Peters’ Waikato warning
The Waikato region’s water clean-up plans have come under fire from Winston Peters.
The New Zealand First leader Winston Peters was in Hamilton on Monday as part of his party’s Campaign for the Regions Tour and said the Waikato Regional Council is ‘‘off the rails’’.
‘‘You’re facing a disaster here in the Waikato,’’ Peters said. ‘‘No doubt about it.’’
Grey Power Hamilton held a meeting in the CBD with about 150 people in attendance.
‘‘You’ve got the regional council attacking the very future lifeblood of your city,’’ he said.
‘‘You could burn half of Hamilton down and your hinterland will pay to build it up again but you destroy your farming areas and that’s it.’’
The Paris Accord climate agreement and emissions trading schemes are ‘‘shonky’’ and he said pollution of waterways is worse in the cities than the countryside.
He said council is voting to give water allocation and trading rights to Waikato iwi but ‘‘ordinary Maori’’ - more concerned with housing, education, health and employment are missing out.
‘‘Those four things are what Maori want and that’s the last thing they are getting in this country whilst we’ve got this preoccupation with this university, sociology driven Waitangi industry which is now appearing in the Waikato Regional Council.’’