A big whopper from McAnulty

Newsroom details four pieces of misinformation (or disinformation) from Three Waters Minister Kieran McAnulty. I won’t detail them all here, but do want to focus on the most egregious.

Below the board, or below the belt? That’s the question prompted by McAnulty’s further attempt to minimise the role of these representative groups. He says every district council will have representation on their local water services entities through the regional representative groups, where council representatives and iwi will form a partnership to provide strategic oversight and direction to the entities.

“These groups will continue to sit below the governance board, in which each member will be appointed on merit and qualification,” he says.

Under questioning, he says the 50-50 council/iwi membership survived only because of the representative groups’ subordinate status. “I was comfortable with what has been proposed, because it’s a regional representative group. It may have been a different outcome if this was actually the governing board, but it’s not.”

But it’s not correct that the representative groups are subordinate. Somewhat like a congress of shareholders, they will appoint the directors to the governance board. According to the bill before Parliament (and the government says this won’t change) they will provide regional and local level direction and oversight, including setting strategic and performance expectations, and approving the strategic direction.

By any definition they sit above the governance board. To claim these bodies sit below the boards of qualified directors is wrong, and downplays the importance of the council and iwi stakeholders in determining how the water assets are managed for their communities. 

I’m glad this lie has been called out because it is an important one.

They are not below the governance board. They effing appoint the governance board. You don’t sit below something if you appoint it.