Three Waters reform stirs up a storm

If poisoned wells and exorbitant rates rises were the bogeys behind the drive for the Three Waters reforms, then privatisation was the troll under the bridge as far as the progressives and left-of-centre parties were concerned. Departed Auckland mayor Phil Goff, a former Labour Party leader, was among the first to sound the alarm in May last year over the possibility of a future government slipping the Super City’s Watercare asset into private hands. “Should that asset be transferred to another body which a subsequent government could then decide to privatise,” he told the Herald, “Auckland ratepayers would lose an asset they have built up without a guarantee of compensation.”

Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta didn’t directly confront the privatisation issue at the time. But she set up a $200 billion package as a “recognition of the financial pressures” on councils. The first portion of $500 million of that became available from July 1 and any unallocated money will be rolled into the next tranche, which becomes available next July 1 when the four publicly owned water service entities would be established.

Now as the councils set about planning to spend the money, it would seem the Government and its allies have turned their attention to the troll.

Green MP Eugenie Sage proposed an amendment to the Three Waters legislation to require future Parliaments to achieve a 60 per cent vote before the new water entities could be privatised. This amendment was added without debate, and without the chance for the public to make submissions on this key part of the law.

A democratic principle holds that Parliament should be permitted to make and change laws when there is a majority of support — over 50 per cent of MPs being the threshold. But this Three Waters decision shifts the goalposts to 60 per cent. A future Parliament is thus bound by the decisions of this one, which legal scholars see as unconstitutional.

On Saturday, the Weekend Herald editorial warned the Government needed to clear up the “murk” around the Water Services Entities Bill after the surprise inclusion of geothermal and coastal waters into its Te Mana o te Wai policy.

The inclusion and ensuing outcry prompted Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to ask those drafting the bill to “make it much clearer”. The editorial warned: “One suspects any more surprises will incense the electorate.”

Yesterday, several constitutional law scholars published an open letter warning that Sage’s amendment placing a 60 per cent threshold on future governments set a “dangerous precedent”.

Constitutional expert Andrew Geddis of Otago University described the “potentially momentous” change for parliamentary governance as “MPs placing handcuffs on tomorrow’s MPs”.

Yesterday, Ardern said the fresh concerns were understandable and she would refer the matter back to Parliament’s business committee.

In tackling a dreamed-up creature lurking in wait for the privatisation chances in the reforms, it seems something even uglier has been conjured up.