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Taxpayer Update: Three Waters Game Playing 💦 | National's U-Turns 💸 | Logo Competition Winner 🎨
It's been another eventful week in Wellington with U-turns from National and constitutional game-playing from Labour and the Greens.
But before we get to that – the team are off to Hamilton on Monday for our Hamilton West by-election debate jointly hosted by the Taxpayers' Union and our friends at The Working Group podcast.
Also in this edition – we're hiring! If you, or someone you know, would be a good fit to join us at the Taxpayers' Union, keep reading.
Hamilton West By-Election Debate 🗳️
If you are in Hamilton, come along to SkyCity Hamilton (346 Victoria Street) and put your questions to the candidates this coming Monday, 5 December at 7pm. You can RSVP here.
Entrenchment a new low for Three Waters: Labour/Greens try to change the rules of the game 💦
Just when we thought things couldn’t get any worse with Three Waters, Green Party MP Eugenie Sage tabled a surprise Supplementary Order Paper. Her proposal would mean that the parts of the bill relating to the ownership and control of water services and significant assets could only be repealed by 60 percent of MPs or a referendum.
The concept is known as entrenchment and such provisions are seldom used here in New Zealand. In fact, there are only six instances of its use and all relate to electoral matters, such as elections every three years, and the voting age for general elections. Essentially, entrenchment is reserved for laws on the democratic process where it would be unfair for one side to change the rules of the game with a simple majority.
But the Greens – supported by the votes of Labour MPs – are trying to tie the hands of future governments. They argue this is necessary to stop the privatisation of water assets, but what this will actually do is make it more difficult for a future government to break up the four super water entities created under the reforms and pass water assets back to councils.
Exposing the Government's nefarious tactics ☠️
It’s fair to say that the response to this move has been overwhelmingly negative and it has been condemned across the political spectrum.
It doesn’t matter whether you agree with Three Waters – or even privatisation of public assets for that matter – it’s about whether your vote in an election can actually change policy when you elect a new Government.
PM distances herself but hasn't fully backed down 🤫
Seeing the justified backlash, the Prime Minister and Labour are trying to distance themselves from the proposal. In a standard response to our supporters, Labour MPs stress that the ‘…suggested amendment to the main legislation [was] put forward by Green MP Eugenie Sage, not Labour’ and that they only voted for the amendment because they were ‘…concern[ed] to prevent privatisation’.
Rather than simply withdraw Labour’s support – which would kill it stone dead – the Prime Minister has kicked the issue to Parliament's Business Committee to 'consider the principles of entrenchment more generally'. That's political speak for 'we're not sure yet whether we can get away with this'.
The Business Committee meets on Tuesday – so on the same day, we'll be publishing full page ads in major newspapers to ensure the Labour MPs (who hold the majority on the Committee) make the right decision...
U-turn if you want to: Where do National stand on tax? 💸
The National Party need to understand they won't win next year by trying to be Labour or by not putting up a better vision for New Zealand.
Take for example their stance on their tax policy. Over the past year they have flip-flopped time and again on whether to adopt or scrap indexation as their policy. Now they have dropped their policy of abolishing the 39 percent top rate of income tax.
In an opinion piece for the NZ Herald, Jordan picks apart the opposition’s indecision.
On what should have been a day squarely focused on Grant Robertson’s fiscal mismanagement, the dramatic expansion of government spending, and resulting high inflation, there was instead an awful lot of talk about what seemed to be yet another U-turn by the Leader of the Opposition.
It’s becoming harder and harder to keep up with National’s tax policy.
[...] Where is the ambition for New Zealand? We already know that the doctors, engineers, IT professionals and others that New Zealand desperately needs to attract are picking Australia because of higher take-home pay. One of the few areas we can be competitive is in tax rates. This isn’t “trickle-down” – it is the harsh reality that New Zealand cannot compete for the world’s knowledge workers with beautiful landscapes alone. Continue reading on the NZ Herald (requires subscription).
Maybe the National Party don’t quite get it, but the Key family is staying on message!
Shock result in TVNZ/RNZ Logo Poll 🎨🤯
Following the news that the Government is spending $3 million to develop new branding for their proposed Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media super entity, we launched our competition to design a logo at a fraction of the cost.
And we can now reveal the results.
The top-placed design on first preferences was the (surely, tongue-in-cheek?) 'Ministry of Truth' logo featuring Broadcasting Minister, Willie Jackson.
But in a shock — under the Single Transferable Voting rules (details of the voting and preferences on our website here), which all local councils will be moving to if the Government's "Future of Local Government" proposals go through — the 'winner' is actually the logo that came second. After all the preferences were allocated, the Green Ferns design by supporter Andy Dunn takes home the $300 prize. Congratulations to Andy! Just goes to show what STV can do...
