Ministerial "musket trading" backfires on Auckland

The unseemly squabble over TV coverage of a few games of rugby is the public tip of a political iceberg that threatens Auckland interests.

We all know how much the Government needs the support of either Act or the Maori Party in order to stay in power and get its policies enacted in Parliament. Managing this balance requires a certain amount of horse-trading - or musket-trading in the case of Maori it seems.

Recall the issue of Maori seats on the Super City council. There was a huge public majority in support of this idea. I was one of the thousands in the Queen Street Hikoi. It was popular.

The Maori Party spoke out strongly in support, but the Government was wobbling. Not consistent with policy, apparently.

Then Rodney Hide threatened to throw his toys out of his cot. An issue of principle - he said. Elected councillors should be elected by democratic process - he said. Seat allocation was undemocratic - he said. And threatened to resign. (Has he threatened to resign over the way Maori seats are allocated in parliament...?).

Anyway, the Government gave way and ditched Maori seats on the Super City. There was a bit of a grumpy backlash from the Maori Party about this, but it went quiet pretty quickly.

I suppose we should have all been aware that a few muskets might have been traded in some quiet deal behind the scenes. And then suddenly we found out what it was.

The sudden and rather odd change in Auckland's southern boundary. Looking at a map, what this means is about 14,000 hectares of land around the Hunau Ranges, the Mangatawhiri and Mangatangi dams, three regional parks, and an attractive chunk of Firth of Thames coastline get passed from the jurisdiction of Auckland Regional Council, to Waikato Regional Council - aka Environment Waikato.

For me, and for many of us, this proposal came out of the blue. Not like the Northern boundary change at Rodney. The reason for that was so transparent. Greedy developers and land-owners wanted freedom to develop away from the careful and long term planning objectives and policies of the Auckland region.

But why the change in the Southern boundary? What could be the plan?

Information about this has leaked out in variety of ways. It's part of the price of losing the Maori seats on Super City.

Fundamentally it is about Government wanting a tidy majority.
Materially it is about Tainui and water.
It is about Tainui getting control of Auckland's water supply.

I won't bore you with the details of the 2007 Tainui Settlement, but the essence is this: "The key principles of the settlement, Te Mana o te Awa and Mana Whakahaere, confirms the overarching purpose: to ensure that the protection of the health and well being of the river is paramount. Through these principles and this settlement, Waikato-Tainui and the Crown aim to enter a new era of co-management of the Waikato River at the highest level....."

There is the "co-management" word.

Environment Waikato is a critical player in all this. Tainui have long been angry at the declining health of the Waikato River. And fair enough too. The dairy industry in particular, and twenty or so municipal sewage discharges, have degraded water quality and affected the health of important food sources such as tuna (eel), koura and water cress.

Environment Waikato has been slow to respond, but it's hard when the dairy industry is so important to New Zealand's economy, and so powerful. Both Tainui and Environment Waikato have been frustrated, and have advocated action by Government.

A little further into the 2007 Settlement we find: "It has been agreed that there will be a financial package from the Crown to provide for cultural and economic loss, implementation and clean up funding, and funding for cultural, educational, economic, social and heritage initiatives for Waikato-Tainui...."

That would be expected. Some sort of financial package. But there is another matter which appears to relate to the actual use of Waikato River water. Disposition: "The intention of settlement has been revised to include disposition. The focus remains the same which is to prevent the further disposition of the river, and to outline the differing viewpoints that
both Waikato-Tainui and Crown have in regard to the issue of ownership. The focus is still about management of the river, but protects Waikato-Tainui’s position on ownership should it become relevant in the future...."

Should ownership become relevant in future.

I think ownership has suddenly become relevant. Government has come up with a win-win-win scenario with the Southern boundary change. It gives something significant to Tainui - through its relationship with Environment Waikato - and thereby keeps the Maori Party happy. And it hasn't had to enforce anything unpopular with the dairy industry. Fantastic.

And the losers are...? Auckland and the Waikato River.

The Hunuas drain into the Waikato River. But they would be the cleanest and least dairy polluted tributaries of that huge river. Hardly a target for a Tainui clean-up. No. I think this has much more to do with ownership, control and financial settlement.

I think this because Auckland will lose control of more than 50% of its water supply. The pristine protected catchments of its Hunua mountain water supply, and the dams, will be transferred into a co-management deal between Environment Waikato and Tainui. Tainui will be in the position to clip the ticket on every litre of water that flows to Auckland from catchments it will then have under its co-management control. It amounts to privatisation of Auckland water.

