Opinion: Three Waters alternative won’t be plain sailing

Auckland mayor Wayne Brown (centre), Waimakariri mayor Dan Gordon (left) and Christchurch mayor Phil Mauger announce an alternative to the Government's Three Waters plan at the Auckland Council Headquarters. Photo / Bernard Orsman

OPINION

Yesterday, two of the three mayors in the Greater Christchurch area joined forces with their Auckland counterpart and announced that they have come up with what they think is a much better version of the Government’s Three Waters reforms.

These are the reforms that some of us have described as a government takeover of water services - which I think is a very fair description - because the Government wants to take all water assets from local councils and pay a pitiful amount of money in exchange for them.

In Christchurch, for example, it would pay the council $120 million for $6.9 billion dollars worth of council water infrastructure assets. Daylight robbery.

But it doesn’t stop there. It wants to set up four new water authorities to run drinking water, wastewater and stormwater services around the country.

For us here in Canterbury, we’d be part of a water authority that would be responsible for most of the South Island. Pretty much all the areas that are Ngāi Tahu - that would be the area covered by the one water authority that we here in Canterbury would be part of.

Under the Government’s proposal, councils would somehow be represented on each of the four water authorities around the country - but half of the people on each authority would be iwi representatives. Co-governance, as it’s called.

So Christchurch’s Phil Mauger, Waimakariri’s Dan Gordon and Auckland’s Wayne Brown - who have all said before that they oppose the Three Waters reforms - they’ve got their heads together and have put forward an alternative for the Government to consider.

A bit of a counter-offer.

Instead of the Government taking over all the water infrastructure - all the pipes and other things - they want councils to hold on to the ownership of their water assets and not have them taken over by the Government.

Instead of being told by the Government which water authority they’re going to belong to, they want councils to be able to decide for themselves how they’re going to work together on water services. So the three councils in the Greater Christchurch area wouldn’t be swallowed-up into this huge South Island water authority - and councils would have a say in how big the water authority they’re part of is going to be.

And instead of half the people on each water authority being iwi representatives, Phil Mauger, Dan Gordon and Wayne Brown want councils to be free to decide for themselves how they involve Māori in the decision-making. So no compulsory co-governance.

Those three things are the gist of what these three mayors have put on the table for the Government to consider.

Just on the co-governance thing, Phil Mauger and Dan Gordon both said yesterday they’re not opposed to co-governance. Wayne Brown, though, was a bit more tight-lipped on that front.

Dan Gordon said on Newstalk ZB this morning that most councils already have great relations with Māori - which was him saying “we don’t need the Government to tell us how to get on with mana whenua”.

But I think Dan Gordon is in la-la land. Because there is no question that Ngāi Tahu will be livid after what happened yesterday.

Only six or seven weeks ago, it said that Christchurch and Waimakariri councils are failing big time when it comes to engaging with mana whenua. In fact, they didn’t just say it, they wrote to the Government about it. They were so brassed off that they even threatened to pull out of a committee planning for the future of the Great Christchurch area. It’s called the greater Christchurch partnership.

This is why the Christchurch City Council suddenly pulled out of the anti-Three Waters group - Communities 4 Local Democracy. It got really spooked.

So Phil Mauger’s going to have a fight on his hands with Ngāi Tahu after what happened yesterday. He’s also going to have a fight on his hands with some of his city councillors who didn’t know anything about this proposal until they got an email giving them a heads-up just before it was announced.

If I was a Christchurch city councillor, I’d be really brassed off today. All this talk after the election about getting everyone around the table moving in the same direction, what a load of nonsense that’s turned out to be.

Ironically, Dan Gordon was saying on the radio this morning that this counter-proposal is about solving the water issues the country faces without dividing people. Again, he’s in la-la land.