This was really a bit of fun, but it was to make a serious point. The TVNZ/RNZ merger will cost the taxpayer millions while undermining the range of different voices in New Zealand broadcasting. We need more diversity of opinion in our media—not less.
Taxpayer Talk with Peter Williams: Author Alan Duff 🎙️
In this edition of Taxpayer Talk, Peter Williams’s guest is author Alan Duff, the creator of the hugely successful and influential book and movie Once Were Warriors and the founder of the Duffy Books in Homes programme.
Duff's best known book and the movie came out around thirty years ago and shocked middle class New Zealand who hadn’t seen the less privileged represented in such a way. Yet three decades on has the situation around domestic violence, alcoholism and welfare dependency improved? Most statistics point to no, but why has the country not taken responsibility for fixing such social ills when the issue has been in front of us for so long? Duff is a passionate believer in education as a pathway from poverty but expresses his frustration that this pathway is just not travelled enough.
Listen to the episode | Apple | Spotify | Google Podcasts | iHeart Radio
We're hiring: Come and work at the Taxpayers' Union 🧑💼
Have you ever fancied working in the thick of Wellington bureaucracy but on the side of virtue? Does fighting for lower taxes, less waste and more transparency sound like you? Or do you know someone who is politically minded and looking to take the first step in their career. We are currently looking to recruit as we build our team in Wellington for the forthcoming election year:
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Grassroots and Communications Co-ordinator (Full Time): This is a hands-on role liaising with our tens of thousands of volunteers, supporters, and financial supporters who make our work possible. You’ll respond to email queries, load and monitor social media posts, coordinate petitions and support our communications and campaigns team. You'll also be organizing and attending our public meetings, road shows, and A&P type-events to build our community engagement activities.
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Graduate Researcher (Full Time): You'll work with our Economist and researchers on research policy projects to support our work, including preparing briefing papers, parliamentary submissions, conducting literature reviews and drafting media release and blog posts. Your research will help to provide the substance to back our campaigns that drive improvements to public policy.
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Admin Support (Part Time): This is a varied role supporting the team dealing with membership queries and correspondence, database management, and fulfilling merchandise sales. You should be communicative, organised and computer literate with a firm grasp of Word and Excel. You won’t mind doing whatever is needed; you’re just keen to get stuck in and support others to make a difference.
You can find the full job adverts by clicking on the job titles above. Feel free to share this e-mail with anyone you think might be interested.
Thank you for your support.
Yours aye,
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Media coverage:
RNZ The Panel with Dr Ella Henry and Phil Taylor (Part 1)
Stuff Which parties would a voting age lowered to 16 likely favour in Parliament?
Stuff Wayne Brown could become Auckland's first $5 million mayor
SunLive Council to borrow $2M to replace water pipes
NZ Herald Jordan Williams: Christopher Luxon wrong to U-turn on tax policy
Democracy Project Josh Van Veen: Wayne Brown’s first month
Newstalk ZB The Huddle: Police pursuit policy reform and the state of the retirement age
Tackling the culture of dishonesty in Wellington re three waters (update to Three Waters campaign supporers)
The following is our update to supporters who have lodged their objection to the Government's Three Waters - either through the official Stop Three Waters petition, or submission tool:
Subject: Tackling the culture of dishonesty in Wellington re three waters
Dear Friend,
Thank you again for supporting the fight against Nanaia Mahuta’s Three Waters proposals. Further to Peter Williams’ (no relation!) note last week, I’m emailing to ask for your feedback on a matter we have been thinking about for some time. This email is longer than usual, but we think you'll agree it needs to be for what we're considering.
First though, in case you missed it, our formal submission to the Select Committee on the Three Waters "Water Entities Bill" is here. This emaiL concerns the legal opinion appended to that submission – you may have heard our lawyer interviewed this morning on "Today FM", and the media release summarising the opinion is copied at the end of this email.
Background
Since David Farrar and I co-founded the Taxpayers’ Union in 2013, we have noticed growing public sector tolerance of dishonesty. There has always been some expectation of manipulation and ‘spin’ in the media. But we could expect Ministerial advisers and contracted professionals to maintain their own standards. At the least, they would stay silent when Ministers were being “political”. Now it seems agencies and public servants feel compelled to collude in lying.
