Inside Parliament: Co-governance, crybabies and controversy

Three Waters has finally had its rebrand, but has the Government managed to build a bridge over troubled water? Controversy also swirled in the Green Party after MP Elizabeth Kerekere accidentally messaged the wrong group chat during their party’s list ranking process - and called another MP a "crybaby". Read on and listen below to 1News' political podcast, Inside Parliament.

It's recess week – the first of three – so most MPs are not at Parliament, but that doesn't mean the politics have stopped.

The biggest political story this week has been the Government's Three Waters reset – or, as it's now called "Affordable Water Reform".

1News senior political reporter Benedict Collins, who was at yesterday's announcement, said the biggest change was switching from four water services entities – under the former plan – to 10.

It also meant every council would have a seat at the decision-making table – local representation and control/ownership of assets being something that had been a bone of contention around the reform.

Collins said Local Government Minister Kieran McAnulty seemed very confident that with this change; the Government had managed to "flip" mayors from opposition to support of the reform.

"On the other hand, the big benefit of having four regional water authorities is you get these economies of scale – they can borrow much more money at better rates, they can invest into water infrastructure on vastly better financial terms. By going to 10, you lose quite a lot of that," he said.

"So in kind of kowtowing to these mayors all around the country, they've actually delivered a worse deal for ratepayers. People are still going to pay thousands of dollars more now in order to have their local mayor sit on this local board that controls water infrastructure."

1News political reporter Cushla Norman said she got "whiplash" from Prime Minister Chris Hipkins' comments that co-governance was not a feature of Three Waters reform.

"From my memory that was never communicated that co-governance got taken off the table – I can't think of the time, the date, when and why that was said. He did acknowledge that the communication around co-governance had been poor."

On Thursday, Hipkins said: "Co-governance as it's traditionally understood was taken off the table in the Three Waters reform process some time ago".

"There was an early discussion around whether a full co-governance model should be adopted... Ultimately the Government decided not to do that. We have something different... regional representative groups which provide a partnership opportunity, but the governance model for these entities is a professional governance model as we have for many other public service entities."

1News political producer Lillian Hanly said the Prime Minister's Office had made the point this week mana whenua had a proven interest to water, established by the court – something Hanly believed the Government had not previously said.

"[If] it's true then, it's true now, so why the shift?"

Norman noted the word co-governance was not in the press release regarding the policy reset.

"It really now is people's interpretation of what is and what isn't 'co-governance'. Regional representation level, it is 50/50... so what do these words mean?"

An iwi chairman she spoke to, Baden Barber, told him that was co-governance.

Greens co-leader Marama Davidson announced today she will not stand in the Tāmaki Makaurau electorate, stepping aside in favour of new candidate Darleen Tana Hoff-Nielson.

In a statement, Davidson said she would go list-only so she could "focus on leading a strong Green Party campaign" and prioritise her work as a minister for the rest of the term.

Norman said both co-leaders – James Shaw and Davidson – were now not standing in electorate seats. Earlier in the year, Shaw announced he would not stand in the Wellington Central electorate, stepping aside for current Wellington City councillor Tamatha Paul.

"There is a strategy going on with the Greens where they are targeting the electorates – particularly the cosmopolitan, inner city, liberal electorates. You've got Chlöe Swarbrick [Auckland] Central, then Tamatha Paul... going for Wellington Central, Julie Anne Genter going for Rongotai. They could put up a fairly good fight in these electorates," she said.

Norman said the strategy had the potential to pay off.

1News digital political reporter Felix Desmarais said this year could see the Greens enter a new era where it started to campaign in electorates as well as for the party vote – the latter having been its main strategy since its inception.

Hanly said Ricardo Menéndez March was also running in the Mt Albert seat – one of the better known electorates as one that has hosted Labour prime ministers.

"It will be a seat which gets talked about... it's also a profile-raising strategy."

Meanwhile, drama had popped off following the announcement of the Greens' initial list after it was revealed Green Party MP Elizabeth Kerekere sent a text to other MPs in error, calling fellow MP Swarbrick a "crybaby".

Desmarais said the timing of the revelation would be interesting as Kerekere had made it to number four on the Greens' initial list – decided by Green Party delegates – just before news of the incident broke.

Green Party members will now vote to finalise the list, due out in May, which will show what Green members made of Kerekere's indiscretion, he said.

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