Dear Friend,

Here is the Government's "revised" Three Waters plan

The Taxpayers' Union has spent the day closely examining the Government's "revised" Three Waters plan unveiled this morning.

In short, the Government is forging ahead – and the minor tweaks to the scheme actually make Three Waters even worse overall.

Here's what New Zealanders need to know:

⚠️ There are no significant changes to the co-governance arrangements. That means there are still four layers of bureaucracy between you and the new water entities, and the representative groups remain 50-50 co-governed between iwi and councils.

⚠️ The Government will now issue local councils "shares" in the new water entities. But it's Nanaia Mahuta being deceitful: regardless of their shareholdings, councils (and therefore you & other ratepayers) will still be stripped of all the crucial rights of control that are usually associated with ownership. Councils won’t be allowed to receive a return from the water entities, yet that is specifically allowed for Mana Whenua groups. Ratepayers will no longer “own” the assets in any meaningful sense.

⚠️ There will now be additional bureaucracies set up as part of the reforms, including new "sub-regional" representative groups and a Water Services Ombudsman with a "tikanga-based dispute resolution process". Yet another layer of expensive bureaucratic fat.

⚠️ There will be yet another costly communications campaign to try to convince New Zealanders of the "need for change". In other words, taxpayer-funded propaganda is back.

⚠️ Iwi will have their own consultation process for the legislation, separate from the transparent select committee process available to the general public. This is simply unbelievable. For the first time, New Zealand's Parliamentary process is going to have 'priority access' based on race.

Of course, we were never expecting substantial improvements to this fatally flawed policy. Mahuta knows exactly what she is doing, and the "independent" Mayoral Working Group was always set up to be a sham. While the Government has picked up most of the policy recommendations the group was stacked with the very few pro-Three Waters mayors, and was even itself 50-50 co-governed with iwi representatives Ms Mahuta hand-picked!

Together we need to Stop Three Waters 💦

Yesterday we saw the Government dramatically backflip on its undemocratic Rotorua Council Bill that would have given Māori voters twice the power of voters on the General Roll. That shows how a well-organised campaign and old fashioned "people power" can and will halt Ardern and Mahuta's radical agenda.

Friend,  we can't Stop Three Waters if we can't go toe to toe with Ms Mahuta's taxpayer-funded propaganda. That's why we are urgently asking for your support today.

With your support, we can ensure Three Waters is a costly mistake for Jacinda Ardern.

We have to act now before it is too late

The Three Waters legislation could be presented to Parliament for its first reading as early as Tuesday –  that's only 96 hours away!

That means the fight starts right now.

We will be mobilising our army of supporters to bombard the select committee with submissions and to demand that oral submissions are heard in person, up and down the country.

We need to spread the word about the truth of what these so-called reforms mean. This campaign is about defending democracy and ensuring ratepayers are able to hold to account those in power.

Will you chip in to support our campaign?

The first step of our Campaign Plan is to ensure we get the word out and spread the truth by launching a new hard hitting advertising campaign across the web, newspapers, billboards, and TV. But we can't lock in advertising until we know the Official Three Waters Fighting Fund can match Ms Mahuta's sizable war chest.

While Nanaia Mahuta is hell-bent on pushing Three Waters through, we can see that every day the political damage is building. We already know that Labour's provincial MPs are feeling the heat and getting nervous. We need to ensure that the pressure from voters outweighs the pressure from Labour's powerful Māori caucus.

>> Click here to contribute to the Official Three Waters Fighting Fund <<

Something has to give – even if it's on election day in 2023. Every dollar gets us closer.

Thank you for your support,

Louis Houlbrooke Campaigns Manager New Zealand Taxpayers' Union

ps – I'm proud that so far this effort has been fueled by thousands of New Zealanders like you standing up to Nanaia Mahuta and making this campaign possible. You've seen that when we asked for your support last year, the Taxpayers' Union delivered on every cent our supporters invested. Over the summer we ensured Kiwis saws the hundreds of "Stop Three Waters" banners, the billboards, the ads on TV, radio, Facebook and Google, and (most importantly!) the dramatic increase in opposition for Three Waters (as measured by our monthly independent polling). , rather than being one of those groups who complain about the Government, we take on the Government. We are asking all of our supporters today to let us finish the job and STOP Three Waters. Click here to make a confidential donation.