Water slipping through our fingers

When the wool-scouring plant in Christchurch was sold last May by Cavalier Bremworth Carpets to a Chinese company, the then ruling National Party Environment Minister, Nick Smith, had the following to say: The Government was ‘‘not concerned’’ about the sale, and who the potential buyers could be.

‘‘It is not a particular concern to me when New Zealand only uses 2 per cent of its total water resource . . . I am not concerned about overseas investment in the water industry, any more than I am in the dairy industry, or the apple industry, or the wine industry.’’

Did it ever occur to the him that perhaps New Zealand should be bottling the water and shipping it off to the world and we get the profits?

The set-up costs would have been minimal in comparison with great profit for the country for the very great foreseeable future, and we let that slip through our hands. Gerry Mitt Christchurch Time to stem the flow Bill English, pre election, said that nobody owns the water.

So why is it on supermarket shelves and people have to buy it?

I’m sorry, Bill, but as a New Zealander I am part owner of that water. And the Labour-led Government wants the waterbottling companies to pay more for taking our precious water. Jacinda, you either haven’t listened to what the people want, or you are naive. We don’t want these companies to pay more.

We want you to invoke a bill that prevents ownership of our water to ANY company. These companies are literally laughing all the way to the bank at our expense.

It is time to stop this nonsense now because if clean drinking water straight from the ground becomes scarce in the not-too-distance future because it is being siphoned off, we may be forced to buy what we already own just to survive.

Time to stem the flow, Jacinda. Brian Preddy Casebrook