The problem is that while Bridges can make his points without comeback, others get slagged off as racist or subject to Twitter cancellation attempts if they voice similar sentiments.
It was just a week ago that the Government unveiled its final decisions on the new ownership and governance structure for the delivery of the "Three Waters" system of interconnected drinking water, wastewater and stormwater systems.
As signalled, the Labour Cabinet has agreed to recognise and provide for iwi/Māori rights and interests via the reforms with a specific focus on service delivery.
It is proposed that Māori will have a greater role in the new Three Waters system, including pathways for enhanced participation by whānau and hapū as these services relate to their Treaty of Waitangi rights and interests. A mana whenua group will be established for each of the four major new entities that will replace the currently multiplicity of local government water and sewage entities.
Co-governance on the board of the four water entities has been ruled out by Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta, with board membership to be based on skills.
But iwi will have 50/50 representation on the regional representative groups.
The directors of the boards of the four entities will be appointed by an independent selection panel which will have to have collective competencies in Treaty of Waitangi, mātauranga Māori, tikanga Māori and te ao Māori and at least one or more individuals on each board will have to have expertise in the exercise of kaitiakitanga, tikanga & mātauranga Māori relating to delivering water services.
The entities themselves will fund and support capability and capacity for mana whenua to participate.
If this sounds cumbersome, it is because it is.
The Government has stopped short of providing a pathway for iwi ownership of these entities and their respective operating subsidiaries. But there will be a public shareholding structure which places the entities in community ownership with shares allocated to councils reflecting the size of their communities — one share per 50,000 people.
If the rationale of the reforms was also to address long-standing Treaty grievances relating to water ownership, these reforms don't cut it.
If the grievances stand up, then surely direct ownership of a percentage of these companies — stopping way short of the 50per cent threshold for iwi in co-governance models — would be more to the point?
Then just simply junk the rest of the supporting structures and appoint qualified directors with engineering, infrastructure and financial capability to run them, rather than those with Treaty competencies.
The prime rationale of the reforms was to deliver a safe water system for New Zealand and they have been a long time coming.
In March 2017, Infrastructure New Zealand in collaboration with the UK Department for International Trade led a delegation of 33 senior public and private infrastructure representatives to London, Edinburgh and Glasgow. The purpose of the delegation was to investigate Scotland's infrastructure decision-making system and bring back lessons for New Zealand.
Among them, reform the water sector by consolidating water supply and wastewater services into a smaller number of large operators. Establish an independent water regulator which would be more effective in holding local government to account for public health and financial performance outcomes.
Investigate the partial or full sale of Auckland-based Watercare to fund growth. Proceeds could be used to pay for infrastructure with a high social and economic return. It also suggested new funding tools would require strengthened governance and the promise of increased revenue will encourage councils to support change.
In July 2018, Mahuta left on a research trip to find out more about how Ireland, Scotland and England run their water systems as part of a Government-announced review of the Three Waters system. "New Zealand has a system-wide problem that will need a system-wide, collaborative solution. Figures released last week show that one in five New Zealanders are drinking water from water supplies that don't meet current drinking water standards," Mahuta said.
"We know that meeting the national recommendations of the Havelock North inquiry could cost drinking water suppliers between $305 million and $567 million. The Three Waters Review work to date suggests that upgrading waste water infrastructure will cost a great deal more. Scotland and Ireland each have a single publicly-owned authority providing both drinking and waste water and England has multiple authorities."
It is nearly six years since the Havelock North drinking water scandal where four people died and 5000 people fell ill after the town's water supply was contaminated with campylobacter. We've since had running sewage in the streets of our capital city — and more.
The reality is that the reforms have been made too cumbersome to be quickly executed. They have resulted in a governance nightmare and still do not address some urgent infrastructure needs.
National has said it will repeal the legislation if it wins next year's election.
Meantime, the national disgrace that is obvious in far too many of our existing locally owned Three Waters systems continues.
