Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta refused to rule out making the reforms mandatory, only confirming the legislated approach in late October.

Cabinet agreed on June 14, 2021, to a mandated approach to the Three Waters reform and spent the next four months telling councils that the plan was voluntary and councils could opt out, according to Cabinet papers quietly released last month.

Radio New Zealand reported this late on Friday afternoon, after news the previous day that introduction of a Three Waters bill would be delayed until next year, See Mandated

“Discussions (during a two-month consultation period) would have been "quite different" if councils had been told about the mandated plan from the outset,” Whangarei mayor Sheryl Mai said.

According to sources in Wellington, there is a standoff between Labour's Maori caucus (who want co-governed water) and the provincial Labour MPs and Cabinet Ministers who are feeling the political heat from widespread opposition to the Government’s proposal.

Dear former New Zealanders . . .

Here is a letter sent in to us:

“I left what was previously known as New Zealand on Friday. No longer could I take the constant racial and cultural division. The communisation and Marxism of the nation that once was the blood that flows through my veins. A sixth-generation New Zealander, my family elders helped build that nation. We even have a small town named in honour of our family.

“I was born in Christchurch, New Zealand. My passport says so. My birth certificate says so. Every legal document I have says so. But all I got for the last four years was Otautahi. Aotearoa. And a whole bunch of other words that I don’t understand because they’re not the nation I was born into, or my children, or grandchildren, or my parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, my great-great-grandparents. No, we were all born in New Zealand.

Read the full letter at https://www.hobsonspledge.nz/peter_clark_dear_former_new_zealanders

He Puapua author fights book-ban attempt

Dr John Robinson, who wrote He Puapua: Blueprint for breaking up New Zealand and other books, has taken One News to task for broadcasting an appeal last week to bookstores to refuse to stock his book and books by his publisher, Tross Publishing.  https://www.1news.co.nz/2021/12/04/educators-say-publishers-books-anti-maori-hateful-and-untrue/

The claim of “half-truths and out-right lies” (in his He Puapua book), unsupported by any clear example, is unacceptable from anyone, let alone a university lecturer (who attacked him on television), Dr Robinson wrote in a statement titled “TV1 News has proposed a ban on sales of books”.

“As my book makes clear, the separatist movement that is clearly described in the He Puapua report is aimed at destroying democracy and setting up a three-chamber legislation for New Zealand (one for Maori, a second for the others but with a strong Maori presence, and a third joint chamber, with a Maori veto, for negotiation between the two divided ‘partners’),” he wrote. 

“There are no “half-truths and out-right lies” here. These comments are supported by quotes from Maori activists and lengthy quotes from key sources, such as the He Puapua report,” he wrote.

Campaign update

Since the Maori Party declared war on “coloniser names”, and since Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta revealed that the Three Waters plan would be forced on councils, we have experienced a surge both in numbers of supporters and donations, for which we are deeply grateful.

Your financial support enabled spending on three advertising campaigns.

Thirteen billboards erected in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch, during November, reminded everyone that we live in New Zealand, not Aotearoa. The billboards certainly attracted attention. Every billboard was attacked.

A dual New Zealand, not Aotearoa/Three waters social media campaign, active until just before Christmas, helped increase signatures on our petition and on our letter to the Prime Minister. 

A two-week Three Waters radio campaign on the NewsTalk ZB network throughout New Zealand widened awareness of the co-governance aspect of water infrastructure seizure.

Buying advertising space is not cheap. Those three campaigns chewed through around $60,000.

Your engagement as citizens concerned about the racist Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Bill led to thousands of submissions being sent in.

For five years, we have been keeping pressure on MPs over pending race-based legislation, and on councillors, over tribal appointees and Maori wards.

The decision to defer introducing three waters legislation could be a sign that this work is making a difference.

New Zealand, not Aotearoa

Nearly 35,000 have signed our petition calling on our Prime Minister to affirm publicly that the name of our nation is New Zealand, not Aotearoa. If you have not yet signed, click here  https://www.hobsonspledge.nz/new_zealand_not_aotearoa and like and share the page.

Dear Prime Minister . . .

