Emily Writes and Simon Wilson collaboration!!! ❤️❤️❤️
I work in Three Waters and support everything explained here. Managing this Public Health Service and being environmentally responsible AT THE SAME TIME is incredibly complex and hard and new - we’ve always been allowed to degrade the environment till now. We need the single mindedness of water entities without political distractions and elections to deliver this change that will benefit us all.
Hey team thanks for all your comments . This is just to say I will get to them but maybe not today as I’ve been flat out organising a fundraiser for Nurturing Families a community group helping in Tāmaki Makaurau. Super stoked that I straight away had like five performers volunteer to help, mates said they’ll sell raffle tickets and my friend Noods said she’d make a poster. Feels good to be able to help in some way. Hopefully we sell tickets!
Lil Regie waived ticket fees and Meow are as always being amazing. Our amazing mayor Tory Whanau was keen to help too and will speak on the night along with Campbell Barry the mayor of Lower Hutt. I’m hoping to put more performers on the bill and I’m now going to try to find some Wellington businesses to donate things! Let me know if you know anyone who can help - email me at emilywritesnz @ gmail.com
Thank you for this. Really helpful. I’ll use it next time I hear people moan about Three Waters - am convinced 95% have no idea what it’s about or why they are opposing it
Fabulous. Thankyou so much Emily for requesting this piece of writing. Thankyou Simon - now I have the words to make my own fact based argument with whanau who ‘don’t want co- governance ‘
Thanks so much - super clear and helpful. It does make me very wary that the legislation doesn't prevent the possibility of water being sold in the future. I'd like to think our leaders wouldn't be so stupid/greedy but who knows how things will go as the climate emergency progresses.
Jan 31, 2023·edited Jan 31, 2023Liked by Emily Writes
This is great stuff - thanks to you and Simon for the hard work.
If you or he were looking at a followup, though - and with apologies for the length of this - it would be good to look at the further (and more legitimate) reasons for all the distrust and alarmism and what can be done about that. Changing the responsible minister is a bit of an easy and, essentially, superficial change: while there has been a failure of political direction and communication, there's also a lot of important work that either hasn't been done or looks to have been done really, really badly.
The first is that there has been a real failure to explain what is being done and why. For instance, it is pretty bizarre that:
- despite a lot of money being spent, the government's message has been almost incomprehensible - even the term "three waters" comes across as the kind of thing a focus group of less competent public policy specialists might think is just brilliant, but leaves anyone else cold. It may sound silly, but had it just been called public water infrastructure, or something, that would be a start; and
- the rebuttal of the co-governance dog whistling is coming from a former (and National Party) minister, not anyone in the current government. And even he has not really explained what, concretely, co-governance means for - for example - repairing Wellington's pipes and drains.
Second, this hasn't been helped by rushed legislation and so on: the principal legislation was passed under urgency and is currently awaiting 130 (!) pages of amendments. There can be all sorts of reasons for that - over-stretched government departments and so on - but it's difficult to have confidence that the detailed work has been done well or will work in practice.
A third problem is that, like a number of reforms or attempted reforms under this government - for example, public health, especially mental health; the polytech merger; and roading/transport - the most visible part of the reforms, political controversy aside, is the establishment of a depressing number of new public bodies; the appointment of a still more depressing number of highly paid managers; and a lot of expensive external consultants.
There is also - as you and Simon say, and as has happened in these other areas too - effective duplication of existing (and, again, often expensive and, sometimes, good but sometimes incompetent) entities like Watercare.
Again, it's the kind of thing that might seem perfectly reasonable to those involved, but it is -incredibly- wasteful. It also doesn't inspire confidence that anything on the ground will be done any better any time soon: lots of expenditure, yes; more entities and logos and so on, yes; but better wastewater management, for instance, well ...
Last, and as with - for instance - roading infrastructure, there is the private sector side of the problem: one good thing that the reforms do do is to allow borrowing at central government interest rates, but what it doesn't fix is that a lot of the actual work falls to be done by a small number of contractors who are, often, (1) not competitive - the local construction companies are often monopolies; (2) for the same reason, not efficient or quick; and (3) very difficult to direct: look at how little private (or public) sector accountability there is when public infrastructure projects fail outright or in part or go way over budget.
I don't have some magic answer to all this - but some decisive, confident and open political leadership and communication and a real and visible focus on effectiveness and efficiency would be a start.
Thanks Emily and Simon - this really helps. Bernard Hickey has some details about how there's unspoken tax raise and debt limits no Government dares to violate and Three Waters gets around it by getting it off everybody's books.
I see Sour Right commentators on Social Media and writers of letters to the editor now referring to "Five Waters". What's that about? Or do I not want to know?
BAN 3 WATERS - ridiculous, ill informed catch cry of the grumpy, disenfranchised, fearful haters - and I saw this on banners at the horrendous mish-mashed 'freedom' protest last year. It fits on a banner without using too much paint I guess.
It's an easy PILE ON for the vocal minority 'anti' mob to shout.
Thanks for the brilliant EXPLAINER on this policy which attempts to address our vital infrastructure needs.
Next on the list might be co-governance with Chris Finlayson?
Let me know if you want to 'get me started' on freedom camping laws?
Brilliant! Thank you. This deserves to be read by everyone. I'm nervous govt will bow to bad press and drop it, rather than explain and promote - what better time to show how important it is than now with much of the north island deluged.
Thank you so much for this Emily and Simon! This was so helpful to me as I want to be much more informed regarding these key election issues. Very well explained!
Emily Writes and Simon Wilson collaboration!!! ❤️❤️❤️
I work in Three Waters and support everything explained here. Managing this Public Health Service and being environmentally responsible AT THE SAME TIME is incredibly complex and hard and new - we’ve always been allowed to degrade the environment till now. We need the single mindedness of water entities without political distractions and elections to deliver this change that will benefit us all.
