After almost a year of New Zealand’s 67 councils swimming through the information-gathering phase of the Three Waters Reform process, it is understandable why the public is getting frustrated and want to know what’s going on – so do we. But over the next few weeks things are about to get interesting.
The Government has been orchestrating proceedings to date and will undoubtedly continue to keep a close hold on proceedings moving forward. So it is important that the public understand Wellington’s intended sequencing of events leading up to Christmas.
The elongated due diligence process for councils to get their heads around the complexities of the reforms is rapidly ending and over the next four weeks central government is wanting feedback on changes that councils would like to see. Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta then decides what the next steps in the process are going to be.
Early indications, and most councils preferred option, is that the minister allows sufficient time for councils to effectively engage with our communities so that together we can determine what is best for our individual districts.
And there is so much for people to consider. Should we join the new entity and take the funding assistance from central government, along with the efficiencies of what will be a huge new entity to control all the three waters for virtually all the South Island? Or should we be fighting for control of our assets, fearing our voice will be lost amongst the throng of a million other users?
Then there is the governance and autonomy of Rural Water Schemes – can they be separated out from the reforms, will they need to be for stock drinking only and all human consumption must be attended to separately? When you burrow into the details of the reform there are just so many issues and many of them still remain unanswered, or at best, vague.
But the clock keeps ticking. With Christmas getting frighteningly close and still we have had no indication that our pleas to slow this freight train down are being heard.
I think it is fair to say that councils have struggled to find many collective cohesive stances, understandably the nuances of these reforms place council’s in totally different spaces. If you think of the likes of Christchurch, they must be questioning the need to support all these tiny communities when much of their infrastructure has just been replaced after the earthquakes. Yet we on the other hand are concerned that the control we have collectively had over assets our forebears created will be monopolised by the ‘big boys’.
The Yin and Yang of this conundrum is stretching us out like violin strings because to date virtually every argument has a good counter argument, and increasingly it is becoming apparent to me that we are damned if we do and ruined if we don’t.
One thing I am adamant on is that we all need to hang in there for the fight. We need to keep our powder dry and understand when the most appropriate time is to force our case. It worries me the suggestion from some that it’s a good idea to bypass the process now and head straight for the finish line with the decision already made to be ‘out’.
There are two reasons why I say this. Firstly, what is being bypassed is the publics’ democratic right to have an input and assist us in determining what is right for our district. And secondly, such a tactic runs the extreme risk of pushing Mahuta to mandate the process. She must be under considerable pressure, and to see that some councils are making decisions before the public consultation round commences surely must undermine her confidence. I think most will be furious if the actions of a few deny us all the right to self-determination, but it is just one of the many challenges we face.
Like many, the Clutha District Council is eager to get out to our communities to conduct information sharing events. In fact, we would have already held some if it were not for lockdown, but in the meantime access to information can be found on council websites. I plead with you all to take a clinical, business-like approach to your analysis. The last thing we need is conspiracies, political agendas and racism to dominate proceedings, and distort what will undoubtedly be the biggest decision councils and the public have had to make in a generation.
When you delve into it, you will see the labyrinth of challenges, the possibilities and the pitfalls. I know I’m thick, but after eight months and thousands of pages of reading, I am only just grasping what is being proposed and somehow it’s expected that the public can achieve the same ends in a fraction of the time. Good luck with that, but please let’s give this our best shot because the magnitude of change suggested in the reforms demands no less – and most importantly, get involved because this is not a time to sit on the fence.
Who am I? Bryan Cadogan is the Mayor of the Clutha District Council.
