Yep this is a, not particularly thin, end of a wedge to privatisation of our human rights to necessities of life. Water is a precious taonga and must be protected and preserved as such. Judith Collins and her Oravida husband, among others, already selling our precious wai [in single use plastic!] to China.
Casey Costello, and Taxpayer Union cronies up to their ears in tobacco money. Willis and her father ready to sell us off to fossil fuel industry.
Reti and his family investments in private healthcare will be next axe to fall.
They are immoral and corrupt as their use of Castalia makes clear.
Our collective strength in resistance is all we have to try and hold the line before the next election 😪
Kirsty, immoral and corrupt describes this government perfectly. Watching to see what becomes of the plans for the Whangarei hospital. I'm not holding my breath.
Nope, and nope. Watercare, although not the same, still exhibited the kind of conflict that comes from earning money from selling water for profit and managing the resource. The great Auckland drought was a prime example where they should have kicked in water conservation measures way earlier than they did. The modelling, the data, the forecasts were obvious that months before summer, they were nowhere near capacity in the dams to cope. But they had to SELL water as well as manage the resource. It was clunky and ugly and stupid. Council should have been onto it as well, ffs, we had three years of drought. It was dire. The mayors are an embarrassment - stupid is what stupid does, and they made it political. Now they bleat. Pity they didn't actually think
A problem ultimately solved by co governance with Waikatos Tainui. Irony much. Never seemed to make it into media as an excellent example of co governance working well.
Nick today’s epistle is a sombre warning for Kiwis. Drinkable water in rivers and streams was once our proud boast! How can we stand by and let that be ruined??
Yep, lowering water standards in our environment is another whole issue. It is obscene the way they are going to be redefined with a focus on farm profitability.
Private control of water makes for the plot of a dire dystopian novel. On Public/Private delivery: remember Transmission Gully anyone? Great now we've got it. ...BUT: Years and years, and more years to build it. Government held hostage by the private partner (still is) in its final phase. Government (aka Waka Kotahi) having to take ownership of putting right the poor/unsuitable-for-the-terrain build (ongoing). Yeah right! Let's hand water delivery over. I foresee that going brilliantly, not.
Well said Nick, I don't think that some people who were so against 3 waters realise just how much it going to cost, or how the quality of of our drinking water could be at risk.
I was amused last week, while in Queenstown to see a "Stop three waters" sign still on display - rather ironic given their recent outbreak of cryptosporidiosis cases.
privatise the profit and socialise the losses. i cant remember who said that. Corporate capitalists have had a long time to perfect their processes of convincing the general public that capital should be free to make profit out of anything including the water that comes out of the ground and the air. And pay their executives millions of dollars. Soon we will be approaching the point where the only way to have a liveable society will be to nationalise everything, kick the global corporations out, join the BRICS economic block and wait for the Us to invade us to get their hands on our oil and gas. It is hard to imagine being able to take our collective power back from corporate capital when they have all the bombs.
Thank you Anna. I read an article on much the same topic a year or so back. I cannot remember who wrote itand I do not have the reference, But I was appalledat the fact that London's water was fully privatised and the private owners,had ownership of all of the water in the Thames and it's tributaries. The researcher tracked that ownersphip down to some sort of
multinational investmentcompany based in Australia. Apparently the uk GOVT. had to pass legislation to stop that company from cutting myriads of people off from reciving any water if they got behind with their water payments. I guess Auckland water already do that. I live in Dunedin where water is covered in our rates-not seperately. Sukhi Turner when she was mayor made the investment to upgrade our water.However Dunedin does have a big problrm wirh old pipes, and flooding.
It does, though the specific example of Walkerton is not corporate malfeasance, but rather incompetent municipal staff running a water treatment facility.
Already here Nick. (South Island) Motuekas Water infrastructure System is currently under Local Rahui. Our Estuaries are not Filtering and haven't been for over 10 years & the Membranes are all stuffed. We're only one of the dozens of other systems of this type to be called out for lack of long term maintenance. Queenstown is still on a Boil Water Notice with no end in sight. Rich listers are avoiding Queenstown like the Plague! Bummer Dudes!
Dunedin, Waikouaiti, Palmerston, Oamaru, the entire Coast North & South of Dunedin on the South island is way past "Failed". Same with the East Coast North island Water systems. Just leave it for the next batch of Counselors to solve & forget about it, is what's got us into this mess... We've turned into a Country of Can, Dog & Wife Kickers!
