OPINION: If there’s a change of government next year, Three Waters is toast.
Which is to say, if the Water Services Entities Bill manages to become the Water Services Entities Act by then, it will be repealed, and if it hasn’t yet been passed, it won’t be.
Which is a bit odd, in a way, since almost every local and central government politician in the country agrees that most of what this package aims to do is badly needed.
I was down the line the other day, not too far from the poster-town of waterborne disease, Havelock North.
As I had an early flight the next morning (blame the pilot and author of this column) I stopped into a local supermarket for some breakfast supplies.
Supermarkets are supermarkets, but the thing that struck me about this one was the amount of water on the shelves. Boxes, bottles, and jugs of the stuff. For the locals, drinking water that they’re not scared will kill them has become just another line on the ever-growing weekly supermarket receipt. I suspect that whoever sells home water filters in the area is doing a pretty good trade, too.
Everyone wants clean water. Always has, always will. So why is Three Waters so hard to swallow?
For me, it’s not the kaupapa, it’s how it’s been sold. And that starts with the name.
Three Waters is newspeak. People don’t get it. Combined, those two ordinary words sound foreign and odd. To government and public service insiders it might feel like contemporary, clever, slightly academic language. To the rest of us it feels like something designed to keep us out. Three waters? Ok, drinking water, sewage I guess… irrigation? Or swimming? Wait that’s four. At the weekend, driving through Judith Collins’ electorate, I saw a National Party hoarding promising to repeal five waters.
Names matter when you’re selling things.
The Americans know this, bless them. Sometimes they go a bit far. I’m not saying we want the next dog licencing law to be called the Cuddly Puppies Roaming Free and Happy Through Flower-filled Meadows Act.
But we could do better.
In advertising we know to sell the sizzle, not the sausage.
So what is the Water Services Entities Bill aka Three Waters really selling?
Not entities, for a start. Say it out loud right now and the other people in your office or café will think you’re a weirdo or, worse still, a policy adviser.
Three waters, I think we can agree, is out.
How about this: The Clean and Affordable Water for All New Zealanders Bill.
Is that what we’re trying to sell? Sounds like it to me.
It’s hard to argue with a bill like that. Which bit don’t you like? The clean bit? Or the affordable bit?
The problems Three Waters is designed to solve won’t go away.
The bill itself might be toast; maybe the idea just needs to be served up differently.