In the context of the Three Waters campaign, we’ve seen an unprofessional approach in the way people who ought to know better perpetrated and repeated some Minister’s claims about Three Waters. We have long been worried that they’ve seemed untrue (or at the very least, calculated to be misleading). Take two examples:
- the lie that councils will continue to “own” the assets under Three Waters; and
- the way councils were consulted in relation to the Three Waters (being asked to participate in the Government’s consultation by officials from the Department of Internal Affairs when those very officials would have been involved in the process preparing Nanaia Mahuta’s Cabinet Paper which had already been through Cabinet and covering the very same matters DIA was asking for feedback on!)
Why is there more tolerance for dishonesty and unprofessional conduct in our public bodies?
Public service professional standards of honesty and integrity have traditionally relied on the State Services Commissioner (now the "Public Service Commissioner") to maintain. We fear, however, that the Public Services Commission has deteriorated just as much as the public sector agencies it is set up to monitor. We have not seen it effectively disciplining agencies which have been dishonest or used public money for political advertising campaigns (NZTA, for example).
So in that context I asked lawyers Brigitte Morten and Stephen Franks for an opinion on Minister Mahuta’s false claims about Three Waters reforms.
We wanted a strict legal opinion on whether minister Mahuta was in breach of the Fair Trading Act and securities legislation regarding the claims she was making about councils owning “shares” in the Three Waters assets – i.e. would she be a crook if this was the context of a share offer to the public?
The lawyers don't pull punches: Ministers have hoodwinked the public on 'ownership' claims
The opinion we got back, which has also been peer reviewed by a Queen's Counsel, is probably the most damning legal opinion I have ever read. It concludes that Minister Mahuta's claims regarding ownership have been "calculated to deceive Parliamentarians, and when it becomes law, to deceive New Zealanders generally".
The legal opinion is very detailed, but it is not hard to understand. It calls the claims of retention of local ownership "false, misleading and deceptive" as "councils are expressly denied the rights of possession, control, derivation of benefits, and disposition that are the defining attributes of ownership". Gary Judd QC comments in his review of the legal opinion: "When all the lying statements are put together, as [the] opinion does, the government’s effrontery is breath-taking."
While the opinion says the Minister can’t be prosecuted for criminal wrongdoing because her comments were not made "in trade" it hadn’t occurred to us that those party to Ministers’ false assurance could potentially be liable and held to account.
Most notably they raise the possibility that culpability could reach any professional advisors on the Ministers "Governance Working Group" on three waters governance, and the council's lobby group (that sold out to the Government), Local Government New Zealand.
In my experience, lawyers usually hedge their bets and understate wrongdoing. But that isn’t the case here. The lawyers think there is a clear breach of not only the usual standards of honesty and fair dealing, but of the law. Have a read of the opinion and judge for yourself.
So where to from here?
So we want you feedback. We’ve taken the first step and informed the Commerce Commission (our lawyer's letter is here).
If the Commerce Commission don’t act promptly, should we seek advice on the steps on a private prosecution? That would be a big trigger to pull – it would likely send shockwaves through Wellington (in the best possible way). But how else can we STOP the dishonesty, force the Government (or at least those working for it) to acknowledge that Three Waters is an asset grab – that council’s won’t “own” the assets in any meaningful way?
Most importantly how do we re-establish expectation that public servants’ statements are truthful in the old-fashioned sense – that they will not allow themselves to be misused to deceive, by omission or commission?
For the politicians, the task of keeping them honest rests at the ballot box – but our democracy relies on a professional public service that is truthful and enjoys the confidence of all New Zealanders as straight shooters. That can mean 'free and frank' advice to Ministers, and telling them things they don't want to hear. We cannot let it stand that the bureaucracy are playing politics and joining hands in political and legal deceptions on the public.
So have a read of the opinion, let us know your thoughts, and I will ensure each and every reply is read as we work out where to from here.
Thank you for your support.
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PS. For those of you who have marked the date - the Water Users Group is finally in Court tomorrow! They are there to argue that the official advice provided to and relied upon by Minister Mahuta (the advice that she claims says that Three Waters is necessary for the Crown to comply with the Treaty) should be made available for public security. To my immense frustration the High Court has prohibited those who are funding the cause from sitting in on or listening to the hearing. I am hoping to sit down with one of the two QCs who are arguing that case tomorrow or Friday, and will update all of those who have chipped into that cause just as soon as I have news to give you. You can read the memo from the Court on the reason we cannot watch here, and the latest update from the Water Users' Group here.
MEDIA RELEASE
Legal Opinion: Three Waters Bill “calculated to deceive” – Minister’s professional advisers possibly liable as party to the fraud
Like tens of thousands of New Zealanders, the Taxpayers’ Union submitted to the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee on Three Waters (Water Services Entities Bill). With the Union’s submission was a bombshell legal opinion.