Agree totally with you Nick re privatisation. Didn't Wormald, or someone, run a prison at some stage and this also proved a disaster. Thought the Rogernomics era would have proved that privatisation is all about privatising the profits and socialising the losses. NZ Rail anybody bought back by Govt to save what is still an apology for a transport option.
Privatisation is still the action of choice for Tory governments like the one we have now. They will continue to do it even though it doesn't work for the public because it DOES work for them - the system and infrastructure fall over while they are still getting the profits and bonuses and the government bails them out. They win, and they consider that a success. The fact that the utility provided is substandard, expensive, and on failing infrastructure matters not a jot because they've got their dividend.
Excellent information - thank you Nick. Can the government privatise water management without huge consultation and agreement with manu whenua? It's seems like a total abdication of government responsibility to even consider it, putting the profits of corporations ahead of the wellbeing and rights of our people. Farmers and big business have already wrecked our waterways for profit, and now the government not only wants to allow them to keep polluting, but to put them in charge of the waters to which they have done so much harm. Outrageous.
Thing is it is and always has been the farmers and business men who own the National Party.....so what else do you expect but what we're getting? The real problem is nearly 25% of Labour voters were disaffected and so did not bother to vote in this election....Labour tried to go too woke too quickly, I'm afraid....hate to say it, but there it is.....
I reckon the opposition to 3 Waters was fomented by NatAct and their cronies who used co-governance as the bogeyman to scare racists (both full blown and incipient [right word?]) into voting against Labour.
A big part of the disaffection was also related to a misguided view of their 'loss of freedom' during the Covid response.
And of course, the media contributed massively by fawning over NatAct and Luxon and badmouthing anything Labour did. And considering lots of people don't read past the first paragraph of any article and tv news is about the same depth of analysis and accuracy, people were conned, either willingly or unknowingly.
And the point about Labour going too woke too quickly - doesn't that just mean putting people first? Can that ever be too woke or too quick when people are struggling?
Sorry I was speaking politically.....OK last comment about wokeness first: you cannot force any herd of animals through a gate till you've spent time getting a certain number through. Anybody who has herded any kind of animal knows this.... they tried to go too far too fast.
Second....the media is has been owned since around the post-Liberal 90's, by big busy-ness, so for a long time now.....we are not Dagg's Day good old NewZild anymore, not by a longshot..... and third the opposition to 3 waters is totally run by Nat (Luxon yes-man dweeb) plus Act (Seymour smirking side-kick with an agenda of his own, who knows its coming , just like Roger Douglas, who had the same knowing smirk.) corporation (you get it? CORPORATION, as in OVERSEAS OWNED, EVER SINCE THE JOHN KEY YEARS (ding dong?) dairy-farming interests. No3: Racism? Uh, speaking as a Canadian, been here since 1965, so still from the outside POV,....that's always been there. On the other hand I learned (back in 2000) any Māori youngster that has wanted to go to university has always been able to get a grant....course, I suspect they gotta dance through a few social hoops to do it. Besides, there's whole lot of new entrants, amigo....so the racism call is bordering on being a red-herring, in this gig.....Key opened up the country, comprehend? ....New Zealand has more or less been taken over is my call, and all the middle-class climbers who wanted to buy a couple or seven houses and get rich in a quiet stress-free way who got sucked in by John Key Donkey-dom are to blame.
What about the privatisation of water in the U.K. ? It's a while since I read that story but from memory, at one stage water services in London were owned by a multi-national corporation based in Australia. I will do some research, and check my memory.
"That’s the reality of having corporations provide things that ought to be a public service. They aren’t doing it to help, but they will take away a headache from politicians who find the provision of public services a goal that is not aligned well with their other commitments to voters."
Yep this is a, not particularly thin, end of a wedge to privatisation of our human rights to necessities of life. Water is a precious taonga and must be protected and preserved as such. Judith Collins and her Oravida husband, among others, already selling our precious wai [in single use plastic!] to China.
Casey Costello, and Taxpayer Union cronies up to their ears in tobacco money. Willis and her father ready to sell us off to fossil fuel industry.
Reti and his family investments in private healthcare will be next axe to fall.
They are immoral and corrupt as their use of Castalia makes clear.
