Christchurch mayor apologises for iwi snub on three waters group decision
Tuesday, 5 April 2022
Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel has apologised to mana whenua for not consulting them before her council joined a group lobbying against nationwide reform to the management of water supplies.
Christchurch City Council decided in December to join Communities 4 Local Democracy He hapori mo te Manapori (C4LD), a group of councils proposing alternative solutions to the Government’s controversial three waters reforms.
Those reforms have proposed that iwi and councils co-govern water infrastructure.
But C4LD has drawn the ire of Ngāi Tahu, the iwi covering most of the South Island.
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They say C4LD is a “splinter group” which made no effort to engage with mana whenua before its launch, and argue that its model offers iwi no meaningful role to participate in governance.
While C4LD has since approached Ngāi Tahu – Waimakariri mayor Dan Gordon, a founding member of C4LD, saying the group had contacted it on “a number of occasions” – the iwi says this has come “late in the piece”.
Ngāi Tahu was surprised and felt left in the dark when Christchurch City Council joined C4LD in December without consulting it.
Iwi have expressed concerns to the council about C4LD and have asked the council to reconsider its membership.
Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel said she regretted not consulting mana whenua and has apologised.
She has now asked for a face-to-face workshop with rūnanga representatives to chart a way forward, after which the membership of C4LD will be reconsidered.
Three councillors – Mike Davidson, Sara Templeton and Celeste Donovan – voted against joining C4LD. Melanie Coker and Dalziel abstained from the vote.
Councillors were aware mana whenua had not been consulted when they voted.
Dalziel said consultation with iwi did not happen because “we literally didn’t turn our minds to it”. She said she felt bad about “overlooking what is pretty fundamental”.
“I’ll take responsibility for that,” Dalziel said. “I should’ve said to the council organisation that we had to raise this with the standing committee before it went to council.”
A council staff report about whether to join C4LD said the decision would not impact mana whenua. This was stated in a section examining mana whenua impact, which appears in every council report.
Dalziel said she has now raised the “inadequacy of the stock-standard clause that’s often written” and a change was being implemented.
Dalziel said she has apologised in writing to Te Maire Tau for not consulting with him or the council’s Papatipu Rūnanga committee about the C4LD decision.
The council’s rūnanga committee is made of six councillors, six rūnanga chairs, Dalziel and Tau. The latter two are the co-chairs of the committee.
At a meeting of the committee on March 9, rūnanga chairs voiced their surprise over the lack of consultation on joining C4LD, Te Taumutu Rūnanga chair Liz Brown said.
“In a real partnership, we would not expect to be kept in the dark like that,” she said. “We see partnership as more than just the rūnanga turning up for cultural niceties.”
Brown said the rūnanga chairs have asked the council to reconsider its decision to join C4LD, “and we hope they do.”
Dalziel said the rūnanga chairs have “firmly expressed” their concerns.
“They questioned our council’s commitment to our relationship with each other,” she said.
Dalziel wants to get the rūnanga representatives and all councillors together for a face-to-face workshop to “put all of the issues on the table” and find a way forward.
“I want to see whether we can get the relationship back on track and what the best way is to do that,” Dalziel said.
“I often feel that these issues are best addressed when we can meet face-to-face and look each other in the eye,” she said. “I think it’s respectful both ways that we hear what each other has to say.”