OPINION
I’m not sure you would find a more gripping saga than the movement through the House of the divisive Three Waters bill.
PM Jacinda Ardern demonstrated adept political manoeuvring this week using a nifty little technique for avoiding questions she has no intention of answering.
Ardern is very, very good at not directly answering anything potentially incriminating. ‘Divert and distract’ is her motto, and her media minions know how to help.
A puff piece this week from Newsroom’s Political Editor, Jo Moir allowed Ardern to step away from the very poorly handled Three Waters legislation.
To begin, Ardern ensures the public is aware that her government is the only source of truth. Her truth began with Covid and follows through into Three Waters.
The Prime Minister says the Three Waters debate has been muddied by a combination of things, and she accepts the Government has played a role in that.
Beginning with an apology is an excellent PR technique. No matter that the apology is not genuine, it’s still the closest Ardern gets to admitting that her government stuffed up with Three Waters. She takes the opportunity to distance herself from the fiasco.
Water ownership, local and iwi representation, and anti-privatisation entrenchment are just some of the areas that have plagued Three Waters’ progress as the Government has worked to push through the legislation before the summer break.
Newsroom
I’m pretty sure public consensus is that all water assets belong to the public as a whole, regardless of race, religion or anything else. Bestowing the assets on iwi is just privatising the assets after stealing them from the rightful owners. You can disregard the red herring of privatisation.
In 2012 a Horizon poll found 55.6% of Maori believe water assets are public property not exclusively owned by Maori. Since then, what has changed except political lobbying by iwi opportunists claiming they represent all Maori? Let’s do another poll and found out, shall we? Sorry, not enough time.
Whose fault is it that the government have insufficient time to properly apprise the public of the ins and outs of Three Waters and debate the bill?
MP Nanaia Mahuta introduced the Three Waters bill and the timing is all hers. A suspicious mind would see a calculated attempt to ram the bill through by shortening the time frame to dissect and debate the bill at a time when the public is paying less attention than usual.
Mahuta’s attempt to entrench the Three Waters bill using legislation reserved to protect constitutional matters and requiring a 75% majority vote to overturn was a massive overstep that did not go unnoticed.
When Mahuta knew she did not have a 75% majority she simply wrote the SOP to reflect the 60% majority that Labour and the Greens have: subverting parliamentary practice in order to make the bill difficult to overturn in future.
But Mahuta’s cunning plan was recognized as shoddy legal practice by fellow MP David Parker, who deserves kudos for standing up and opposing her SOP, and by the NZ legal community, who didn’t miss a beat by protesting on social media and writing to parliament, demanding retraction.
Parker was way ahead of Mahuta with regard to morality and legality; perhaps he has an eye on his own planned exit from parliament when the current government’s house of cards falls and would like to leave with his moral and legal reputation intact. In any case, good on him!
Not so Mahuta, whose actions are so far removed from best practice as to sound a warning to any future employers about her dubious moral and legal judgement.
The government was forced to backpedal on entrenching Three Waters.
Chippie put on his sorriest face (not hard to do with such a youthful countenance) and promised to “fix the bill…”
Caucus met and withdrew the controversial Three Waters entrenchment SOP.
Caught in the middle of the fracas was PM Jacinda Ardern, who deserves a gold medal for concerted ducking and diving to avoid the muck flying freely when the legal beagles got wind of Mahuta’s objectionable legal work. Ardern set about putting her media minions to work to reclaim the narrative.
Moir obliged by turning out the piece titled “’That’s on us too’ – Ardern accepts blame for info vacuum on govt reform” with the helpful byline “PM takes some blame for the lack of detail around the Three Waters debate while pointing her finger at those who deliberately misrepresented government reforms”.
Did Ardern mislead? No, of course not, she downright lied about local body support for Three Waters. In the line of fire she diverts by shifting blame for Three Waters onto her team and then muddies the waters by changing the topic.
“…this morning I just had someone say ‘local government doesn’t support it’ – well actually local government has supported reform….” and on she goes on a tangent of irrelevant information and untruths.
Yes, local government indicated it supports water reform, just not the racist Three Waters reform MP Mahuta sought and Ardern supported.
Candidates in the 2022 Local Body elections were overwhelmingly opposed to Three Waters with 75.3% returning a resounding “No”, 16.3% “Not Sure” and just 8.4% saying “Yes” to Three Waters.
It’s about time Ardern read the room and listened to the NZ public who do not need to be told what to think. We are grown-ups, not children, we have educated and enlightened minds ready to debate important issues. We do not need to be told what to think.
The Ardern government should concentrate on returning NZ to a functioning democracy where people are free to openly debate without being censored, and the government listens and puts into practice ideas that carry a public consensus.