Water

Here is a very interesting dilemma for Auckland Council and Len. The growth of Auckland requires infrastructure to service it. Only they have not enough potable water so it means they want more from the Waikato River. But they can’t get more unless other permits are given up and Mighty River Power is fighting for priority over water rights.

Whereas Contact and Mighty River’s interests lie in the upper stretches of the Waikato, Watercare is a bottom-end user. Its appeal against the RPS reflects the reality that its thirst for future water comes a long way down the list, even though municipal water suppliers are accorded priority status.

New applicants have been lined up for some time ahead of Watercare for a share in available Waikato flow, meaning Auckland’s water company will get an assured supply only if a permit holder gives up its consented take, more water becomes available or if the regional council decides not to renew consents when they expire at the usual term of 10 years.  Read more »

First watch this

Now, do you think the water truly flowed backwards?   Is it really possible for sound to become a pump strong enough to overcome gravity?

Rodney Hide writes in the NBR about Maori and their claims to rivers and lakes and waterways:

[L]et me introduce Hastings businessman Mike Butler.

He blogs for our interest at BreakingViewsNZ.

He recently explained that the deed detailing the sale and purchase of the Upper Waikato land on September 15, 1864, included the waters, rivers, lakes, and streams.

The deeds themselves were compiled by New Plymouth missionary Henry Hansen Turton, who was involved in numerous land transactions.

They were provided by veteran treaty researcher Ross Baker and are available on a Victoria University of Wellington website. I checked them for myself. It’s true.

The particular sale included the land as described, “with its trees, minerals, waters, rivers, lakes, streams and all appertaining to the said Land or beneath the surface of the said Land”.

That’s right.

The canny officers of the Crown made sure that the purchase included the rivers, lakes, streams and aquifers.

Mr Butler says the clause runs through the various deeds he has looked at.

Here is one of the Deeds:

Radio Live have just tweeted:

BREAKING: The High Court rules in favour of the Crown over water rights/asset sales case taken by the Maori Council

— RadioLIVE Newsroom (@LIVENewsDesk) December 11, 2012

Good stuff.

Tony Ryall and Bill English have said in their Press Release:

Finance Minister Bill English and State Owned Enterprises Minister Tony Ryall today welcomed the High Court decision in favour of the Crown following last month’s High Court action regarding the sale of shares in Mighty River Power.

“The High Court decision confirms the Government can proceed to sell up to 49 per cent of shares in four state owned energy companies, in accordance with the legislation passed by Parliament earlier this year,” Mr English says.

“The Government is firmly of the view that the partial sale of shares does not in any way affect the Crown’s ability to recognise rights and interests in water, or to provide redress for genuine Treaty claims.”

UPDATE:

The Maori Council says it is now working on an appeal.

— Jessica Mutch TVNZ (@MutchJessica) December 11, 2012

Deep pockets. For the lawyer troughers.

Look at this crap from the Herald about a hunter who got lost in the Urewera Ranges:

Having been faced with the prospect of drinking his own urine to stay alive, a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs never tasted so good for Desmond Kuik.

The 42-year-old hunter was rescued yesterday afternoon having spending three freezing nights lost in the dense bush of Urewera National Park in the central North Island.

The Herald has an editorial that goes on about how we can’t swim in our rivers because farmers are polluting the hell out of them.

It is appalling that so many of our rivers are not clean enough for swimming. The Ministry of the Environment has found the water quality at more than half the recreational spots it monitors to be poor or very poor. A further 28 per cent were fair, which carried a risk of illness for anyone swimming there.

The Herald has got it right. Farmers will have to bear the cost of making water fit for our kids to swim in. They are the ones polluting the water, and they are the ones who should stop the pollution and pay for the clean up, not the rest of us.

Farmers moaning is just what we expect, so we can expect a concerted moan about how farmers won’t be profitable if they aren’t allowed to keep getting free water and keep polluting our water ways. They should be told firmly to piss off, because we are not a socialist country and we don’t believe in subsidies.

