The Government needs to leave managing the recovery to others, while it gets on with the bigger picture of addressing climate change overall
Opinion: At last – a policy from the National Party! Christopher Luxon's announcement at National's Bluegreens conference of National's policy alternative to Three Waters breaks a lengthy policy drought from the Opposition.
The irony is that it had turned to an old Labour policy to do so. In 2005, the Clark government set up a $100 million fund spread over 10 years to allow small local communities to bring water services up to an agreed water quality standard. That scheme, which I administered as Associate Minister of Health from 2008 worked well.
By the time it expired in 2015 virtually all the affected communities had had their water services upgraded. National’s new policy of retaining assets in local control, establishing a national water standard which local authorities must achieve, and enabling them to borrow to do so, is not too far from Labour’s original scheme.
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After the inquiry into the campylobacter scare in Havelock North in 2016 which drew dramatic attention to the parlous and decaying state of water infrastructure across the country, work began on ways to repair – and fund – this deficit. A contestable fund, from which local authorities could borrow at a concessionary rate to bring infrastructure up to an agreed national quality standard, was one of the options being considered.
However, the new Labour-led government after 2017 decided local authorities could not be relied on to act speedily enough to address their local water crises. Hence the decision to transfer water assets out of their control and into four new water companies. At the same time, Labour saw an opportunity to address other separate and broader issues relating to water management, including the role of iwi, in a single, comprehensive reform. And so, Three Waters, and all the problems it has given rise to, was born.
Today, almost seven years after the Havelock North crisis, we are no further ahead. The water infrastructure crisis is intensifying, especially after the recent extreme weather events, and there is still no clear pathway for funding major, now increasingly overdue, projects. The controversy about Three Waters over the past 18 months has led to policy paralysis. The new Prime Minister’s decision to send aspects of it back to the drawing board for reconsideration compounds that.
In short, the problem occurred because Labour, as has been its wont, tried to do too much, too soon. On the face of it, it was an attractive proposition to attempt to deal with the outstanding issues regarding water services delivery, their ownership and management, in one comprehensive reform. But, as Three Waters has shown, it was an unrealistic ambition, and the delays it has given rise to have aggravated the original problem.
The recovery is a social and community issue, not a political one. If MPs are to be involved then it must be all affected regional MPs, not just those from the government party.
There is a parallel in the health reforms. The move to Health New Zealand last July to replace district health boards made sense, but it has not yet delivered any tangible benefit to patients or health practitioners. Focusing on long-term, future-proofing of the system is all very well but the health services people require right now must take priority.
There is a powerful lesson in all this for the Government as it contemplates the recovery from the carnage wrought by Cyclones Hale and Gabrielle in recent weeks. Just as people in Havelock North wanted a quick return to safe drinking water in 2016, those in Tairāwhiti and Hawkes Bay whose homes, properties, communities, and livelihoods have been destroyed by cyclones want a quick return to some form of normality.
But resolving their immediate situation is separate from the larger and more important questions raised by the rapid onset of climate change. Therefore, the Government’s response needs to be split into two separate parts.
First, managing and progressing all aspects of the immediate recovery should be left to the recently established cyclone recovery taskforce. It must have the necessary statutory authority and financial backing to get on with the job, but otherwise the recovery should be locally led and driven. While reporting to the Minister for Cyclone Recovery, Grant Robertson, and the special Cabinet committee, the taskforce should be operationally autonomous, nimbly able to respond to local needs as they arise.
Having a regional ministerial team linked to it, ostensibly to advise what those local needs are, risks unnecessary meddling and micromanagement from politicians with an eye on the looming general election. The recovery is a social and community issue, not a political one. If MPs are to be involved then it must be all affected regional MPs, not just those from the government party.
Second, the bigger, more important question, for which the Government has proper and direct responsibility, is the future direction of New Zealand’s climate change response in the wake of these events. There is an urgent need to build a fresh, enduring consensus across the political spectrum about our climate change response and how resilience can be built across the community. There needs to be cross-party agreement on the best way to meet long-term infrastructure challenges; the social and economic changes they will require; and securing long-term community engagement and support. Above all, there must be a broad commitment that the strategies agreed on now will not change when governments change.
The Government’s primary role now is facilitating this debate to achieve consensus. That will be harder, and much less headline-grabbing than trying to micromanage the recovery, as seems the preference at present. But it is by far the more important of the two tasks, and the one the Government is best equipped to focus on. It needs to leave managing the recovery to those who know what they are doing, while it gets on with the bigger picture of addressing climate change overall.
This government already has a reputation of creating expectations that it cannot achieve. Inadequate responses now to both the recovery and wider climate change issues will confirm that reputation. It cannot allow cyclone recovery and climate change policies to go the way of Three Waters and the health reforms.