Ministers have repeated assurances that councils will continue to own water assets under the proposed ‘Three Waters’. But those claims are utterly false. Public law firm Franks Ogilvie, in an opinion reviewed by Gary Judd QC, lay out the extent to which these claims have been "calculated to deceive Parliamentarians, and when it becomes law, to deceive New Zealanders generally". The opinion is being released publicly today.
Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director Jordan Williams says, “It is clear the Government realised that they could not convince New Zealanders that handing over ownership of local assets was a good idea. So they’ve instead redefined 'ownership' to mean nothing, so they can promise continued community ‘ownership’ in an incredible display of contempt for the public, the truth and the law.”
The legal opinion is very detailed, but it is not hard to understand. It calls the claims of retention of local ownership “false, misleading and deceptive” as “councils are expressly denied the rights of possession, control, derivation of benefits, and disposition that are the defining attributes of ownership”. Gary Judd QC comments in his review of the legal opinion: “When all the lying statements are put together, as [the] opinion does, the government’s effrontery is breath-taking.”
The legal opinion concludes that despite the obvious dishonesties, ministers are immune to prosecution under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 and the Fair Trading Act 1986 as they are not ‘in trade’.
Mr Williams continues, “But that defence does not apply to people assisting the Ministers in a professional capacity. That would include, for example, members of the Working Group on Three Waters governance that could be held liable as they operated ‘in trade’ as professionals providing a service and could be deemed complicit in making the untrue claims.”
“Additionally, legal experts found that Local Government New Zealand ‘could be found to be acting in trade in its provision of representation and advisory services', so their public statements promoting the lie that councils will ‘own’ water assets under Three Waters, could make them also liable to prosecution.”
The authors of the legal opinion do not mince words in their assessment of the situation stating: “Ministers appear to have cold-bloodedly decided to confuse Councils and ratepayers with false statements.”
Mr Williams says, “Ministers might dodge prosecution because they’re in politics, not ‘trade’, but the lawyers note the expectations in the Cabinet Manual and Standing Orders. They must not mislead the House and they must act to ‘the highest ethical standards'. However, the consequences for our elected members will not come from the courts, but at the ballot box.”
“It is difficult to see how the Government can proceed with such a discredited abuse of legislative process. The huge public opposition to the Bill came without knowing of such damning conclusions from respected legal experts. This is not a careless, technical, or understandable mistake in legislation. It is intentionally deceptive. The lies have been actively promoted by ministers, Working Group members, LGNZ, and various elected and non-elected officials."
“We’ll be seeing if anything effective can be done to restore customary honesty among those drawn into this ministerial cheating. If officials were forced to be complicit, they may need better support against ministerial pressure. We’ll be considering carefully whether authorities who punish and deter calculated dishonesty by business people, can do their job when the cheating comes from the top."
Access legal opinion at www.taxpayers.org.nz/calculated_to_deceive
ENDS
Does this sign look like a road hazard to you?
The New Zealand Transport Authority have targeted a Featherston family with threats of enforcement action over a "Stop Three Waters" banner erected on private property.
Here is a photo of the banner in question:
An email to the family from South Wairarapa District Council says NZTA have "raised concerns about the wording of the sign, specifically the large red STOP that could cause potentially safety issues along the State Highway":
The email finishes:
NZTA might be morons, but Kiwis are not.
The idea that motorists will slam on the brakes when they pass a 'stop three waters' banner is frankly laughable. NZTA need to pull their head in, and stop acting as lapdogs for their political masters trying to suppress New Zealanders' ability to express their views on a radical policy proposal that will result in high water costs and less democracy.
Any action that is taken against any one of our 180,000 subscribed supporters via NZTA relating to one of the Stop Three Waters signs purchased from our website will be defended, by judicial review if we must, by the Taxpayers' Union.
What makes this action particularly offensive is the fact that NZTA has not just a history of trying to suppress speech on the centre right, but actively promotes pro-government messages including on NZTA signage. Throughout 2020 NZTA allowed its digital signage networks to be misused with politically loaded “Be Kind” messages. That's to say nothing of the multi-million dollar ad campaigns they blast into Kiwis' living rooms promoting the Government's 'Road to Zero' policy.
Hundreds of fantastic New Zealanders have erected Stop Three Waters banners in every corner of the country. Is NZTA going to threaten every one of them?
The courts have been very clear that political speech is that which ought to be the most precious from a human rights perspective. If NZTA really wants to have this fight, we say bring it on.
New Zealanders with great roadside locations can purchase a Stop Three Waters banner of their own at www.taxpayers.org.nz/shop.