Dear Friend,

Sorry to email on a Saturday, but there has been a major development in our effort to stop Labour’s attempt to confiscate local community water assets and put them in control of centralised co-governed entities.

In the last hour, Christopher Luxon has delivered a major speech in Blenheim and launched a policy paper setting out 'National’s alternative' to Labour’s Three Waters. While National has always said they would repeal Three Waters if they become government, until today National has kept mum on what its alternative to Three Waters would actually look like.

Last year, we fielded hundreds of questions during our nationwide 'Stop Three Waters' roadshow from supporters concerned whether we could trust a National government to put assets back into local control and scrap unaccountable, so-called ‘co-governance’ arrangements. It took until the roadshow meeting of a packed hall in Tauranga for the National Party’s Three Waters Spokesman to commit that National’s replacement to Three Waters would not have ‘co-governance’. Mr Luxon made the same commitment a few weeks later.

But this morning, Mr Luxon announced a policy that is almost identical to the alternative being promoted by the Taxpayers’ Union. And it’s not just the Taxpayers’ Union – the same alternative model of water governance is backed by the Mayors of Auckland, Christchurch, and 32 local councils!

Today’s announcement means there is now consensus not only against Three Waters – but on the alternative reform to improve water quality and affordability.

Our team in Wellington are scrambling. But as we work through the fine detail, there is nothing in the policy that departs from what we've been calling for. It is clear we can now put Chris Hipkins under real pressure to totally Scrap Three Waters and go with this alternative. But we need to swing into action with one last campaign splash, and the financial resources to pull it off.

We’ve got the public, the councils, and now the opposition on board. There is just one more person to convince…

Chris Hipkins is now the last man standing who still supports Three Waters. He has promised to 'refocus' the reforms, but unless we keep the pressure on, a refocus will simply be a rebranding exercise. Today’s announcement by the National Party makes a halfway compromise much harder for Mr Hipkins. We need to double down right now to force the Prime Minister’s hand. But to do that, we need your support.

Friend, now that there is a consensus alternative, victory is within our sights.

I’m asking for your support to get the "Scrap Three Waters" effort over the line.

Only your support will allow us to force Mr Hipkins to do what Mr Luxon has done today: pick up the alternate model and Scrap Three Waters.

Can we count on you ?

>>> Count me in <<<

Thank you for your support.

Jordan @ Taxpayers’ Union

ps With the polls narrowing and the election looking set to be very close, now is not the time to be complacent. We need to force the Government to adopt this policy and protect local democracy, accountability, and control. You can chip-in with a confidential donation via our secure website.

Sent from my iPad.