Voter Motivators 2017: Water.

Worth Protecting? The threat to the nation’s water is real and it demands action. What’s more, the Water Issue comes with a whole cast of ready-made villains: someone to take the blame. Farmers.

 

WHO CAN FORGET that magic childhood moment when you first opened your eyes underwater? I remember mine like it was yesterday. I was splashing about in the Waianakarua River in North Otago. The first thing I saw when I put my head under the water and opened my eyes was a red and green “Pure New Zealand Honey” tin. So clear was the water that I could easily make out the bees and clover-heads printed on its surface. (Quite why the tin was in the river, which was otherwise blissfully free of litter, I never discovered!)

 

We all have memories like this of New Zealand’s rivers and streams. Those deep, clear swimming holes that family and friends frequented during the long, hot days of summer. It may be years since we visited them, but they feature prominently in our mental and emotional landscapes. They are places of the heart.

 

Which is why, when we hear about the extent to which New Zealand’s rivers and streams have become unswimmable, the impact is devastating. Whatever it is that’s polluting and degrading our waterways, it is also befouling our memories.

 

Understandably, these sort of emotional connections are tremendously concerning to the politicians on whose watch our waterways are being polluted. Be they central, regional or local government representatives, all are acutely aware that the “Water Issue” is not only one of the big Voter Motivators of 2017, but that it has also become a symbol of New Zealand’s entire beleaguered environment.

 

The devastations of global warming loom ahead of humanity – and that’s the problem. As a species we are notoriously prone to ignoring all but the most immediate threats. All of the measures which New Zealand (and a great many other countries) refuse to countenance when it comes to mitigating the effects of climate change would be adopted in an instant if we found ourselves at war. Indeed, “Victory Gardens”, compulsory re-cycling, and the strict rationing of fossil fuels were an accepted part of people’s everyday lives during World War II.

 

The threat to the nation’s water, however, is very much in the here and now. It’s real and it demands action. What’s more, the Water Issue comes with a whole cast of ready-made villains: someone to take the blame. Farmers.

 

And don’t they know it! The dairy industry is spending millions of dollars on public relations and advertising in an attempt to repair the damage done to the reputation of New Zealand farmers by the Green Party. The latter’s “Dirty Dairying” campaign, spearheaded by Russel Norman in the run-up to the 2014 election, turned urban New Zealanders off farmers in droves. Justified or unjustified, the connection between the vast expansion of this country’s dairy herd and the degradation of its waterways has been made. And all the beautifully shot images of salt-of-the-earth farming families walking their cows to milking in the dawn’s early light are not going to break it.

 

It gets worse. The National Party, which Labour’s Michael Cullen once described as “Federated Farmers at prayer”, is increasingly being identified as Dirty Dairying’s prime protectors and enablers. More and more voters are noticing that while the Department of Conservation has been wantonly downsized and cruelly starved of funding, the National-led Government has lavished hundreds-of-millions of dollars on irrigation schemes designed to further expand New Zealand’s dairy industry.

 

Put all of the above together with National’s refusal to enlist farmers in the war against global warming and the picture that emerges is not a pretty one. Clearly, the befouled state of our rivers and streams is merely the most visible and shocking evidence of an industry which has for decades traded environmental degradation for profit. It is just the tip of New Zealand’s rapidly melting environmental iceberg.

 

The real wonder of this year’s election is that the Greens have not made more of their former leader’s extraordinary political gift. It’s almost as if the party’s new co-leader, James Shaw, is frightened by the sheer intensity of public feeling against the role played by farmers in the ruin of our waterways. (Not to mention the giving away of New Zealand’s pristine springwater to foreign bottling companies!)

 

If future generations of young New Zealanders are to experience the joy and wonder of their wild water heritage, then today’s voters need to open their eyes.

 

This essay was originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 30 June. 2017.

Everyone Owns The Water.

Ours - Not Yours: If water belongs to everyone, then immediately two principles become very clear. The first is that water can only ever be owned collectively – and never individually. The second is that whatever the collective entity in which public ownership is vested, be it the state or a local authority, public officials cannot ethically permit collectively owned water to be diverted for private profit without first extracting from the profit-seeker an appropriate fee for its use.