Polluting our waterways is just a form of subsidy for a pack of bludgers. Letting them have a public good, water, free of charge, to make a private profit, is another form of bludging.

Farmers should stop bludging and New Zealand should stop propping up bludging businesses that can’t sustain themselves if they are forced to pay the true costs of doing business. And Farmers also should stop moaning because you are about as sanctimonious as the Greens.

Bob Jones is a national treasure. His column yesterday in the Herald was a ripper:

So, the comical Ngaruawahia ex-truck driver who can’t speak Maori and struggles with English but calls himself King of Maoridom despite his realm ending at his letterbox has declared Maori own the rain. That’s excellent news. I assume His Majesty will accept liability for inflicting millions of dollars of flood damage annually through Maori rain supply mismanagement. He can ponder that when sitting on the only throne he’ll ever occupy, namely in his lavatory.

Pulling the royal pretender’s strings is his court jester, Underpants Morgan, a man evidently of Welsh ancestry and probably a direct descendent of Cardiff-born Henry Morgan of piracy notoriety. But that was the 17th century. Try this owning-everything-by-right racket in the valleys today, boyo, and you will discover your Welsh kin are not big on humour.

Another blowhard claimed Maori own the wind. He has a point, given the amount they generate at these hooey babblefests.

But be assured, soul-selling barristers, driven by their wallets, will shamelessly go to bat for them, twisting and turning the meanings of an anachronistic 170-year-old vague treaty.

Don’t hold back Bob. Really tell us what you think.

Let’s cut to the quick. Despite the euphemistic deceit about “resources” and the “Crown”, what these parasites seek is for hard-struggling Kiwi workers to give them money without them having to work for it. It’s that simple. They’re a disgrace, not only to Maori but to the human race.

John Key should call an early election on this “who owns the rain, wind, air and everything else” issue and National would receive a massive majority. The dilemma facing Labour is tricky. David Shearer is a sensible man, as are most of his parliamentary colleagues who would all deplore this despicable attempt at bludging off taxpayers. But what to do – vote with the Government, abstain, or vote against?

Labour should firmly state their support for clarification legislation otherwise they’ll wave goodbye to their blue-collar voters who will be up in arms over this we’re-entitled-to-live-off-you-all claptrap.

He echos my stand-over theme too.

It’s all reminiscent of 1951 when the waterfront gangsters held the country to ransom, deplored then even by the Federation of Labour. Prime Minister Holland went to the country with the winning election question of “who runs the country?” Labour was doomed after their leader, Walter Nash, weakly stated he was “neither for nor against”. That fence-sitting contributed to National ruling the roost for 27 of the next 33 years.

He is disdainful of the Greens.

The Greens face a similar position. Some of them would assert that Maori should receive free breakfast in bed and cars, both clearly promised in the Treaty as the Waitangi Tribunal would undoubtedly confirm. But should they side against the public anger on this issue, they would be decimated in a snap election.

Sigh…that would indeed be bliss. Perhaps it is time for that election.

Maori are suggesting they will boycott consultation and say that there is little point in attending. I’d go further and suggest there is little point in negotiating with economic terrorists and brown-mailers.

The chairman for a hapu behind the Maori Council’s Waitangi Tribunal claim on water says he sees little point in the Government’s hui with Maori, which begin today in Hamilton.

Pouakani chairman Tamati Cairns say his hapu had been invited and members would be attending today’s hui.

Pouakani this year succeded with their Supreme Court challenge to the Crown’s assertion of ownership of the Waikato River near Mangakino where Mighty River has a series of dams.

Pouakani, which has said it is prepared to go to the High Court to halt the Mighty River sale if necessary, was still working through the issues associated with its Supreme Court victory. That meant the narrow focus of today’s hui meant in would be of little use to the hapu.

