‘Dangerous’ Three Waters clause for further talks
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the Government will go to Parliament’s business committee to discuss its controversial clause in a Three Waters bill, deemed ‘‘dangerous’’ by constitutional law experts.
Labour and Green MPS voted through a new clause into the Water Services Entities bill in a late-stage of its progress through the House, aimed at guaranteeing public ownership of water infrastructure.
But the tweak to the prospective law caused outcry as it sought to ‘‘entrench’’ public ownership by mandating any future law change to require a 60% majority in Parliament, or a public referendum. Such a super majority requirement has traditionally been reserved for constitutional matters in the Electoral Act.
‘‘We agree we do need to be cautious about the principle of entrenchment. Our plan is to go back to the business committee, discuss where entrenchment is used more broadly, and look to resolve the issue,’’ Ardern said yesterday.
Parliament’s business committee is a group of MPS from each political party, headed by Speaker Adrian Rurawhe, which determines how Parliament and its processes are run.
‘‘Understandably there have been those with a constitutional law background who have raised principle concerns around where entrenchment is used,’’ Ardern said.
‘‘We still stand firm against the privatisation of water assets, and I’d ask the other political parties be clear on their view on that issue.’’
The Government had asked National to support entrenchment of public ownership by way of a 75% majority threshold months ago, but while National said it had no plans to sell off water assets it declined the offer.
The 60% threshold was put forward by the Green Party as a supplementary order paper on Wednesday and, with the support of Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta, was voted for by Labour.
Without the support of other parties a 75% threshold could not
be set, as Parliament’s rules only allow majority requirements to be set at the same level of support for them in Parliament.
Ardern said there was ‘‘nothing procedurally different’’ about how the order paper was put forward, and the ‘‘novel’’ threshold was ‘‘not something I would necessarily be aware of’’.
‘‘To be fair, the principle of entrenchment has generally attracted a 75% threshold. Everyone in Labour was very aware of that. What would have been happening in real time as you had both an entrenchment position but a different threshold.’’
A group of eight constitutional legal experts had, at the weekend, written an open letter urging the Government to reconsider the ‘‘dangerous precedent’’ the entrenchment may create.
Dr Dean Knight, a leading constitutional law expert at Victoria University who signed the letter, said the entrenchment posed a ‘‘real danger’’ of compromising existing entrenchments for constitutional matters, and allowing more laws to be similarly entrenched in the future, without the support of all of Parliament.
‘‘The real danger is it opens up possibilities of entrenchment on other matters. It’s not beyond imagination that a National-act Government may in the future decide to entrench a three strikes law on the basis that being safe is important policy.
‘‘We start this set of shenanigans about using it for those types of policy matters that don’t have that widespread support. We get the sort of game playing which is unlikely to end well.’’
‘‘We agree we do need to be cautious about the principle of entrenchment.’’ Jacinda Ardern