'Charging royalties does not assume ownership': Ardern defends water tax

Labour leader Jacinda Ardern has taken aim at Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson saying he made criticisms of her party's water policy that he knew were untrue.

Finlayson has warned that Labour's proposal for a tax of about 2c per 1000 litres on commercial waters users could force Treaty of Waitangi settlements to be renegotiated because a royalty asserted ownership, and would inevitably force a counter-assertion that Maori owned the water. Labour was "dicing with death", he said.

"We reject that," Ardern said today. "In fact, I have to say that Chris Finlayson has been a Minister I have held in high regard. He has been well respected for the work he has done on Treaty negotiations.

"I think the fact he has come out now and made this claim when it is patently untrue, when the chairman of the Maori Council [Sir Edward Taihakurei Durie], ex-Waitangi Tribunal, also dismissed it, and evidence from a number of claims where there are explicit clauses that exclude water, says to me he has made a statement that he knows to be untrue. And I think that is disappointing."

Labour says it will use the revenue generated by royalties on water to clean up rivers, streams and lakes in partnership with councils.

"Charging royalties does not assume ownership," Ardern said, and said existing taxes demonstrated that.

"We could look across the minerals, we charge a tax on petrol - it doesn't assume ownership."

Last night Maori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell said Labour had "put the cart before the horse" by proposing a royalty for commercial water use.

"It's simply wrong to charge for something you don't own and Labour's unilateral decision to deny hapu, iwi and Maori of their rights and interests to water should be a stark reminder to our people that history will repeat itself under a Labour-led government," Flavell said.

"Who owns the water? Labour says everybody, National says nobody, but the Waitangi Tribunal says Maori."

The Maori Party wants a Royal Commission of Inquiry into water rights, saying the issue needs to be examined outside the "glare" of election campaigns.