A topic of enormous concern for the community throughout this election run, has been the issue of the three waters legislation. Aside from the practical application of the legislation itself, we are also seeing the politicisation of race being brought into the government's choice to mandate the three waters legislation. We see this via accusations that the proposed legislation is special treatment for Māori and a barrier to Aotearoa being a nation of “One people”.
Yeap, a lot to unpack here.
So first it’s important to define some terms and give some contextual perspective:
CO-GOVERNANCE: When goals, policies and procedures are recommended with Te Ao Maori and Te Tiriti in mind.
SPECIAL TREATMENT: (in regards to people): Someone that is special, is better or more important than other people
So with those in mind, here’s a run down of my understanding of the “proposed” (forced) 3 waters legislation and how I see things.
Part 1: Whakapapa (How did we get here?)
Three basic categories of water infrastructure - stormwater, drinking water, and wastewater - are the topic of the theme here, which is why it is called three waters.
Currently, councils are in charge of managing around 85% of this infrastructure, with some performing the task better than others. Marae are among the smaller, rural groups that obtain their water from private or neighbourhood-based sources. The catalyst for this legislative debacle came from 2016, when a campylobacter outbreak centred in Havelock North affected almost 8000 individuals, causing thousands of illnesses, at least four fatalities, and more than $760,000 in medical expenses for the regional health board.
The result was a planned programme of reform that would transfer water management from New Zealand's 67 local government councils to four significant regional institutions (known as, entities). This spurred the government to take a close, in-depth look at water services and how they were being delivered throughout Aotearoa. Sewage was of course also spotted boiling up in the streets of Wellington and Auckland, and storms frequently result in the closure of beaches owing to sewage overflows. The management of drinking water sources varies greatly around New Zealand, and boiling is frequently necessary - in Taranaki here, Manaia and Okato have recently had to boil water and go on restrictions, sometimes even 100% restrictions in some cases which was alarming for me to hear and I still struggle to fathom that. 
The creation of a new drinking water control body called Taumata Arowai is one of the reforms that was implemented and has been generally uncontroversial. The Ministry of Health had previously been in charge of drinking water rules, but Taumata Arowai now oversees, manages, and enforces all drinking water laws in Aotearoa New Zealand as a result of the Water Services Bill becoming law. Additionally, it will oversee how well stormwater and wastewater networks perform in terms of the environment. It is an independent organisation with a minister-appointed board and Māori advisory group.
Side note: The fact that a lot of these centralised groups seem to be remixed then with Māori names, also rings alarm bells for me: Waka Kotahi and Oranga Tamariki are the two that come to mind immediately. These organisations in particular suffer a lot of cynicism and criticism and I can’t help but feel that this drives more cynicism and criticism to Māori as a whole because they bare Te Reo names. Will Taumata Arowai do the same? Anyway, carrying on…
Although councils generally concur that investment is required across most of the nation, the majority of them continue to reject the government's reforms, primarily due to ownership and control. Councils have built and maintained their water infrastructure assets over many years with significant ratepayer spending. Although the Labour government has often said that the infrastructure would be owned by the public, the documentation reveals the entities would “own and operate three waters infrastructure on behalf of local authorities, including transferring ownership of three waters assets and access to cost-effective borrowing from capital markets to make the required investments". Many councils (including New Plymouth District Council) claim they have built their water infrastructure well or have preparations in place to handle the shortage, with money already set aside. They are concerned that merging their assets with those that require far more investment will result in their ratepayers, who have already paid for high-quality water services, having to pay again for those who have not, fair enough too I think. 
Photo: RNZ / Vinay Ranchhod
Part 2: One water system, One people:
The Labour government has allocated $2.5 billion to level the playing field in an effort to allay these worries. Of that, $2 billion would be distributed to iron out the kinks while $500 million would be given to councils to help them adjust to the new system. Whilst this works for some councils, some - like Whangarei District Council would lose up to $600 million on their investment into their water assets. Managing the entities is another issue that worries councils. According to documents, Councils would form a regional representative group with the help of mana whenua representatives to oversee the entities' issues, strategies, and aspirations. The board that oversees and governs the organisation would be chosen by this group through an independent selection panel. It's easy to understand why some municipalities worry that, at the very least, their authority and control over their water systems would be diminished or shall I say… watered down? *bah-dum-tish
And somehow this has become one of the most contentious parts of the whole 3 waters shenanigans - working with Mana Whenua. There’s a rhetoric that having Mana Whenua at the table is some sort of special treatment for Māori , like Māori seats in parliament and Māori wards within local governments. An analogy for this is focussing on one bad day of the week, when in fact all other 6 days of the week have been fantastic! It can be very overdramatic and ignorant of historical context. Let's say we indulge for a moment that Māori being in co-governance may be special treatment to Māori (feels gross even writing that). The year is 2022 and this is introduced tomorrow. Now let's take a look over history at legislation that went against Māori:
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1862: The Native Lands Act was passed by the Parliament. It was later replaced by the Native Lands Act 1865. This legislation established the Native Land Court to investigate titles to Māori land, with Māori then able to “convert their land from customary or ‘native’ title to Crown-granted or freehold title.” The legislation “also abolished the doctrine of Crown pre-emption,” meaning that settlers were able to acquire land directly from Māori owners. A large number of laws related to Māori land were enacted over subsequent decades. Under these laws and other actions, “Māori lost land to the Crown and private owners through a wide variety of methods.”