 

NO ONE OWNS THE WATER. It sounds so reasonable. How could anyone “own” water? It “droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven”, according to Shakespeare, and is sent to fall “on the just and on the unjust”, if you believe the New Testament. Playing no part in its creation, what plausible claim could we, as human-beings, possibly advance for its ownership?

 

Well, that all depends on how human-beings organise themselves. A hunter-gatherer society takes its water pretty much as Mother Nature delivers it. From springs and streams and rivers, and directly, from the sky above.

 

Agricultural and/or pastoral societies, however, tend to take a much more proprietary view of water. Without a reliable water supply crops cannot flourish and herds die of thirst. The human-beings who live in these kinds of societies are not disposed to share “their” springs and streams and rivers with anyone – not without a fight.

 

And then there are the human-beings who live in cities. Without water, cities simply can’t exist. Indeed, it is possible to argue that the key capability which makes any sort of enduring civilisation possible is the ability to collect, transfer and distribute large quantities of water for the consumption and use of large numbers of human-beings. How would the ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia and Egypt have survived without their sophisticated systems of water storage and irrigation? Where would Rome have been without her aqueducts and cisterns?

 

Civilised Collectivism: Where would Rome have been without her aqueducts?

 

In a civilised society, the bald assertion that “no one owns the water” is, therefore, nonsense. Because, in a civilised society, water belongs to everyone.

 

But, if water belongs to everyone, then immediately two principles become very clear.

 

The first is that water can only ever be owned collectively – and never individually. (In the simplest terms, you can’t own it – because we own it.) The second principle is that whatever the collective entity in which public ownership is vested, be it the state or a local authority, public officials cannot ethically permit collectively owned water to be diverted for private profit without first extracting from the profit-seeker an appropriate fee for its use.

 

It is only when we work back from these first principles that the bitter controversy over the use (and misuse) of water which has arisen in New Zealand is explained. They make it all-too-clear why politicians and officials in the thrall of farmers – especially dairy farmers – are so determined to make us believe that: “no one owns the water”.

 

Like all good agriculturalists and pastoralists, New Zealand’s dairy farmers claim a proprietary interest in the springs, streams, rivers and aquifers which water their crops, preserve their herds and wash out their cowsheds.

 

Their problem, of course, is that they can’t claim ownership of these water sources openly because New Zealand isn’t ancient Mesopotamia or medieval England. They live in a society in which the overwhelming majority of their fellow citizens dwell in towns and cities and where the collective ownership and protection of potable water constitutes the foundation of urban health and comfort.

 

Bluntly, the springs, streams, rivers and aquifers of New Zealand are not the de facto property of the farming sector, they belong to the whole nation. This is the truth that has, at all costs, to be kept hidden. So long as the whole nation can be hoodwinked into believing that they are not the collective owners of New Zealand’s water; so long as they adhere to the nonsensical notion that “no one owns the water”; so long will the farming sector go on extracting profit from this critical resource without paying a cent for the massive collateral environmental damage they’re causing.

 

This was the motivation behind the shutting down of Ecan, the Canterbury Regional Council; the reason why democracy has been suspended in that part of New Zealand for more than six years. So reckless had the greed and selfishness of the Canterbury farming community become that they were willing to strip their city-dwelling compatriots of their political rights rather than be denied the massive, publicly-subsidised, irrigation schemes that would make them and their neighbours rich.

 

When the Prime Minister’s brother, Conor English, shortly after National’s election victory in 2008, vouchsafed to me his prediction that the single biggest issue facing New Zealand for the next twenty years would be “water”, I thought he was joking.

 

He wasn’t.

 

This essay was originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 24 March 2017.

Noises-Off Democracy's Stage

Noises Off: The pretty play of democracy is being slowly but unmistakably overwhelmed by an altogether darker script whose authors - hitherto operating behind the scenes - are increasingly moving their undemocratic action front-of-stage.