Our collective strength in resistance is all we have to try and hold the line before the next election 😪
Kirsty, immoral and corrupt describes this government perfectly. Watching to see what becomes of the plans for the Whangarei hospital. I'm not holding my breath.
Its very worrying.
Nope, and nope. Watercare, although not the same, still exhibited the kind of conflict that comes from earning money from selling water for profit and managing the resource. The great Auckland drought was a prime example where they should have kicked in water conservation measures way earlier than they did. The modelling, the data, the forecasts were obvious that months before summer, they were nowhere near capacity in the dams to cope. But they had to SELL water as well as manage the resource. It was clunky and ugly and stupid. Council should have been onto it as well, ffs, we had three years of drought. It was dire. The mayors are an embarrassment - stupid is what stupid does, and they made it political. Now they bleat. Pity they didn't actually think
A problem ultimately solved by co governance with Waikatos Tainui. Irony much. Never seemed to make it into media as an excellent example of co governance working well.
I agree Lynette!
Almost every day now we hear some more heartbreaking stuff. I can't believe we've ended up with these awful people running (ruining?) the country.
Agreed Alison.
Nick today’s epistle is a sombre warning for Kiwis. Drinkable water in rivers and streams was once our proud boast! How can we stand by and let that be ruined??
Yep, lowering water standards in our environment is another whole issue. It is obscene the way they are going to be redefined with a focus on farm profitability.
Private control of water makes for the plot of a dire dystopian novel. On Public/Private delivery: remember Transmission Gully anyone? Great now we've got it. ...BUT: Years and years, and more years to build it. Government held hostage by the private partner (still is) in its final phase. Government (aka Waka Kotahi) having to take ownership of putting right the poor/unsuitable-for-the-terrain build (ongoing). Yeah right! Let's hand water delivery over. I foresee that going brilliantly, not.
Can’t say we haven’t been warned.
Yep Nick, National ACT all about the money , too bad about the people. Rogernomics all over again.
Well said Nick, I don't think that some people who were so against 3 waters realise just how much it going to cost, or how the quality of of our drinking water could be at risk.
I was amused last week, while in Queenstown to see a "Stop three waters" sign still on display - rather ironic given their recent outbreak of cryptosporidiosis cases.
Was the sign next to the Boil Water Notices???
Not quite, but the thought popped into my mind!
privatise the profit and socialise the losses. i cant remember who said that. Corporate capitalists have had a long time to perfect their processes of convincing the general public that capital should be free to make profit out of anything including the water that comes out of the ground and the air. And pay their executives millions of dollars. Soon we will be approaching the point where the only way to have a liveable society will be to nationalise everything, kick the global corporations out, join the BRICS economic block and wait for the Us to invade us to get their hands on our oil and gas. It is hard to imagine being able to take our collective power back from corporate capital when they have all the bombs.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/30/england-water-is-this-a-fair-system
More than thirty years on this is what privatisation looks like.
Thanks for that, very interesting.
Good spotting Anna!
Thank you Anna. I read an article on much the same topic a year or so back. I cannot remember who wrote itand I do not have the reference, But I was appalledat the fact that London's water was fully privatised and the private owners,had ownership of all of the water in the Thames and it's tributaries. The researcher tracked that ownersphip down to some sort of
multinational investmentcompany based in Australia. Apparently the uk GOVT. had to pass legislation to stop that company from cutting myriads of people off from reciving any water if they got behind with their water payments. I guess Auckland water already do that. I live in Dunedin where water is covered in our rates-not seperately. Sukhi Turner when she was mayor made the investment to upgrade our water.However Dunedin does have a big problrm wirh old pipes, and flooding.
Yes same here in Wellington where leaked water runs in the streets and we’re being asked to conserve.
Sounds just like Michel Moores water issues in Flint Michigan.
Another water disaster was Walkerton ON.
Ontario went for these type of arrangements big time, allowing companies to clip the ticket for decades on basic government services.
It does, though the specific example of Walkerton is not corporate malfeasance, but rather incompetent municipal staff running a water treatment facility.
Not yet, but it could be.
Already here Nick. (South Island) Motuekas Water infrastructure System is currently under Local Rahui. Our Estuaries are not Filtering and haven't been for over 10 years & the Membranes are all stuffed. We're only one of the dozens of other systems of this type to be called out for lack of long term maintenance. Queenstown is still on a Boil Water Notice with no end in sight. Rich listers are avoiding Queenstown like the Plague! Bummer Dudes!
