Greens see red over bottled water

Water issues were central during the

2017 election campaign, whether it was irrigation on farms or the spectre of overseas companies bottling and selling our water.

Here is Green MP Eugenie Sage in a press release from August 2017. Responding to an application by Chinese company Nongfu Spring to take 580 million litres of water per year from Otakiri Springs in the Bay of Plenty, she says: ‘‘Green Party policy is for an immediate moratorium in water bottling takes and to put an immediate 10c/litre levy on sales or exports of bottled still and sparkling water, to ensure that companies who profit from sales of our cleanest water are paying for that privilege.’’

But how immediate is ‘‘immediate’’? Fast-forward 10 months and Sage, now land information minister, is facing a storm of criticism and anger from Green Party members for her approval of an application by Nongfu Spring’s New Zealand subsidiary to buy

6.2 hectares of sensitive land, including Otakiri Springs, allowing the company to draw a reported

1.1 billion litres of water per year.

A Greek tragedian could not script this better. First, the high-minded idealism, even hubris, of a principled opposition line on foreign companies taking pristine local water. Then, act two: fate conspires to make the same critic approve that which she condemned.

It might be reading too much into it to say that in the August 2017 press release, Sage was depicted smiling happily, but in the Green Party blog announcing the approval, she looked resigned to the ironic realities of politics.

As Sage explains in the blog, she and Associate Finance Minister David Clark were guided by the Overseas Investment Act, which says such purchases must benefit New Zealand. In this case, by providing up to 60 jobs.

In short, the law is the law. Sage’s hands were tied. But that must sound like weasel words to the hundreds of party members who wonder, as in a widely reported comment by Young Greens coleader Max Tweedie, ‘‘what the f... is the point of us being in government and having this portfolio’’ if decisions like this are made.

Green co-leader Marama Davidson’s statement that ‘‘we’re very clear this does not align with Green Party policy’’ is also remarkable. There has been plenty of talk in recent weeks about the credibility of the three-way Government. Much of that talk is overheated, but the chasm between what an idealistic party wants to do and what the same, more realistic party then must do is another body blow for the Greens, who were almost wiped out before the election over similar battles between pragmatists and purists.

For the Greens, political purism is both an asset and a liability. No-one is particularly bothered if National, for example, contradicts itself. Pragmatism is in its DNA. But the Greens put themselves above political cynicism and claim that they are in it for the right reasons.

Will this saga damage the party in the long term? Possibly. If the Greens are unable to drive law changes that prevent similar sales, and add levies to bottled water, they will look ineffectual and naive. Then the likes of Tweedie will be even more justified in asking what the point is.

The chasm between what an idealistic party wants to do and what the same, more realistic party

then must do is another body blow for the Greens.