unfunded Department of Internal Affairs – Three Waters work – including $21 million for policy and communications work; $14.6 million to increase Iwi/Maori understanding of the changes and their capacity to contribute to them and $32.8 million to cover council costs in working with the “transition unit”, situated within the DIA, to hand their assets over to create the proposed four new water entities’ A total of $3.6 million was redirected to other DIA local government work.

 

Documents show that on December 14 2020 the government quietly rescinded the original restrictions on the uses for the Covid Response funds and extended the scope for spending to include more general costs including Three Waters departmental program costs and public information.

 

The December 2020 change was not announced to the public, but it served to pave the way for Cabinets April decision this year to use the Covid Response funds to address the mounting costs of the Three Waters program between 2022 and 2024.

 

The December change to the funding parameters also allowed for the additional repurposing of $9 million of the Covid funding which was spent by the DIA in 2021, in part to pay for a public information campaign.

 

The paid advertising component of the latter was described as propaganda by many mayors and councillors and prompted warnings from the Public Service Commission.

 

Also of note is the fact that Local government New Zealand which is set up to represent the interests of local governments has been according to their annual report, paid $2.2 million of their annual $9.9 million budget, for Three Waters related work. LGNZ signed an agreement last year with the Crown and agreed to support, endorse and promote the Three Waters Reform Programme which has been viewed by many councils, with some suspicion.

 

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.

 

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 don’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.

 

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.

Both the Prime Minister and her senior minister asked the nation’s 67 councils to provide extensive feedback late last year about whether they wanted to join the scheme, but in actual fact a decision to mandate signing up had already been made by Cabinet months earlier in July.

 

In October last year the Wairarapa Times-Age featured a quote from Masterton councillor Tina Nixon about Three Waters, and on the front page the phrase “a deceitful, lying pack of bastards” was plastered across it in huge type.

 

It has become very clear to everyone that the “consultation” on the Three Waters Reforms has been a sham all along with many different hidden agendas at play.

 

Yet the Prime Minister has now claimed in reply to opposition from the Mayors from Auckland, Christchurch and Waimakariri, that the government is “open to changes”.

 

The recent Local Body elections where many new mayors and councillors, opposed to Three Waters, were elected around the country showed that 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.

 

But it is also the fact that the Prime Minister promised us the most open and transparent government under her control and all we have seen is a move towards an apartheid system of government run through hidden agendas and supported by the mainstream media which has been more than happy to take $55 million of government funds (from the Public Interest

Journalism Fund) on condition they support a widely contested view of the Treaty as a 50:50 power-sharing arrangement between the Crown and iwi.

 

The mainstream media have become nothing more than a propaganda tool for this government and its socialist agendas as a result of these funding criteria.