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Dear John, Three Waters Plan Legislation Did you realise that the government is pushing through Bills about drinking water, waste water and storm water? Piece by piece, using their 10 seat majority? Well they are and who controls our water and who will own the infrastructure is being grabbed. Have you had your say on this with your local Council? Especially those of you who live in Auckland? As ratepayers you have been paying for the water that comes out of your tap and then paying again for it going down the drain, for around 20 years. My National Opposition spokesperson on infrastructure Chris Luxon and I have launched the Stop the Three Waters Petition. We believe New Zealanders should Demand the Debate on Labour’s Three Waters plans which amount to stealing local water assets and stripping control from communities; it is an asset grab. Labour is planning to bundle these assets into regional mega-entities and put community control at arm’s length. The new entities will control hundreds of kilometres of water infrastructure with a group of people comprising a complex smorgasbord of appointees and bureaucrats. Existing Councils would have unclear ownership rights and token representation in appointing these decision makers. Ultimately our water services providers will be less accessible and accountable to their customers, us. The government is claiming there will be benefits of scale on one hand and saying that the new entities will create hundreds of jobs on the other. The cost of setting up the entities will be enormous and communities with good water services will end up paying for this as well as subsidising their poorer-performing neighbours into the future. National wants to promote smart efficient solutions for New Zealand’s long-term infrastructure challenges but Labour’s plan is anything but a smart solution - it is a total takeover of community assets with no clear benefits for most of us, and it must be abandoned. National wants local assets to be kept in local control, and we will protect community decision-making. New Zealanders deserve a say in their country’s future and together we must demand the debate and support our local government bodies so they keep local assets in ratepayers’ hands. Under National, Kiwis can come home for Christmas. Under Labour, they can’t. On Wednesday I launched National’s comprehensive plan to tackle COVID-19, end lockdowns and reopen New Zealand to the world. Titled ‘Opening Up’, National’s plan outlines a pathway to avoid nationwide lockdowns and then allow us to open travel for fully vaccinated travellers to and from New Zealand. The Government has failed to plan ahead for managing COVID-19 this year and beyond. Instead of investing in creating more efficient contact tracing, greater ICU capacity and purpose-built MIQ facilities, the Government has frittered the COVID-19 Response Fund away on art therapy, cameras on fishing boats, and Three Waters reform. The National Opposition’s plan proposes supercharging the vaccine rollout, buying vaccine boosters and approving next-generation treatments. It promotes saliva testing and rapid antigen testing and supports building fit-for-purpose quarantine facilities. Our plan says that once 85 per cent of the population over 12 years old are vaccinated, we should start to allow fully vaccinated New Zealand citizens from low risk and medium risk countries to come home without going through MIQ. (Non-citizens and non-permanent residents who are not vaccinated would continue to be restricted from travel to New Zealand.) National’s plan would reunite Kiwi families, allow New Zealanders to travel overseas for business and pleasure, boost tourism and allow international education, and end the outrageous human lottery that is the MIQ debacle. The health of New Zealanders is a priority under National’s plan and so it is recognised that a dedicated agency to manage outbreaks based in Auckland in the epicentre, is needed to replace the current remote control from Wellington. National’s COVID-19 response spokesperson Chris Bishop has also been working on a digital app that will record and authenticate a person’s double vaccination as part of National’s Plan. This will help New Zealanders travelling overseas as well as domestically. National’s Health spokesperson Dr Shane Reti and Associate Health spokesperson Simon Watts have been working on how we would improve our health system to cope with a COVID-19 Delta outbreak. Instead of investing in ICU capacity, the Government has spent the COVID-19 Response Fund on restructuring the entire health system in the middle of a global pandemic. The number of ICU beds has actually fallen since the end of April 2020 through to September 2021, and no new ICU bed spaces have been provisioned since Delta first appeared in MIQ. At the start of the present level 3 and level 2 situation in New Zealand we saw urgent alterations had to be made to hospital wards in Auckland to cope with the influx of COVID-19 affected patients. “In the first three weeks of the recent outbreak 62,829 inpatient procedures were cancelled. A delayed procedure can have a significant impact on a person’s health and their ability to recover once the surgery does proceed. In some cases, delaying a procedure is putting a life at risk,” Dr Reti says. Simon Watts says National’s plan involves a big increase in ICU beds fit for Covid19 use, as well as prioritising and fast-tracking resident visa applications for 3000 specialist and critical care healthcare workers. The government has not bought any of the revolutionary new COVID-19 treatments proven and available overseas. National’s Plan would task Pharmac with negotiating purchase agreements with a variety of manufacturers as soon as possible as well as buying effective vaccine boosters now. If National’s Plan is implemented Kiwis can look to reunite with family, travel overseas for business, education and pleasure and we can look to welcome tourists and visitors back to our shores. Once we reopen to the world, the future is in the hands of New Zealanders.
Best wishes to all,
Judith
Hon Judith
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