Water Legislation

The Water Services Legislation Bill is a 200 page ammendment to the recently passed Water Services Act. It proposes 275 ammendments to the original act.

Many groups around the country were already in an uproar about the proposed control of water, under what had been mostly referred to as the 3 waters legislation.

There is enough written already in relation to concerns about the original act which attracted 88,000 submissions.

That aside, who knew?

Were all the MPs who voted on this legislation aware that it would be immediately amended?

In the trade-offs between the internal factions of Labour was this another surprise from Mahuta and the Maori Caucus?

Something similar had been seen with the last minute attempt by Mahuta to entrench the original act with the cooperation of a departing Green MP.

This is essentially co-governance and corruption in action.

Following the claims by Winston Peters that he was never informed about He Puapua (where the 3 Waters legislation comes from) then it’s not unreasonable to ask if our departing prime minister knew or not or what she actually knew.

We’ll probably never know.

Just what went on in Wellington in the lead up to Christmas possibly has a lot to do with Jacinda Ardern’s resignation and so it should, it’s reason enough and certainly a much more likely reason than hostile social media.

I’d certainly want to know why the Press Gallery was empty on the last day of parliament, when the Opposition was raising objections to the process and the content of the ammendment bill.

New Zealand will have a new prime minister when Chris Hipkins is sworn in on Wednesday but he’s already acknowledged in an interview as prime minister elect that Labour has a big challenge ahead with 3 Waters.

That won’t stop the ongoing process that has been organising itself ahead of the legislation.

The supposedly smooth process in the change of leadership gives no indication as to what might have been agreed to or what action if any Hipkins will take regarding the general disfunctional operation of parliament, and this particular bill.

How a finance minister actually funds something that isn’t even legislated is another question.

The bill itself contains provisions that are as draconian as what we saw with the covid legislation.

The most concerning aspect is the compliance and enforcement proposals that will be established under each of the regional entities managing the separate water regions.

What that will look like in time is unclear as the legislation is essentially the authority without the detail.

What happens next continues to be as unclear as the whole process has been.

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The hype is still clearly around Jacinda Ardern and manufacturing a media legacy with a distorted reality for Chris Hipkins to get much more than a token welcome to his new position of prime minister.

Chris Leitch Dies

The leader of the Social Credit party, Chris Leitch, passed away this morning after a long battle with neck cancer.

Updated: March 2nd, 2023

The registration of the New Zealand Democratic Party for Social Credit and its logo has been cancelled at the party’s request.

Watching the commentary on Social Credit closing down suggests being based in Whangārei the party was dragged towards a single issue refinery closure party. The discord in that espiside led to activist Brad Flutey being expelled from the party.

Other members saw the demise of the broader party and left.

Later the refinery activists left and Leitch was left holding the empty shell.

No comment has been made by the party in respect of these issues but those are reasonable observations

This time of year registered parties are sometimes asked to prove their membership to the Electoral Commission before participating in an election – they may not have been able to pass that test but regardless the obligation rests with any party to ensure they can provide evidence of 500 paid up members at any time.

To Be or Not to Be

“To be or not to be.”

One of the most universal lines in literature …  you may have even said it yourself once … because it sounded good – we often fall into that trap in the politics and rhetoric of election year.

You more likely didn’t study the quote in an English lesson on Shakespeare and know, that the line is from a soliloquy by Prince Hamelot.

What’s a soliloquy?

Well, you remember that time you overheard your mother talking to herself out loud and said, “Oh shit, am I in trouble now,” without realising she was doing this deliberately, so you would hear … that’s a soliloquy, or a version of it put to good use.