John,
This week, Labour is on the defensive after the Auditor-General
published a scathing submission on Three Waters, confirming our worst
fears about these unaccountable and broken reforms.
It is highly unusual for the Auditor-General to actually submit to
a select committee on a Bill like 3 Waters. The Auditor-General is
Parliament’s watchdog on accountability and transparency and it speaks
volumes about how bad the Bill is that they felt obliged to make a
submission.
We’ve repeatedly told Labour that the public would have no way to
hold their mega-entities to account, and local voices will get lost in
a bureaucratic mess, and they haven’t listened.
This is yet another warning Labour looks set to ignore, and
our communities will pay the price.
AUDITOR-GENERAL SLAMS THREE
WATERS
In their submission on Three Waters, the Office of the
Auditor-General says the proposed Three Waters changes will result in
a “serious diminution in
accountability to the public for a critical service” and “no proposed
audit scrutiny”. The Auditor-General is the public’s watchdog,
auditing and reviewing public entities. This condemnation of the Three
Waters Bill confirms our worst fears.
The submission delivers a damning analysis of the overlap of
proposed governance structures, lack of access to information by the
public to scrutinise the proposed water entities, a lack of
performance measures, and a lack of integration with other reforms and
local planning. Perhaps most shockingly, the Auditor-General says the
Bill doesn’t even have enough information to say who controls the
water entities.
The Government arrogantly ignored the criticism of local
communities and National when it was told these reforms were
unaccountable and not transparent. Now, they are being confronted with
the reality.
Labour said that you were wrong and just “mischief making”
for questioning who would control these entities. Now, their own
watchdog is asking the same questions.
SUBMISSIONS BEGIN
The Select Committee has begun to hear oral submissions on the
Three Waters Bill. We received over 88,000 submissions. Despite
repeated attempts by Labour to hear from as few people as possible,
we’ve been pushing hard for a full process where everyone gets a
chance to have their say.
In particular we heard submissions from our rural communities and
groups, these will be hit the hardest by these reforms, and will lose
their voices in Labour’s mega-entities. The message from rural New
Zealand couldn’t be clearer, they oppose these reforms.
We’ve also heard from Local Councils and organisations like
Federated Farmers. What’s clear is that absolutely nobody thinks
Labour has got this one right. Tune in on the Finance
and Expenditure Committee’s Page to listen to the submissions.
Labour is so keen to get this done quickly. On the first day alone,
Mayors told us that their assets portfolios worth hundreds of millions
would be replaced with shares in water entities, which they told us
would have “zero value”. Other Mayors called out by name, their own
Labour MPs, who promised to meet with them on Three Waters concerns
but then refused to do so.
I encourage you to attend your local in-person submissions hearing
and let the Government members your thoughts on the proposed
legislation. For dates and locations, I have prepared a list that you
can view here.
LABOUR REFUSES TO LISTEN
I’ve been busy in Parliament fighting Three Waters and putting your
concerns. This week, I raised the broken ownership model with Kieran
McAnulty, a model that Councils, communities and now the
Auditor-General calls messy, unclear and broken. The Minister's
response speaks for itself:
“It is a matter of fact that ownership of the water entities
remains with local Councils, and any suggestion otherwise, I think, is
mischief making.”
Labour has sunk to a new low, branding concerns around ownership as
mischief making. They’ve become so invested in their reforms that
they’re willing to brand Local Councils, the Auditor-General, and most
importantly, you, as just making mischief for standing up for local
ownership.
For National, Local ownership of water assets is a bottom
line, and we’ll repeal and replace these broken reforms.
This process has been a sham from the start, and Labour has made it
clear they don’t care what you have to say about Three Waters. We’re
listening though, and we’ll repeal and replace these broken
reforms.
Please sign
our petition to stop Three Waters if you haven’t already.
Regards, Simon Watts | Spokesperson for Local
Government
Ffollow me on social media to keep up to date with my work on Three
Waters:
https://www.facebook.com/simonwattsmp https://www.instagram.com/simonwattsmp/
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