The ripples from this dirty little deal are already spreading and infecting Maori relations and partnerships in other parts of Auckland. Because that is what happens when one iwi gets too many muskets.

Pakeha clamp down on other iwi.

The Queens Wharf development is an example. Publicly agreed design criteria call for "Pacific Culture" to be showcased there. That would open the door to some ideas from Ngati Whatua, or other Maori thinking in Auckland. But can you find any of that in the winning designs? Not! Auckland will be the poorer without the enrichment that will result from creative involvement and inclusion of Maori ideas and imagery in its waterfront places and spaces.

Maori are being excluded from the Auckland's waterfront. It's called utu. Regional Revenge.

Ripples from Government's proposed Southern Boundary deal with the Maori Party will spread far and wide throughout New Zealand. And they will make waves for a very long time, because Maori and Pakeha both have very long memories for this sort of thing.

You won't solve grievances by creating other grievances.

Tainui - Not Auckland's most reliable water mate...

It was very good to see Government pull back from putting most of Rodney District under control of the very lax and coastline careless Kaipara District Council. Lockwood Smith got a real roasting at a public meeting in Matakana. Completely misjudged what the locals were interested in.

He assumed they'd want coastal development enabled; that they'd support a new motorway through there; and that they'd like the red tape in the way of more development done away with. How wrong he was. You'd think he'd know about NIMBY. Sometimes that conservative force can be a force for good. In this case. It was.

So what about the Southern Boundary? At the moment there is some confusion around why Government would really want to carve up the Hunua Regional Park, and take that, plus two of Auckland's biggest water supply dams, and pass control of the lot to Environment Waikato. At the moment there's no change to that plan.

What's it all about?

Well. There's a lot on information about this floating around. Not all of it makes me happy. Makes me remember a challenging time in my life. When I took on Watercare oevr the Waikato Pipeline. Took them to the Environment Court, with tomato grower John Hamilton. And Tainui. We were all appealing Watercare's resource consent application to take water from the waikato River, treat it, and direct it into Auckland's town supply.

I was worried about a lot of things, but the issue came down to: cryptosporidium in the raw water (from dairy, had found the incidence of cryptosporidiosis in Waikato Region was around 10x what it was in Auckland); other contaminants including organo-chlorines from chemicals routinely put in the water by farming industry etc; and the fact there were about 20+ communiyt waste water schemes all discharging into the Waikato River. John Hamilton was supported by Fed Farmers, they were worried about organochlorines getting into town supply, putting at risk sensitive crops. Tainui had a range of issues, including issues about mixing of waters, and other things. I thought they were in there for the long haul.

Then. I think it was the Sunday before the Environment Court hearing (we are talking 1997 here), I got a phone call that they'd withdrawn their appeal. Found out a few days later that Tainui had been interested in a chunk of land where Watercare was proposing to put its abstraction point (structure at the water intake point). Watercare had made Tainui an offer. An offer of land. Tainui jumped at it, and agreed to withdraw their appeal.

I felt betrayed. 30 pieces of silver was all it took to buy them off.

But I digress. What has all this to do with Auckland losing its dams? Well. A lot actually. For a few years now, Tainui has been progressing a treaty claim in regard to the Waikato River. It seems that Michael Cullen was involved as a Minister, and still is. I understand he's even being paid by Tainui. For his efforts on their behalf.

So now this water deal is getting close to being sorted out. The Maori Party know all about this of course. And, it seems, have done a deal with National, to support the realigned boundary for Auckland SuperCity, provided Tainui get those water assets, as part of its treaty settlement.

You might see the similarity - between what's happening now - and Tainui in 1997.

The upshot seems to be, that most of Auckland's water supply - the Mangatawhiri and Mangatangi dams - will be handed - through Environment Waikato - to Tainui on a plate. Then they'll sell that water to Watercare, for onsale to Aucklanders.

A sort of Tangata Whenua/Tainui water privatisation.

Stinks doesn't it.

The right thing to do would be for Environment Waikato and Government to work with Tainui on joint management of Waikato River and tributaries presently in Waikato. The positive thing about Tainui was its anger over diary water pollution and its desire to cleanup the Waikato. There's nothing dirty about the water that gets into the Waikato from Auckland's water supply catchments....

There is something rotten in the State of Denmark.