from the NoMinister blog
“You don’t miss the water until the well runs dry” is an expression meaning that until something is gone you take it for granted and don’t appreciate what you have.
Water is the essence of life and in New Zealand we are fortunate to have an abundance of water. All living things on our planet need water to survive. In our modern society, water plays a vital role in things like comfort, hygiene, transport, science and even mythology.
There is a minority section of New Zealand society that, dangerously, believe they control/own the water and if they are not disabused of that belief, New Zealanders may well find that the well may run dry!
Unless we pay Maori for the water that is!
Maori claiming ownership of our water should not surprise us and is nothing new.
You only have to look back to 2012 when the Maori king at the time, Tuheitia, proclaimed – “We have always owned the water!” He went further by stating “the ultimate goal for iwi is to regain management and control of water…”
It is that control of our water and the enormous financial rewards that will flow from that control, acquired through te mana o te wai, that is of the most significance to Maori!
There are 70 major rivers in NZ, and then there are thousands of streams that are estimated to run to over 425,000 km. We also have more than 4,000 lakes that are one hectare or more in size.
If you then add in the immeasurable outstanding aquifers and you start to get an understanding of why Maori elite have long eyed acquiring control of those prized natural assets!
We are not only talking about our natural waterways but also our water storage, delivery and use! Maori elite and their activist “soldiers” have long known that enormous financial benefits would accrue from gaining control of this vital resource!
And they came very close to attaining that enormous payout with the Labour government’s Water Services Entity Act 2023.
That bill established 50/50 co-governance of the country’s entire water infrastructure with iwi given the power of veto through Mana o te Wai statements.
That power of veto gave maori the absolute power to block, stop and finally control. Full control in the hands of the minority!
In 2020 John Tamihere stated “Māori own the water because this country was settled by consent, not conquest, under the Treaty of Waitangi. Article 1 gave the Crown custodianship, not ownership.”
He added, “Article 2, for the avoidance of all doubt, retained, for Māori, absolute control of our waters, our land, and all domains.”
Tamihere further claimed, “The New Zealand government has allowed foreigners to pillage our water and monetarise the waters. What we see is a new-age gold rush where hundreds and hundreds of people are now staking a claim over water allocation rights and buying existing allocation rights.”
“But, in 2020 New Zealand, 180 years after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the Māori Party is asserting Māori rights to the ownership of this asset.”
“If Pākehā want to continue to assert their ownership over an asset they don’t own, we consider that to be state-sponsored theft. The government represents white power. It doesn’t represent sharing with the brown Treaty partner.”
His old “partner in crime” Tuku Morgan when speaking for Tainui in 2023, stated “…we are duty bound as Iwi to explore the full extent of ownership as outlined by the Waitangi Tribunal.”
Adding, “Iwi and Māori will be involved in water reform make no mistake about that. It will not be determined by fringe elements in our communities who are more interested in political grandstanding.”
Also in 2023 John Tamihere chimed in with this gem- “To what extent do you have a conversation with the generators on the Waikato to say, ‘times up, there’s got to be a levy here’?”
John Tamihere leaves absolutely no doubt about what he has in his sights!
Would be nice if this government shut this down for good. But sadly Luxon does …………nothing