No tears from ‘poster child’ for vitriol
Cabinet minister Nanaia Mahuta says she was happy to step aside from the local government portfolio after becoming the ‘‘poster child’’ for negativity over Three Waters reforms.
‘‘I recognised, especially in the last two years with the amount of vitriol I had been receiving – which became about me and not about the issue – that it was a hot stone of discontent for small parts of the community,’’ Mahuta said in an interview yesterday.
Mahuta, the foreign affairs minister, was effectively demoted in Cabinet on Tuesday by the new Prime Minister, Chris Hipkins, in a reshuffle of his ministers.
Mahuta had been the local government minister since 2017, and in recent years pushed through an array of reform – the most controversial the Three Waters legislation.
The Three Waters reforms, which will take the management of drinking, waste and storm water systems from councils and create four regional water entities, has become a lightning rod for anti-Government sentiment and concern over ‘‘co-governance’’ relationships between the Crown and Mā ori.
Mahuta herself had become the focal point of this criticism, and of conspiracy about the reforms.
She also appeared to be a driving force behind a clause in a Three Waters bill that legal experts decried as constitutionally ‘‘dangerous’’, and Labour hastily legislated its way out of amid controversy in December.
In a widely expected move, Hipkins on Tuesday removed Mahuta from the local government portfolio and handed it to Kieran McAnulty.
Mahuta was also dropped from the Cabinet front bench.
‘‘I reflected to the prime minister: ‘It’s a privilege to serve in our government, and I’m happy to do the things where I can make the most difference’,’’ she said, of her conversation with Hipkins.
‘‘That means, if I become the poster child for a negative reaction to Three Waters, I’m happy to ensure that it progresses; to step aside.’’
Asked about her experience, and recent discussion of the abuse faced by former prime minister Jacinda Ardern, Mahuta said misogyny could not be tolerated ‘‘from any quarter’’.