June 23, 2020
Tribal veto out of place in drought response
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says it’s unreasonable for Waikato Tainui to stand in the way of Auckland drawing more water from the Waikato River.
The iwi has opposed Watercare’s bid that its resource consent be included in a bill fast-tracking post-COVID infrastructure projects.
The New Zealand First MP says no tribe has the right to deny a third of New Zealand’s population the right to a guaranteed supply of water.
"Whether that tribe is a Pākehā tribe, a Māori tribe, and ethnic tribe, a rugby league tribe, this is not a time for iwi leverage and if we have a situation where Auckland sits on the precipice of running out of water, quite frankly that will be a global crisis. People will lose confidence in our economy because that's a third of our economy," Mr Jones says.
Shane Jones says Auckland’s resource consent application has been sitting with the Waikato Regional Council for seven years, so the iwi and the Waikato councils have had long enough to consider all the issues.
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