"How did Pākehā get to the table to discuss our water rights?"

If we were playing Jeopardy, the answer is Māori, and the winning question is, who owns the water?

What is bizarre to me is that people who have stolen an asset are now having a debate about the rights over it. We reject co-governance because we want to have the appropriate conversation about the elephant in the room, how did Pākeha get to the table on a 100 percent Māori-owned asset?

During the 2020 election I asked our political arena, “Who owns the water?”. Labour and the Greens said no one owns it while National and Act said we all own it. Well, how did we all get to own it and why aren’t Māori at the table? And if no one owns the water, who gave you permission to tell us what to do with it?

The Māori version of article 2 in the Treaty of Waitangi uses the word 'rangatiratanga' in promising to uphold the authority that tribes had always had over their lands and taonga. This choice of wording emphasises status and authority.

In the English text, the Queen guaranteed to Māori the undisturbed possession of their properties, including their lands, forests, and fisheries, for as long as they wished to retain them. Over the decades there has been a complete and blatant 180 on this without involving Māori at all.

In 1991 the Resource Management Act gave the government the right to assign water. The Crown knew they never had a right to the water and while they worked that out, they created an allocation model allowing certain rights over water, but it came with a deadline. Clearly they knew they were overstepping hence the time constraints.
So how did we end up getting to the point where we have been invited to have a seat at their table when it comes to the decisions made about our drinking, storm and waste water across Aotearoa?

We are blessed with more than 70 river systems, alongside thousands of streams which run to over 450,000 kilometres. There are 3,820 lakes of at least one hectare or more in size, plus countless outstanding aquifers.
As of February 2023, New Zealand ranked tenth out of 30 OECD countries for the size of our renewable fresh water resources on a per capita basis. Three years ago we were number four. Our ability to manage our abundance of water is our biggest downfall. Only five percent of our rainfall is used compared to other OECD countries who recycle up to 50 percent of rain. Water storage is one way to mitigate climate change.

The distribution model for the conversation over water was delegated without authority, without ownership, to all these local body warlords disguised as Mayors. And just because they normalise a confiscation over an asset they don’t own, doesn’t mean it’s correct. There was and still is, a belief that what is happening is right. So if you live with an injustice long enough, it comes just in your mind as you’ve normalised an abnormal take on an issue like water and who owns it.

We’ve gone from calling it Three Waters to Affordable Water Reforms which is just changing the colour of the lipstick on the pig and distracting us from the real issue, how did Pākeha get control of a Māori-owned asset? Quite plainly this is white entitlement, privilege and supremacy being the breath taking nature of a discussion excluding the actual indigenous owners of water in 2023 Aotearoa and it must be contested.

I can already sense that certain mouths have become dry as they get ready to unleash their tirade of a response which I welcome. But first, enjoy a glass of water, it’s on us.