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National Party local government spokesperson Simon Watts claims Labour is planning to rush a backdown bill through Parliament with as possible in what he describes as “another undemocratic Three Waters play”.
In amongst a series of scandals impacting the Labour Government, Local Government Minister Kieran McAnulty introduced new legislation into the House to cover the changes to the Three Waters reforms announced in April of this year.
The legislation would see the initially proposed four entities expanded to ten, with boundaries established roughly along the lines of New Zealand’s 16 regional councils.
However, the decision has been made to have the bill go through Parliament before it rises for the election, meaning it would have to be back from select committee by the end of next month, Watts claims.
“A shortened process will rob Kiwis of the chance to have their say on Three Waters, which is what Labour wants,” he says.
“Over 80,000 Kiwis submitted on the bill, and they should have the chance to have their voices heard on this too. That can’t happen with the shortened process required to ram this through Parliament.”
Watts says that questions remain around the conduct of Department of Internal Affairs officials who made edits to the last Three Waters bill without select committee approval.
He says McAnulty – who wasn’t Local Government Minister at that time – needs to explain why DIA officials tampered with the bill before he tries to push another one through.
“Apart from being undemocratic, Labour has already shown how shambolic it gets when it tries to push through bills quickly,” Watts says, pointing to the issue with the entrenchment clause in the Water Services Enitites Act late last year, which he says caused a constitutional crisis.
If passed, the Water Services Entities Amendment Bill will see all entities go live between 1 July 2024 and 1 July 2026, with the Northland and Auckland Entity set to go live first on 1 July 2024.
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