More than 14,000 have signed our open letter to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern which says that we are especially worried about the iwi entitlement to governance of Three Waters. If you have not done so already, you may sign the letter at https://www.hobsonspledge.nz/letter_to_jacinda

Dump two governments plan

Nearly 24,000 have signed our He Puapua petition calling on the Prime Minister to reject outright and cease implementing all aspects of the two-government plan as described in He Puapua, the plan presented as realising in New Zealand the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. If you have not already done so, click here to sign  Reject co-governance.

Beaches for us all

And our petition which asks Parliament to amend the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011 to restore public ownership of the coastal area, put all claims through the High Court, and repeal customary marine title, while affirming customary rights, has picked up nearly 48,000 signatures. The petition may be signed at https://www.change.org/beaches4all

Frequently asked questions

• What is Hobson's Pledge? Hobson’s Pledge supporters think it is absurd to argue in the 21st century that people who chance to have a Maori ancestor, always with other ancestors too of course, should have superior rights to those who don’t.  And utterly absurd that there are politicians who want to be taken seriously who still push this nonsense.
• What are the issues we're facing today?
• What are our campaigns?

Join the debate on Facebook. You may visit this page at https://www.facebook.com/hobsonspledge/

Visit our website at http://www.hobsonspledge.nz/

Grow the movement. Forward this email to your friends and family

Donate. Visit https://hobsonspledge.nationbuilder.com/donate

Buy a book. Visit http://www.hobsonspledge.nz/resources

Three Waters = tribal control over fresh water

The Three Waters are the water you drink, waste water and storm water.

Labour's "Three Waters" is a radical plan altering the ownership and control of New Zealand's fresh water infrastructure. Despite huge opposition, Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta has announced that the Ardern-Mahuta Labour government will confiscate council-owned water assets across New Zealand and transfer them to four mega water companies. 

What does it mean for you?

• each water authority wil be controlled by an unelected board of twelve members
• six will be appointed by iwi, the other six members will represent all the councils contributing assets to the water authority. That means for example, that just six people will represent all twenty South Island councils
• those twelve people will have total control over the water that flows in and out of your property, and how much you pay for it.
• you will have to do their bidding, and pay whatever they charge and you can't vote them out of office because they are not elected to represent you eg requiring farmers to introduce cripplingly expensive (and largely unnecessary) water treatment facilities, which could force them off the land.

Three waters = tribal control over fresh water

• Three Waters grants equal representation between local governments (which also represent ordinary Maori folk) and Maori tribes
• all Board decisions will require a 75% majority, as iwi members tend to vote en bloc, this effectively grants tribal representatives control over all major decisions

Three waters grants exclusive ownership rights to iwi over a necessity of life - fresh water

• The new structure recognises what Mahuta calls the "mana o te wai" - or authority over fresh water a necessity of life. As no other New Zealanders are granted "mana o te wai", Mahuta is transferring ownership rights in fresh water exclusively to iwi

Who or what exactly are iwi?

• iwi are private entities made up of complex networks of trusts and companies operating commercial businesses that are hugely wealthy

Legalised extortion 

• the Three Waters structure will further cement legalised extortion into our legal framework where eg iwi rights under the RMA result in special deals for iwi contractors and expensive consultancy reports (which are unwanted and of no value to the recipient except to be granted iwi "approval")

Conflicts of interest between iwi profits and the environment

• conflicts of interest between environmental concerns and iwi business profits will arise, eg Ngai Tahu board members will be able to vote against environmental concerns, even though this will serve Ngai Tahu's financial interests.

We must not stand for this: what you can do:

Kick up a fuss. Email Jacinda Ardern and Nanaia Mahuta. Tell them that if Labour push this obnoxious legislation through then you will make sure that they are voted out of power.

Sign our Open Letter to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern:

Click here to sign our Open Letter to Jacinda Ardern which we will be presenting to Parliament, urging her to find a better way to deal with any water quality issues. 

Groundswell The Mother of All Protests - 21st November:

Farmers have been attacked on all sides by stifling regulations and new rules which could see them forced off their farms. The Three Waters Plan is the final straw. Join the protests which are being held up and down the country on 21st November. Take along a "NO 3 Waters" sign. 

