THREE WATERS

Gordon Campbell should listen a little more closely to National and Act when they say they see no place for co-governance in water management. As always, Campbell is toeing the Labor party line regarding Three Waters and not even considering alternatives.

Three Waters is a massive centralist bureaucracy consisting largely of unelected and unqualified people from 15% of the voters who live in New Zealand but have 50% of the voting rights under the cogovernance Three Waters system. The other 85% of us are precluded from having any say in Three Waters, even if we are eminently qualified to do so.

Campbell has not given much thought to a more simple and practical solution to our water problems. The main reason given for Three Waters is government can raise loans for improving our water systems at a much lower interest rate than the present councils can.

And, although all governments have up to now not spoken of any concern for rising council rates, this is the reason government has suddenly found for inventing Three Waters. Why not simply ask the councils to tell the government each year what the most urgent problems are that need fixing – and provide funds for that?

Gone would be the central control so loved by the socialists; gone would be the massive load of overpaid bureaucrats; gone would be the undemocratic system favoring one racial group over all other groups.

All that would be needed would be a clerk on about $60,000 a year to manage the whole thing after the money had been raised by government and then paid over to local elected councils.

These councils would then be responsible to their local electors, as indeed they should be – unlike Three Waters, where no person is made responsible for their actions and no person can be voted out if they make the inevitable errors that is the ilk of bureaucrats.

Simple and cheap to run and efficient, too.