MP calls for water royalties

Napier MP Stuart Nash

A levy on the commercial use of water has been called for by Napier MP Stuart Nash, prompted by the opening of a $20 million water bottling plant near Hastings that will export water to Asia and the Middle East.

New Zealand Miracle Water Holdings has leased a building with a bore extracting water from a 300m aquifer, entering into a joint venture with the logistics company Tomoana Warehousing.

The business employs 26 people but the number will climb to 80 as production increases to its consented 900,000 cubic metres of water - 0.6 per cent of water allocated by the Hawke's Bay Regional Council.

Tomoana Warehousing's owner Trevor Taylor said before the Miracle Water plant was built the bore was run at twice the consented rate by an independent party, "flooding the whole paddock for three days" and no effect was measured on neighbouring bores.

A report by Economic Solutions estimated a regional Gross Domestic Product impact from NZ Miracle Water of $11 million, expected to grow exponentially.

"I'm all for economic development and jobs but the profit they make out of the water is based on getting it for free," Mr Nash said.

"Water is an economic input that allows commercial gain - why should you get it for free?"

He said just as there was a royalty due to the Government for the extraction of oil so too should there be one for water, suggesting a royalty of 10 cents per litre, payable to local government.

"Imagine what that would do for economic development in our region," he said.

It would also help preserve the resource.

"If you don't pay for something you don't value it, so why would there be any incentive to optimise usage?" Mr Nash said.

Tukituki MP Craig Foss, present at the opening with Deputy Prime Minister Bill English, said that the courts had found nobody owned water in New Zealand.

"If Labour has decided somebody owns the water I would be interested to find out who," he said.

The cost of obtaining resource consent and building infrastructure "certainly isn't cheap".

"Ask Mr Taylor or his bank," Mr Foss said.

Oil levies were an internationally accepted practice.

"I don't know of anywhere where the use of water, which comes from the sky and is replenished as opposed to oil which is not, is treated the same way."

Hawke's Bay Today has been inundated by comments on the exportation of water.

Hastings resident Bill Kearns said public sentiment would rise only if there was a dry summer as predicted and water restrictions placed on farmers and residents.

"It doesn't seem right to me if the locals have to turn their tap off but these guys from offshore are still going to be able to bottle their water and sell it," Mr Kearns said.