Click here to find out details of the protest:

Click here for a list of protest meeting places

Donate:

Hobson's Pledge members have been extremely generous in contributing to our campaign so far. Please accept our sincere thanks.

If you wish to contribute to our campaign, donate here:

A Government that ignores reasoned opposition from local government by imposing 50/50 iwi-council co-governance through its Three Waters Plan is yet another step closer to a dictatorship, Hobson’s Pledge spokesman Don Brash said today.

The Three Waters Plan centralizes national water management while indulging iwi demands for ownership of water, according to businessman Gary Judd QC.

This is a brief update on developments since you signed our petition rejecting He Puapua, which is Labour’s plan to establish two governments in New Zealand by 2040, under which tribal elites will exercise authority over all major aspects of New Zealand’s governance.

In a new book titled He Puapua – Blueprint for breaking up New Zealand, mathematician John Robinson, tears apart the He Puapua plan for two separate governments, one by Maori for Maori, and the other, a “fully bicultural” administration for everyone else.

Consultation on the implementation in New Zealand of the United Nation’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People will start with Maori groups, Maori Development Minister Willie Jackson confirmed on Thursday. See More UNDRIP consultation 

At least 32 councils scrambled to meet Friday’s deadline to set up segregated voting via Maori wards or constituencies for next year’s elections. Overwhelming support was claimed despite low response to limited consultation.

Are you OK with a radical plan for two governments in New Zealand, one for Maori and one for everyone else, both under a tribal monitoring group, to be up and running within the next 19 years?

With Maori Development Minister Nanaia Mahuta at the helm, the plan has been slipped into the system, under the radar, without troubling MPs or talking to the media. The Labour Party did not campaign on this in either the 2017 or 2020 elections.

A Government plan to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) intends to establish two governments in New Zealand by 2040, one for Maori and one for everyone else. These two governments would be subject to a monitoring group created by tribes and chaired by a Maori sovereignty radical, according to the plan that was submitted to Maori Development Minister Nanaia Mahuta on November 1, 2019.

All of this was done quietly. The Labour Party did not campaign on this in the 2020 election. We think the plan to divide New Zealand governance along racial lines and under tribal authority and to set up tribal borders is an outrage. We have set up a petition against this which you may skip to if you are ready to sign.

On March 5, 2019, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Government commissioned a working group to recommend how to implement the UNDRIP in New Zealand. Nearly a year later, in October, 2020, just 34 pages of the report were posted on the Ministry of Maori Development website. A full version of the report obtained under the Official Information Act this month revealed 123 pages and the muddled thinking used to justify the plan. Click here to read the "He Puapua" document.

The plan details a radical, two-government plan for New Zealand that is totally different to anything in UNDRIP’s 46 non-binding articles. The two governments are intended to be running in just 19 years. The two-government proposal, presumably both central and local, is intended to consist of two overlapping spheres of equal authority, according to the diagram on page 11 of the plan. There would be a sphere of solely Crown governance that includes Parliament, the Beehive, and the civil service, as currently exists, to govern the 4.5 million non-Maori citizens of New Zealand.

How big would be the sphere of solely Maori governance, equal responsibility, and of equal authority? Would that include a second Parliament, a second Beehive, and a second civil service, to govern the half million citizens with some Maori ancestry? The two spheres would overlap creating a “co-governance sphere” in which the Crown and Maori share governance in “matters of mutual concern”.

A group named the Independent Monitoring Mechanism, which was established by the Iwi Chairs Forum in 2015 and led by the Maori sovereignty activist Margaret Mutu, as detailed on page three of the plan, has been pushing for an “implementation” of UNDRIP since 2015. Progress towards two governments would be monitored by a group named the Aotearoa Independent Monitoring Group, presumably the same group that is currently chaired by Mutu.
There is nothing about two governments in UNDRIP’s 46 articles. The two-governments diagram appears in the 34-page version posted on the Maori Development website in October 2020.