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1863: The New Zealand Settlements Act, which authorized the government to confiscate land from certain tribes without compensation, was passed.
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1864: Under the Public Works Lands Act and subsequent laws, Māori (and European) lands could be acquired for roads, railways and other public works, sometimes without compensation. Some Māori land was targeted for compulsory acquisition in preference to nearby Pākehā land.
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1877: In Wi Parata v The Bishop of Wellington, the chief justice of the Supreme Court declared the Treaty to be “worthless” and a “simple nullity.” He ruled that the courts lacked the ability to consider claims based on aboriginal or native title (thus overturning the 1847 Symonds case) and that there was no such thing as customary law in existence in New Zealand.
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1881: The Māori settlement of Parihaka in the Taranaki region, “which had become a symbol of protest against the confiscation of Māori land,” was attacked by government troops, with the leaders of the settlement arrested and imprisoned without trial and many of the residents subsequently evicted and their houses destroyed
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1953: The Maori Affairs Act was enacted. This legislation essentially “forced unproductive Māori land into use” through a trustee system. It also changed the name of the Native Land Court to the Maori Land Court. In 1967, the Maori Affairs Act was amended, introducing the compulsory conversion of Māori freehold land with fewer than five owners to general land, thereby enabling the land to be sold or mortgaged, and increasing “the powers of the Maori Trustee to compulsorily acquire and sell so-called uneconomic interests in Māori land.” Māori considered that the amendments represented a land grab and the legislation resulted in street protests. It is seen as one of the major catalysts for the Māori protest movements that emerged in the late 1960s. This included annual Waitangi Day protests that commenced in the early 1970s and have continued throughout the 2000s.
**reference credit: Wikipedia
Now in the grand scheme of things, does that look like special treatment now? And I didn’t even go into Te Reo being banned and beaten out of a generation. Let’s revisit the earlier definitions I gave:
CO-GOVERNANCE: When goals, policies and procedures are recommended with Te Ao Maori and Te Tiriti in mind.
SPECIAL TREATMENT: (in regards to people): Someone that is special, is better or more important than other people.
There may be some here wondering why we even need a Te Ao Māori and Te Tiriti perspective. There’s a few ways to look at this but I can’t help but think of The All Blacks and their relationship to The Haka: Ka Mate. Te Reo Māori, including its songs (Poi E) and other cultural assets are arguably New Zealands greatest point of difference. Sheep, rolling green hills, mountains, jandals, bumblebees and marmite can be found many places the world over. Māori culture, however, can only be found in one place and that's right here in Aotearoa New Zealand. So why not have the subject matter experts of our greatest asset being on most of our boards across all industries to advise and execute strategy for this asset? From an environmental standpoint, are there any other community groups within Aotearoa who have fought for the environment and Te Taio longer than 180 years? I’ll wait…
This is how we arrive at the sentiment that three waters is undemocratic - and I agree that it is, but not because of the Māori input aspect. When opponents use the term "undemocratic," they actually imply that they want the majority to be able to impose their limited worldview on the minority (in this case, Māori). This misinterpretation of democracy is fundamental. Political democracy is more than just the ability of a large majority to act whenever it pleases without regard to the consequences for anyone else. As a deterrent to Charles I's tyranny, western democracy developed in the United Kingdom. It evolved over time to reach its current state, where a legal framework and political structures safeguard the rights and interests of its populace. Yet the uneducated few who want to protect their privilege simply choose to see democracy as “Majority Rules”. A constitution-based democracy is one in which the rights of the majority are upheld within a legal framework established by the constitution. In this kind of democracy, the constitution specifies how the people are to be governed. In Aotearoa, Te Tiriti is often referred to as our founding document and therefore a crucial element to our constitution. Do you think Te Tiriti would support or oppose co-governance?
Part 3: Kotahi Aroha, One Love:
Throughout my campaign, a message I’ve had to repeat numerous times is “Oneness is not sameness”. It seems to be a no brainer for people to comprehend something like a prioritised carpark for a mother expecting a child to be closer to the supermarket in order to get the necessities needed for her whānau but yet is absolutely astounding for them to comprehend prioritised services for people overrepresented in statistics such as incarceration, unemployment and early death to get the necessities to overcome those obstacles. If “Oneness IS sameness” then the pregnant mother can park down the back like everyone else. If you want us all to be one people, then let’s all be Māori. Oh we can’t? Then who do you expect Māori to be?
I love the co-governance element of 3 waters because I doubt we’d be in this mess had Māori been allowed to be the kaitiaki (stewards) that we are from the beginning, once again I ask you to find me a group that has advocated for environmental security and safety longer and more resilient than Māori. It’s hard to ignore the constant and consistent messaging from local councils though, that they don’t want to participate in the three waters initiative and the fact that we weren’t allowed to even see the other proposals or suggestions from the initial report done by the Water Industry Commission of Scotland is a bit fishy. In the words of WICS CEO Alan Sutherland, “Amalgamation is an answer but it's not THEE answer” - for me that means that maybe some councils, the ones who are dire - get taken over by the government but those that are not, don’t. Another alternative perhaps may be that three waters be a 5, 10 or 20 year plan but then once the goals are achieved then the assets are returned? Afterall, the New Zealand government loves returning unused land, right? So while I love co-governance, the overall proposal needs some work and clarification and this is why I can’t fully support three waters yet.