Water levy row gets Treaty slant

OPINION: Last week, it was the price of cabbages. This week, it’s Treaty rights and the price of race relations.

It’s amazing how the debate sparked by Labour’s move to charge royalties on water has gone from the ridiculous to the constitutionally sublime.

And, on the way, National has pivoted towards Winston Peters’ voters to try and shore up support in the face of the ‘‘Jacinda effect’’.

Since last Thursday, National and its farming allies, as well as Peters, cashed in on Labour’s refusal to put a definite figure on what it would charge farmers for irrigation water.

Into the void were poured some crazy numbers including claims it would push up the price of cabbages to $18, heap billions onto farming costs and even put a cheeky chardonnay out of reach of the average quaffer.

It was all nuts but it flushed Labour out. Spokesman David Parker on Sunday confirmed the royalty would be 2 cents per1000 litres, tops, on irrigation water.

That should have calmed the farm.

With 5 trillion litres of irrigation water allocated across the economy, the total impost would be $100m.

International studies suggest that a litre of milk or wine need about 1000 litres of water to produce. So that would add 2c to the cost of producing every litre of milk and just 1.3c to that bottle of wine.

A cabbage would cost just 0.6c more to produce. And those numbers assume all the water required comes from irrigation – and its worth remembering it does rain in Aotearoa

By Monday, Prime Minister Bill English seemed to accept the royalties would be low. But he and Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson then radically changed tack, saying Labour had blundered into an issue with Treaty implications.

By imposing a water royalty, they have asserted Crown ownership and that opened the way to iwi claim too.

The thrust was all very ‘‘Seabed and Foreshore’’ – though lite – and the Maori Party joined in the attacks on Labour.

English said Labour’s move would undermine years of careful negotiations, that had kept ownership at bay, dealing with the rights and interests of Maori.

Finlayson even raised the prospect of ‘‘full and final’’ Treaty settlements being reopened over water. Parker rubbished both ideas. He said charging a royalty no more asserted ownership than charging tax on petrol or GST on – yes, cabbages – meant the Government owned all fruit and veg.

As far as settlements are concerned, they contained clauses that acknowledged fresh water claims were unresolved.

It seems likely Labour is prepared to consider a ‘‘Waterlords’’ equivalent of the pan-Maori Sealords deal – something English has ruled out.

It all seemed so much simpler when we were only arguing about the price of a cabbage.