Colin James: After the election comes the deluge

A notice in a South Island country pub bluntly tells its guests: don't drink the water from the tap. A sly way to boost bar sales? No. Just as in India, the water might make you sick.

Tell that to tourists. Then tell them "100 per cent pure".

It doesn't add up.

Tell them why: we need more exports to pay for our lifestyle, and dairy farms are export stars. But cattle wastes seep into our waterways and pollute them.

Water is at the intersection of economic needs, health needs and environmental needs. Right now water is below the political radar but it is set to become one of the biggest public policy issues when the coming election is disposed of.

Some factors:

* The next 50 years will be less wet than the last 50, says the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research.

* Water is fully allocated, nearly 80 per cent of it to farmers. It is wastefully used. Some water tables are dangerously low.

* Tourism, recreationists, industry and special environmental needs all compete for water - not to mention households.

* Water, pollution and waste disposal are handled at sub-national level, under the Resource Management Act (water rights are allocated first-come, first-served for up to 35 years). Councils' capabilities and policies vary widely. It's the same old story: either the RMA is not up to the job or councils aren't, or both.

* Data on the value of different uses are rubbery. What is the national value of a river or lake, compared with an electricity scheme that keeps showers hot or another vineyard, dairy farm or industrial plant going?

In short, water is an economic, environmental and critical ingredient of daily life.

As a policy issue, it is as complex as they come. That is why there is no pre-election haste to give it a profile. Only the Greens make water a priority. They worry about the environmental health of rivers and lakes.

Within the Government, it is parked with the Ministry for the Environment. Though the ministry's intellectual horsepower has been stoked by chief executive Barry Carbon (who has also given it more of an economic slant), the ministry is not a core department.

The Treasury is only now taking a growing interest. The Ministry of Economic Development has been involved, particularly on property rights.

With few exceptions - Pete Hodgson (climate change), Jim Sutton (agriculture), Trevor Mallard (energy) - ministers don't engage. It's abstruse and complex and non-urgent.

Environment Minister Marian Hobbs is at a disadvantage getting traction in the Cabinet and, when she does, it can get rough - the decision to tell the Cabinet's own ad hoc Waitaki Allocation Board that its draft plan for the Waitaki catchment was unworkable precipitated a tense argument among ministers.

Hobbs is hobbled when battling for funds against the big-spending health and education ministers by the lack of a noisy public constituency such as they have.

With few exceptions, the public thinks water is and should be "free" and takes water for granted until the flow stops or turns brown. The advantage is that policy can be developed largely out of public sight and controversy, except by those with a special interest. The disadvantage is that if bold policy changes are to follow, they will be amid public ignorance and a reluctance to change.

Not that the Environment Ministry hasn't tried. It held dozens of meetings in February to publicise an action plan and collected about 300 submissions on which it will report soon.

Its plan sets out six major water issues and 13 "actions" (each with alternative options) to address them. It is an intelligent and comprehensive piece of work, with other departments contributing.

Intriguingly, the plan does not include proposals for tradeable water rights or pollution permits. Tradeable rights would establish prices. Waters of "national importance" and other water with non-market value could be assigned a value by regulation at national or sub-national level.

Hobbs says tradeable rights are on the table. But that would almost certainly require another change to the RMA - difficult before David Benson-Pope's amendments are law, and they have struck heavy water in Jeanette Fitzsimons' local government and environment select committee in Parliament.

Benson-Pope's bill embeds local decision-making on resources. Central government is just a submitter on national interest grounds. But there is real doubt water can be handled that way. Meantime, the Government relies on ad hoc arrangements, possible national policy statements to get more consistency in local and regional decisions, and environmental and health standards.

An environmental standard is coming on the source of drinking water and a health standard on tap water has been proposed.

That adds up to more bureaucracy and no assurance of more market. Act says corporatise and privatise, wholesale. National shies away from that - for good reason: the public, still grumpy about the 1980s-1990s privatisations, doesn't want its water in private hands.

Which leaves operators in limbo. Simon Carlaw hopes to change that. He has taken on an assignment to professionalise and lift the profile of the Water and Wastes Association.

So you are likely to hear more about water - after the election. But don't expect rapid change. There may be less water to go round - but there is a lot to run under the policy bridges.