Dunedin, Waikouaiti, Palmerston, Oamaru, the entire Coast North & South of Dunedin on the South island is way past "Failed". Same with the East Coast North island Water systems. Just leave it for the next batch of Counselors to solve & forget about it, is what's got us into this mess... We've turned into a Country of Can, Dog & Wife Kickers!
Agree totally with you Nick re privatisation. Didn't Wormald, or someone, run a prison at some stage and this also proved a disaster. Thought the Rogernomics era would have proved that privatisation is all about privatising the profits and socialising the losses. NZ Rail anybody bought back by Govt to save what is still an apology for a transport option.
Privatisation is still the action of choice for Tory governments like the one we have now. They will continue to do it even though it doesn't work for the public because it DOES work for them - the system and infrastructure fall over while they are still getting the profits and bonuses and the government bails them out. They win, and they consider that a success. The fact that the utility provided is substandard, expensive, and on failing infrastructure matters not a jot because they've got their dividend.
Excellent information - thank you Nick. Can the government privatise water management without huge consultation and agreement with manu whenua? It's seems like a total abdication of government responsibility to even consider it, putting the profits of corporations ahead of the wellbeing and rights of our people. Farmers and big business have already wrecked our waterways for profit, and now the government not only wants to allow them to keep polluting, but to put them in charge of the waters to which they have done so much harm. Outrageous.
Thing is it is and always has been the farmers and business men who own the National Party.....so what else do you expect but what we're getting? The real problem is nearly 25% of Labour voters were disaffected and so did not bother to vote in this election....Labour tried to go too woke too quickly, I'm afraid....hate to say it, but there it is.....
I reckon the opposition to 3 Waters was fomented by NatAct and their cronies who used co-governance as the bogeyman to scare racists (both full blown and incipient [right word?]) into voting against Labour.
A big part of the disaffection was also related to a misguided view of their 'loss of freedom' during the Covid response.
And of course, the media contributed massively by fawning over NatAct and Luxon and badmouthing anything Labour did. And considering lots of people don't read past the first paragraph of any article and tv news is about the same depth of analysis and accuracy, people were conned, either willingly or unknowingly.
And the point about Labour going too woke too quickly - doesn't that just mean putting people first? Can that ever be too woke or too quick when people are struggling?
Sorry I was speaking politically.....OK last comment about wokeness first: you cannot force any herd of animals through a gate till you've spent time getting a certain number through. Anybody who has herded any kind of animal knows this.... they tried to go too far too fast.
Second....the media is has been owned since around the post-Liberal 90's, by big busy-ness, so for a long time now.....we are not Dagg's Day good old NewZild anymore, not by a longshot..... and third the opposition to 3 waters is totally run by Nat (Luxon yes-man dweeb) plus Act (Seymour smirking side-kick with an agenda of his own, who knows its coming , just like Roger Douglas, who had the same knowing smirk.) corporation (you get it? CORPORATION, as in OVERSEAS OWNED, EVER SINCE THE JOHN KEY YEARS (ding dong?) dairy-farming interests. No3: Racism? Uh, speaking as a Canadian, been here since 1965, so still from the outside POV,....that's always been there. On the other hand I learned (back in 2000) any Māori youngster that has wanted to go to university has always been able to get a grant....course, I suspect they gotta dance through a few social hoops to do it. Besides, there's whole lot of new entrants, amigo....so the racism call is bordering on being a red-herring, in this gig.....Key opened up the country, comprehend? ....New Zealand has more or less been taken over is my call, and all the middle-class climbers who wanted to buy a couple or seven houses and get rich in a quiet stress-free way who got sucked in by John Key Donkey-dom are to blame.
What about the privatisation of water in the U.K. ? It's a while since I read that story but from memory, at one stage water services in London were owned by a multi-national corporation based in Australia. I will do some research, and check my memory.
It's an absolute disaster in the UK. Find and read George Monbiot. Scary but truthful.
Shared.
Privatising water, health, schools....whatever will they not privatise?
"That’s the reality of having corporations provide things that ought to be a public service. They aren’t doing it to help, but they will take away a headache from politicians who find the provision of public services a goal that is not aligned well with their other commitments to voters."
This has been recommended on the Standard by ianmac. Excellent explanation Nick.