Aotearoa Water Action (AWA) continues to push forward with its campaign to protect our human right to clean, abundant and affordable water, and to exercise community and national sovereignty over our most precious of resources.

Belfast

Our High Court hearing seeking to overturn the grant of consents to take and use water from deep aquifers beneath Christchurch was heard on 9 and 10 December (2019). We believe the hearing went well. The legal and planning issues are technical but important. The Court has reserved its decision and we do not know when it is likely to be released. In the meantime, Chinese-owned Cloud Ocean Water Limited continues to take water from its deep bore and to ship it overseas in plastic bottles.

Otakiri Springs

AWA supported local community group Sustainable Otakiri Limited, which submitted in the Environment Court opposing the massive expansion of an existing water bottling operation on rural land near Whakatane. The sale of the land to Chinese-owned Cresswell NZ Limited was brokered by Government agency NZTE, and may well have been part-financed by New Zealand government funding streams. Overseas Investment Office consent was given, and the legal advice as to whether the responsible Ministers were entitled to refuse consent was subsequently withheld from AWA.

The Environment Court has now decided in a majority decision to grant the consents. Commissioner Kernahan, however, issued a dissenting decision, based on the environmental effects of the production of millions of plastic bottles annually, and on the grounds that the activity should have been dealt with as an industrial rather than as a rural processing activity, and thus assessed more restrictively.

Sustainable Otakiri Limited subsequently raised $40,000 by way of public crowd-funding, to enable them to appeal the Environment Court decision. They will be joined in the appeals by Ngati Awa and Ngati Pikiao runanga, which have raised matters of cultural concern, including the loss of their ability to exercise kaitiakitanga in relation to the wai, if the proposal goes ahead. The appeals may be given some urgency, and the proposed expansion cannot take place until they are determined.

Policy

Co-Convenors Niki Gladding and Peter Richardson have recently returned from the National Freshwater Conference held in Wellington. They spoke on the experiences gained from the campaigns they have been involved in, and what they saw as the policy direction in which Wellington should be heading. Regrettably, a number of speakers spoke in favour of market-based models for water allocation; however there also appears to be a general acceptance of a priority "carve out" of water needed for the health of the wai and for basic human needs, with discussion around allocative models for water relegated to the third tier of "surplus" water.

This reflects the concept of Te Mana o te Wai, where absolute priority is given to the mauri and mana of the wai itself, over and above any other consideration. The new Draft National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management incorporates that concept, although it's interpretation, and how it will interface with the black letter of the law will be more important in practice.

AWA remains committed to non-market models and to allocating "surplus" water (after environmental and human needs are provided for, using precautionary principles) in terms of its best and highest use, as determined by legitimate community expectations and needs. Its' co-convenors argued at the conference that the tools are already available to regional councils to allocate water in this way, which would allow them to block the growth of a water bottling industry in New Zealand. Whether they, or the Government, have the willingness to do so, is, of course, another issue. We see market-based models, and imposing levies on water bottlers, as misguided and counter-productive ideas.

Politics

The current Government's position on freshwater management is a vast improvement on that of the previous Government, but still lacking in terms of tackling issues around ownership (or rights akin to ownership) and developing a better allocative model. The New Zealand Maori Council has been doing a lot of work in this area, in the absence of any real effort on the part of Government, and will be bringing a test case shortly which will address Maori rights and interests in fresh water.

It is disappointing that none of the major political parties, including the Greens, have come out in favour of the moratorium on water bottling proposed by AWA. AWA will however continue to push the moratorium at local levels and has had some success with the Queenstown-Lakes District Council recently writing to Minister David Parker in support of the proposal. In local body politics AWA welcomed the election of Jenny Hughey as the new Chair of Environment Canterbury (ECan) and congratulates Co-Convenor Niki Gladding on her election to the Queenstown-Lakes District Council.

AWA would like to thank and acknowledge CAFCA for its support in our campaigns. We share a very similar kaupapa, albeit AWA's is more narrowly focussed on the water issue. Many lines intersect on the water debate - resource security, sovereignty and the prevailing, destructive economic paradigm of endless growth for the benefit of the few.