The Three Waters transition unit has leased floors in this building in Freemans Bay. Photo / Dean Purcell
The Three Waters transition unit has leased floors in this building in Freemans Bay. Photo / Dean Purcell
EDITORIAL
If poisoned wells and exorbitant rates rises were the bogeys behind the drive for the Three Waters reforms, then privatisation was the troll waiting under the bridge as far as the progressives and left-of-centre parties were concerned.
Departed Auckland Mayor Phil Goff, a former Labour Party leader, was amongthe first to sound the alarm in May last year over the possibility of a future government slipping the supercity’s Watercare asset into private hands. “Should that asset be transferred to another body which a subsequent government could then decide to privatise,” he told the Herald, “Auckland ratepayers would lose an asset they have built up without a guarantee of compensation.”
Local Government Minsiter Nanaia Mahuta didn’t directly confront the privatisation issue at the time. However, she set up a $200 billion package as a “recognition of the financial pressures” on councils. The first portion of $500m of the funding became available from July 1 and any unallocated money will be rolled into the next tranche, which becomes available on July 1 next year when the four publicly-owned water service entities would be established.
Now as the councils set about planning to spend the money, it would seem the Government and its allies have turned their attention to the troll.
Green MP Eugenie Sage proposed an amendment to the Three Waters legislation to require future parliaments to achieve a 60 per cent vote before the new water entities could be privatised. This amendment was added without debate, and without the chance for the public to make submissions on this key part of the law.
Green Party MP Eugenie Sage. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
A democratic principle holds that Parliament should be permitted to make and change laws when there is a majority of support – over 50 per cent of MPs being the threshold. But this Three Waters decision shifts the goalposts to 60 per cent. A future Parliament is therefore bound by the decisions of the current one, something regarded by legal scholars as unconstitutional.
On Saturday, the Weekend Herald editorial warned the Government needed to clear up the “murk” around the Water Services Entities Bill following the surprise inclusion of geothermal and coastal waters into its Te Mana o te Wai policy. The inclusion and ensuing outcry prompted Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to ask those drafting the bill to “make it much clearer”. The editorial warned: “One suspects any more surprises will incense the electorate.”
Yesterday, a number of constitutional law scholars published an open letter today warning about the “dangerous precedent” set in Sage’s amendment placing a 60 per cent threshold on future governments.
Constitutional expert Andrew Geddis of Otago University described the “potentially momentous” change for parliamentary governance as “MPs placing handcuffs on tomorrow’s MPs”.
Yesterday, Ardern said the fresh concerns were understandable and she would refer the matter back to Parliament’s business committee.
In setting about tackling a dreamt-up creature lurking in wait for the privatisation opportunities in the Three Water reforms, it does now appear the Government conjured up something even uglier.