Hey team thanks for all your comments . This is just to say I will get to them but maybe not today as I’ve been flat out organising a fundraiser for Nurturing Families a community group helping in Tāmaki Makaurau. Super stoked that I straight away had like five performers volunteer to help, mates said they’ll sell raffle tickets and my friend Noods said she’d make a poster. Feels good to be able to help in some way. Hopefully we sell tickets!
Lil Regie waived ticket fees and Meow are as always being amazing. Our amazing mayor Tory Whanau was keen to help too and will speak on the night along with Campbell Barry the mayor of Lower Hutt. I’m hoping to put more performers on the bill and I’m now going to try to find some Wellington businesses to donate things! Let me know if you know anyone who can help - email me at emilywritesnz @ gmail.com
Oh and buy a ticket! https://love-from-welly-a-fundraiser-for-tamaki-makaurau-whanau.lilregie.com/booking/attendees/new?
Xox
Thank you for this. Really helpful. I’ll use it next time I hear people moan about Three Waters - am convinced 95% have no idea what it’s about or why they are opposing it
Fabulous. Thankyou so much Emily for requesting this piece of writing. Thankyou Simon - now I have the words to make my own fact based argument with whanau who ‘don’t want co- governance ‘
Thanks so much - super clear and helpful. It does make me very wary that the legislation doesn't prevent the possibility of water being sold in the future. I'd like to think our leaders wouldn't be so stupid/greedy but who knows how things will go as the climate emergency progresses.
This is great stuff - thanks to you and Simon for the hard work.
If you or he were looking at a followup, though - and with apologies for the length of this - it would be good to look at the further (and more legitimate) reasons for all the distrust and alarmism and what can be done about that. Changing the responsible minister is a bit of an easy and, essentially, superficial change: while there has been a failure of political direction and communication, there's also a lot of important work that either hasn't been done or looks to have been done really, really badly.
The first is that there has been a real failure to explain what is being done and why. For instance, it is pretty bizarre that:
- despite a lot of money being spent, the government's message has been almost incomprehensible - even the term "three waters" comes across as the kind of thing a focus group of less competent public policy specialists might think is just brilliant, but leaves anyone else cold. It may sound silly, but had it just been called public water infrastructure, or something, that would be a start; and
- the rebuttal of the co-governance dog whistling is coming from a former (and National Party) minister, not anyone in the current government. And even he has not really explained what, concretely, co-governance means for - for example - repairing Wellington's pipes and drains.
Second, this hasn't been helped by rushed legislation and so on: the principal legislation was passed under urgency and is currently awaiting 130 (!) pages of amendments. There can be all sorts of reasons for that - over-stretched government departments and so on - but it's difficult to have confidence that the detailed work has been done well or will work in practice.
A third problem is that, like a number of reforms or attempted reforms under this government - for example, public health, especially mental health; the polytech merger; and roading/transport - the most visible part of the reforms, political controversy aside, is the establishment of a depressing number of new public bodies; the appointment of a still more depressing number of highly paid managers; and a lot of expensive external consultants.
There is also - as you and Simon say, and as has happened in these other areas too - effective duplication of existing (and, again, often expensive and, sometimes, good but sometimes incompetent) entities like Watercare.
Again, it's the kind of thing that might seem perfectly reasonable to those involved, but it is -incredibly- wasteful. It also doesn't inspire confidence that anything on the ground will be done any better any time soon: lots of expenditure, yes; more entities and logos and so on, yes; but better wastewater management, for instance, well ...
Last, and as with - for instance - roading infrastructure, there is the private sector side of the problem: one good thing that the reforms do do is to allow borrowing at central government interest rates, but what it doesn't fix is that a lot of the actual work falls to be done by a small number of contractors who are, often, (1) not competitive - the local construction companies are often monopolies; (2) for the same reason, not efficient or quick; and (3) very difficult to direct: look at how little private (or public) sector accountability there is when public infrastructure projects fail outright or in part or go way over budget.
I don't have some magic answer to all this - but some decisive, confident and open political leadership and communication and a real and visible focus on effectiveness and efficiency would be a start.
Thanks Emily and Simon - this really helps. Bernard Hickey has some details about how there's unspoken tax raise and debt limits no Government dares to violate and Three Waters gets around it by getting it off everybody's books.
I see Sour Right commentators on Social Media and writers of letters to the editor now referring to "Five Waters". What's that about? Or do I not want to know?
Emily, I think it's high time parliament pays you now for full time explainers of all the weird shit that comes out of there!!
Excellent Emily, and thank you Simon, a very good journalist on a right- wing newspaper
BAN 3 WATERS - ridiculous, ill informed catch cry of the grumpy, disenfranchised, fearful haters - and I saw this on banners at the horrendous mish-mashed 'freedom' protest last year. It fits on a banner without using too much paint I guess.
It's an easy PILE ON for the vocal minority 'anti' mob to shout.
Thanks for the brilliant EXPLAINER on this policy which attempts to address our vital infrastructure needs.
Next on the list might be co-governance with Chris Finlayson?
Let me know if you want to 'get me started' on freedom camping laws?
This is a fantastic read!
Brilliant! Thank you. This deserves to be read by everyone. I'm nervous govt will bow to bad press and drop it, rather than explain and promote - what better time to show how important it is than now with much of the north island deluged.
Thank you so much for this Emily and Simon! This was so helpful to me as I want to be much more informed regarding these key election issues. Very well explained!
Thanks for this Emily. I love your approach and can’t wait to see the other parts of this series!
Bloody loved this!!!
Ooophf - this is brilliant, Emily! So many heavy hitting lines!
Thank you.
Let's also do one on farming and animals... ;-)