Thankfully John Key isn’t fazed. Nor should he be. It just plays into his hands because when the Government fronts up to court and tells them that he tried to consult but they refused to attend it will be a bonus point to the government case.

The proverbial Rubicon has been crossed with Maori attitude to water and then to wind. The goodwill of most New Zealanders evaporated almost overnight. National needs now to take a strong stance otherwise shameless political charlatans like Winston Peters will fill the void.

As I blogged earlier it is now us or them, Maori have declared war on the government and all of New Zealand. Now the truck driver’s spokesman has delcared that john Key is “culturally ignorant”. At least that is an improvement on “white motherf*cker”

Rhetoric around Maori water claims stepped up yesterday with leading Kingitanga spokesman Tuku Morgan calling Prime Minister John Key “culturally ignorant”.

It was his response to Mr Key having rejected as “plain wrong” King Tuheitia’s proclamation at a 1000-strong water hui last Thursday that Maori had “always owned the water”.

The Government will tomorrow begin its series of consultation hui over the Waitangi Tribunal’s “shares plus” concept – a way to give Maori a stake in state-owned energy companies the Government plans to float.

The first hui is with Tainui tribes in Mr Morgan’s heartland of Hamilton. But the sessions are invitation-only.

Yesterday, on Marae Investigates, Mr Morgan was asked what he thought about Mr Key saying the King was wrong about Maori owning the water. He replied: “That once again says the Prime Minister is culturally ignorant, and that’s unfortunate.”

John Key has come out and pointed out to the illiterate truck driver who masquerades as a King that he is wrong over water:

Prime Minister John Key says King Tuheitia’s claim that Maori have always owned New Zealand’s water is “just plain wrong”.

All the advice the Government has received is that the common-law position that no one owns the water stands, he told the Weekend Herald yesterday.

“I just don’t believe there is anything we are doing that is legally or morally wrong.

“We are following the best advice, and advice we believe is established in law, albeit that the law is embryonic is this area.”

He said there was no reason for Maori water rights issues to delay the sale of Mighty River Power shares.

“It’s a Treaty partner relationship between Maori and the Crown, it’s not an issue between Mighty River Power and Maori.”

Anyone who thought the sale of Mighty River shares and Maori rights were linked would have to believe that Maori could not register their interests and rights in waters used by Contact Energy, a company that had been 100 per cent sold.

“I’ll bet you those iwi don’t agree with that proposition.”

National is consulting with greedy Maori, mostly so that they can claim in the ensuing court case that they did everything they could to discuss these issues.

This is, I believe, a flawed plan.

National are banking on a win in court. I wouldn’t be so sure of that. The courts are stacked with activists Judges and the Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias is a flunky of the previous government who I understand likes to conduct her own judicial activism by way of her husband and their not inconsequential funds which find their way from time to time into the hands of various political parties of the left.

Entering court is fraught with danger for the government.

I think what we are going to eventually see is a necessary legislative change but not before we see an election, possibly and early one, fought over this issue that will be divisive politically but should deliver a stable government with a mandate that cannot be questioned.

A tipping point has been reached. By and large most Kiwis are fair minded and believe that there were serious Maori grievances, some, precious few remain. However the goodwill has evaporated with a resurgant and apparently rapacious and emboldened Maori seeking to grab even more.

So far Treaty settlements have poured more than $1,780,000,000 into Maori coffers and still they want more. Successive governments have acted in good faith and with genuine goodwill. I believe that has now come to an end.

As Matthew Hooton points out in his column in the NBR, this isn’t going to end anytime soon:

Be aware, this thesis is backed by a newspaper column’s worth of research.  With a few million dollars of legal aid, Russell McVeagh, Chapman Tripp, Bell Gully, Buddle Findlay or Donna Hall will be able to construct a far more powerful argument designed to ultimately be accepted by a majority of the Supreme Court.

Appeasement never worked for Neville Chamberlain and now it appears that it hasn’t worked for the New Zealand population. Difficult times are ahead.