There is no mention of the tribal monitoring group in the 34-page version. It looks like UNDRIP is being used as a cover to implement the goals of the Maori sovereignty movement.

When the United Nations adopted UNDRIP in 2007, the Clark Labour Government at that time thought the Declaration too radical for New Zealand to support. But in 2010, the Key-led Government sent Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples to sign New Zealand up to the Declaration. 

“Protecting Papatuanuku”, the Maori earth mother, is the first stated objective, shining an environmental light on the project. Five themes follow: Self-determination (Treaty); Maori participation in Crown government; lands, territories and resources; culture; and equity and fairness. Slipping in and out of untranslated Maori words and phrases, the action plan is a masterpiece of deceit. This is most apparent in weasel-word references to the Treaty and Treaty principles, which are cited as the ultimate justification for what is proposed. But the Treaty referred to in the plan, and the Treaty principles, are both versions concocted by the Waitangi Tribunal which bear little relation to the Treaty signed in 1840.

The other key justification is reference to Maori negative social indicators. To separate into a group poor, sick, and incarcerated citizens with some Maori ancestry is a clear case of "lies, damned lies, and statistics", and illustrates the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments. So, without either a constitutional lawyer or a cost-benefit analysis in sight, like the Ardern Government has commissioned a small group of Maori sovereignty radicals who appear to be taking this as an opportunity to seize power.

Elements of the plan appear to be already under way. These include:

• Setting up Maori wards in local government, which started taking place in 20 local bodies when referenda on such proposals were outlawed on February 1, 2021.
• Giving claimant groups money to buy private land. A version of this happened at Ihumatao, when protesters forced Fletcher Building to sell 33 hectares to the Government for $30 million.
• An anti-coloniser history curriculum for all schools that starts next year.
• A separate Maori health authority, announced this week, which will not only have responsibility for Maori health but will also have the right to influence the decisions made for the rest of the health sector.
• Exempting some Maori land from the requirement to pay rates.

The full plan prescribes intensive engagement with iwi, hapu, as well as Maori organisations and individuals only, and this may have been happening since November 1, 2019.
The spectacle of tribes setting up roadblocks to protect their “borders” during the Covid-19 lockdown last year, and the Government’s reluctance to enforce the law on the illegal roadblocks, suggests that the tribal border proposal was understood back then. 

There is no stated intention to engage with anyone else other than via propaganda to convince us to embrace the Maori language and culture, give territory and resources to tribes, and prepare for New Zealand to be divided into clearly visible tribal districts.

The plan is comprehensive and would end democracy in New Zealand as we know it. It includes:
• Two complete governments that overlap, as described above.
• A written constitution based on a grossly distorted interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi. Those with some Maori ancestry would have greater legal rights than everyone else.
• A Maori health system, where patients with a Maori ancestor will be treated differently from other patients.
• A Maori court system, where offenders with a Maori ancestor will be treated differently from other offenders.
• Maori jails, where inmates with a Maori ancestor will be treated differently from other inmates.
• Granting Maori rights and title to water. Some Maori organization would be paid every time you turn on the tap.
• Public education to eradicate unconscious bias, the sort of bias that no one is aware of until someone with a strong bias against you points it out. This means 85 percent of New Zealanders would be scared to think or speak freely.

To get a clear picture of the covert nature of this activity, compare this proposal for UNDRIP implementation with how the right to petition on Maori wards proposals was removed from law. To outlaw such petitions, the Minister fronted, there was a media release with talking points, efforts were made to get the media onside, and a law change was pushed through Parliament under urgency. 

With the UNDRIP action plan, there was no media release, no efforts were made to get anyone onside, there was no law change, and there was no debate in Parliament.

The name He Puapua displays the intent of this proposal. “He Puapua”, which means “a break”, and usually refers to a break in waves, has been given the radical meaning of “breaking the usual political and societal norms”, according to the report.

Has the Maori sovereignty takeover started? Has your Prime Minister started implementing this without telling you? This is your country. A costly system that dilutes your rights and puts you under control of iwi groups could be under way and you are paying for it.

Do you agree or disagree with the radical plan for two governments under tribal control?

Click here to sign our petition to reject co-governance.