 

THE PRETTY PLAY OF DEMOCRACY goes on as usual. The familiar characters make their entrances and exits, delivering their lines with more or less conviction, and the plot, with one or two obligatory surprises, unfolds in the time-honoured way. Occasionally, the writers experience a moment of sheer collective inspiration and the audience thrills to the antics of a wholly original character – this season’s undoubted hit being the inspired and ebullient Kim Dotcom.

 

Lately, though, the audience has been distracted by loud noises off-stage. This is most unusual – and not a little alarming. Because, say what you like about the script, the production itself has always been first rate. The actors, costumes, props, backdrops, lighting and sound-effects have (so far) never failed to enthral. Which is hardly surprising. With the plot being so familiar, all the other components of a credible theatrical performance are required to maintain the audience’s willing suspension of disbelief.

 

But the volume and frequency of all these off-stage interruptions is making the suspension of disbelief increasingly difficult. The strong impression of persons moving about; snatches of disconcerting dialogue; strange silhouettes, and the unmistakeable sound of scenery being dragged into position has many in the audience convinced that, behind the scenes, another play is in progress – one they cannot see.

 

This rival play, unfolding simultaneously (albeit invisibly) behind the traditional performance is not in the least bit pretty. Indeed, its themes and characters offer a stark contrast to those we see on-stage.

 

The official production celebrates democracy and its characters recall the great politicians of the past. Crucially, the climax of the official play never varies: the sovereign people declare their preferences and the democratic process is the winner on the night.

 

The unofficial play has no place for such political candy-floss and self-delusion. When its leading characters talk about democracy they do so with a curled lip and a raised eyebrow – as if only the intellectually bereft and ideologically deluded could possibly take such an absurd notion seriously. The themes of the unofficial play are all about power and greed and individual self-assertion. The only role played by the people is that of a gigantic ATM. They are presented as an unfailing and inexhaustible spigot of public wealth for private gain: sovereign only in their ill-directed generosity and incorrigible gullibility.

 

In the unofficial play, a sinister combination of politician-bureaucrats and businessmen-farmers have already met and divvied-up the nation between them. All are in agreement that their  respective futures depend on controlling the use of and access to New Zealand’s water. Slowly and methodically, they are re-writing the nation’s laws to exclude all but their hand-picked allies from the decision-making processes relating to this crucial resource. Slowly, but very deliberately, they are shielding their decision-makers from public and media scrutiny. Where resistance has been encountered they have not hesitated to act – indeed, they have already replaced an entire, democratically-elected regulatory body with appointed commissioners.

 

Where resistance has been encountered they have not hesitated to act: The National Government introduces Canterbury Regional Council's unelected commissioners.

 

In the official play, nothing is more crucial to the survival of individual liberty and the health of democracy than the sanctity of private property and the rule of law. In the unofficial play, however, the leading characters laugh uproariously at these twinned principles. If someone’s private property stands in the way of one of the many privately-owned, profit-driven irrigation schemes they have planned for the New Zealand countryside, then they simply invoke the provisions of the Public Works Act and relieve the owners of their titles.

 

To loud objections that the Public Works Act was never meant to be the handmaiden of private investors, the anti-heroes of the unofficial drama do their best to assume the appearance of sage and disinterested legislators. “Yes,” they say, “it is tragic that a handful of homes and farms must be drowned, but it is also necessary to the long-term economic welfare of the country as a whole. We must act in the national interest.”

 

It is precisely this sort of dialogue, breaking through the reassuring lines of the official political play that is making more and more members of the audience uneasy – even restive. Through questioning eyes they have begun to notice how threadbare the official production is looking. What has become of the play’s familiar props? Have those costumes faded? Why do the actors seem to be just going through the motions? What’s happened to the lighting – and the sound? Why can we hear more and more of the other play – and why is the dialogue so frightening?

 

The pretty political play of democracy may be a familiar one, but it has never been made weaker by reiteration. Yes, it’s imperfect, even naïve, but unless it is performed – and  believed – then the dark shadow-players who have always acted behind the scenes will grow in power and confidence.

 

The noises off-stage will become the play itself.

 

This essay was originally published in The Press of Tuesday, 8 April 2014.