Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 1:21 pm, February 26th, 2023 - 44 comments
National has announced its alternative to the Three Waters Policy with the standout feature being greater central control of asset management and investment plans than offered by Three Waters and even greater loss of local control.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:45 am, February 9th, 2023 - 109 comments
Chris Hipkins has announced the great policy reset and there are no surprises.
Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:51 am, December 9th, 2022 - 73 comments
Minister Mahuta’s water reforms are by some measure the most consequential industry intervention of this Labour government, and likely to be the most successful in over a decade.
Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:12 am, November 30th, 2022 - 412 comments
National, the party which enacted legislation that gave Waikato command over the allocation of the Waikato River, iwi command over the Taupo catchment and full Maori control over the massive Uruwera water catchment, has not traditionally been opposed to co governance.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:33 am, November 5th, 2022 - 86 comments
National’s recent press releases show that its approach to politics will be relentlessly negative, with no idea of what it will do as an alternative or how it will fund changes.
Written By: advantage - Date published: 1:07 pm, August 9th, 2022 - 11 comments
Crises that profoundly test a small developed state like New Zealand have required huge growth in state strength and policy power. But was it the change we needed?
Written By: advantage - Date published: 12:31 pm, June 14th, 2022 - 69 comments
The past couple of years has seen a significant increase in far right activity and rapidly increasing racism.
Written By: notices and features - Date published: 6:05 am, May 30th, 2022 - 35 comments
“There isn’t enough water falling from the sky or pouring down Canterbury’s rivers to actually dilute the nitrate contamination produced by thousands of tonnes of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser and over a million dairy cows across the plains,” – Mike Joy
Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:26 am, April 7th, 2022 - 20 comments
If the 3 Waters reforms can survive its attacks and be implemented, a consequence will be that we are going to have a most enormous nationwide economic argument about the price of water and who pays for it all.
Written By: advantage - Date published: 5:22 pm, April 3rd, 2022 - 147 comments
If you’re out there in ZB land and believe that water management should be democratically elected, you won’t find respite here. Local Government has done a terrible job dealing with water and change is urgently needed.
Written By: weka - Date published: 12:31 pm, November 3rd, 2021 - 43 comments
The story of New Zealand’s most polluted lake is the same story running through all of New Zealand society. We treat nature as an after thought that we can fix when things go wrong, even when we can’t. What if we told a different story?
Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:48 am, October 28th, 2021 - 23 comments
COVID has reminded us how good New Zealand is, and we should remember how we were reminded.
Written By: advantage - Date published: 3:30 pm, March 10th, 2021 - 6 comments
Minister Parker is firing an 18 inch gun round that he’s ready to take on all with his call-in of the Otago water rights plan change.
Written By: notices and features - Date published: 12:10 pm, February 28th, 2021 - 28 comments
If we want to protect our environment and ourselves, we need to scale this back. And the easiest way to do that is give the river back: remove or massively scale back those consents, and let the rivers flow.
Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:37 am, December 23rd, 2020 - 22 comments
There is always plenty of bad news when it comes to nature in New Zealand, but this year has had an accumulation of good.
Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:37 am, August 31st, 2020 - 16 comments
New Zealand’s local and regional councils have been given until August 31 2020 to sign up to a ginormous fund that would help them improve their water, wastewater, and stormwater systems. The implications for them doing this are significant and could see the end of Council control of the supply of water.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:03 am, August 27th, 2020 - 40 comments
National has promised that if it gains power rules designed to improve water quality in our streams and rivers will be “gone by lunchtime.
Written By: advantage - Date published: 9:51 am, April 23rd, 2020 - 25 comments
A new report out from the Ministry for the Environment and Statistics NZ showing that New Zealand’s fresh water system is getting worse, all over the place, but particularly in the South Island.
Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:15 am, February 21st, 2020 - 44 comments
It’s probably time to notice why Jones’ Provincial Growth Fund had to step in and provide several million of funding to patch up the water supply emergency in Northland.
Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:14 am, November 18th, 2019 - 16 comments
Advantage is testing an idea out. What will a common accountability framework for the government look like?
Written By: notices and features - Date published: 8:47 am, September 20th, 2019 - 19 comments
“New Zealand does not face stark choices between having a dairy sector versus having clean waterways. Experience shows that, by focusing on profits, not production, farms can increase their economic returns and reduce their impact on the environment.”
Written By: notices and features - Date published: 7:10 am, September 3rd, 2019 - 146 comments
Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn writes: “Environment Canterbury has finally proposed nitrogen limits to stop dairy farmers from poisoning Christchurch’s water supply”
Written By: weka - Date published: 7:15 am, August 20th, 2019 - 66 comments
If we want to prevent the extinction of whitebait it’s time to stop buying and selling it.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:33 am, July 3rd, 2019 - 98 comments
John Tamihere has caused jaws throughout the region to drop by proposing that half of Watercare is privatised.
Written By: notices and features - Date published: 7:00 am, January 13th, 2019 - 153 comments
Welcome to TS’s Sunday think piece. It’s a blank sheet, a tabula rasa, waiting for your thoughts on the future and How To Get There.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:40 am, September 14th, 2018 - 42 comments
North Carolina Republicans’ refusal to accept that climate change exists means that Hurricane Florence’s effects are going to be greater than they should be.
Written By: advantage - Date published: 2:35 pm, August 17th, 2018 - 26 comments
With the change in Government and ever increasing costs of construction it appears that the Waimea dam project in Tasman District is going to be scuppered.
Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:00 am, August 10th, 2018 - 78 comments
New Zealand seriously needs a water regulator. Something that will show that each catchment can withstand having that much taken out of it, and that it is being sold for a fair price, and ensures everyone has access to beautiful-quality water.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:28 am, June 15th, 2018 - 154 comments
Eugenie Sage has been criticised for granting OIO consent to the foreign buy out of a water bottling company and a piece of sensitive land. But from the looks of the details that have been released she may have had no choice.
Written By: Bill - Date published: 10:03 am, May 6th, 2018 - 55 comments
410 ppm. And rising.
Written By: weka - Date published: 6:28 am, March 22nd, 2018 - 26 comments
“Epic #ShowDontTell action”
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