This morning the Minister of Local Government announced in Porirua that despite all the opposition they are pushing ahead with Three Waters.

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Locking in co-governance means Council's water assets will be taken from them regardless of ratepayer investment.

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We'll lose all ability to hold anyone to account on:

• what we're charged for water
• who gets paid for consents and governance
• waste and crony corruption in entities
• cross-subsidies to favoured localities or from those with 'ability to pay' to those who can't or won't pay

You may hear the Minister promise that Councils would have "non-financial shareholdings". This is gobbledygook. As a former Securities Commission member, if we'd heard such deceitful drivel from a broker we'd have been looking to use the law against securities fraudsters.

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What does this mean for our legal action?

It makes our case even more important. The Government's backdown on the Rotorua Electoral Bill shows that constitutional safeguards can still be influential. We want the Court to send a strong message to Cabinet that they can't just override democracy. Nanaia Mahuta has claimed today that -

‍"The governance arrangement in the regional representative group is not something that is new. Many councils already have co-governance arrangements in place, and acknowledge the importance and benefit of such arrangements.”

But if she is that confident of her opinion, why is she and Crown Law trying to hide the legal advice she took to Cabinet to justify co-governance in Three Waters? The only way the public is going to see the advice is through our case.