More proof of Labour’s failure to turn vision into reality

The constitutional furore following last week’s passing of the second reading of the Water Services Bill serves to remind us of George Orwell’s oft-quoted description of politics as ‘‘a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia’’.

How else to explain Green MP Eugenie Sage’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in Parliament that entrenched the privatisation of water by a 60% majority? Entrenchment was something previously only decided by a 75% majority for constitutional matters concerning topics such as the voting age and the length of the parliamentary term.

The fact that both Labour and the Greens voted for the antiprivatisation clause, even though Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Leader of the House Chris Hipkins later admitted that they were unaware of it, is evidence of not only sloppy lawmaking but even more egregious political management.

It took a series of tweets from Victoria University of Wellington associate law professor Dean Knight last weekend, followed by a letter from him and seven other academic lawyers to the Government, to point out that the privatisation clause ‘‘extends the use of entrenchment protection from a very limited range of matters fundamental to our constitutional system to a matter of contested social policy’’.

The letter objected not only to the way the amendment was introduced but the absence of a proper debate about its effects and the unfortunate precedent it may set.

If you’re under the illusion that the kind of furious tribal politics that afflicts the United States and Britain hasn’t crept on to our shores, then the shenanigans surrounding this political debacle are surely proof that it has.

Because Labour and the Greens couldn’t get the support of other parties to reach that 75% threshold, they settled for the next best thing under parliamentary rules – a majority set at the same level of support for those voting it in. In this case 60%.

And this is where the folly and hatred part of Orwell’s quote comes in. Having attempted to entrench anti-privatisation measures in the bill in April, despite advice from Department of Internal Affairs officials a year earlier that the move would raise constitutional issues, Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta pressed ahead anyway.

During the debate that introduced the bill, she admitted the SOP wouldn’t pass the constitutional sniff test but insisted there was a ‘‘moral obligation’’ to do so. Moral obligation is one thing, but it veers into myopic stupidity when the ‘‘enemy’’, aka the National

Party, has explicitly said it will not be privatising Three Waters.

Having blithely voted in the entrenchment, seemingly without knowing about it, Ardern was quick to realise the constitutional implications once academics had pointed these out to her.

But in taking the issue to Parliament’s business committee, which will discuss a fix, she has tied the issue into a Gordian knot when a straight slip was all that was required.

Referring the bill back to the committee of the whole House stage, where it could simply be wiped from the legislation, was the simple option.

It would, however, see Labour and the Greens facing allegations of political skulduggery. Hiding a constitutional bomb under urgency among 23 other bills will do that.

It also calls into question your party’s reputation as responsible fiscal managers when times are tough. No-one likes to admit they’re wrong. But in this case the political face-saving surrounding entrenchment means that the Gordian knot tightens further.

On Monday, Ardern suggested an answer: that the matter be referred to the standing orders committee review as part of its triennial review of the rules that govern Parliament.

Instead of ruling parties entrenching a provision with the same support they can muster in the House, standing orders could update it to 75%. Which would make the problem go away.

In embroiling itself in this mess, the left has left little time to extricate itself. There are only six sitting days from next Tuesday to pass the bill into law before Parliament rises for the summer.

The irony here is that, in avoiding Opposition criticism of a lack of serious debate and scrutiny around Three Waters, and that the bill was being rammed through under urgency last week, the Government decided only the second stage was progressed.

How Mahuta and Sage must wish that so-called ‘‘rigorous scrutiny’’ of the bill was eschewed in favour of a third reading now.

More puzzling is why the Government is hell-bent on spending all its political capital on a policy that people just don’t like, with a recent Taxpayers UnionCuria poll showing that 60% of voters were against it.

However, one thing’s for sure: forget the failure of KiwiBuild, or frontline health staff in crisis while the Government spends $11 billion centralising healthcare with little to show for it.

The Three Waters legal saga may be solved, but it will entrench a legacy of this Government’s bumbling inability to turn its vision into reality.

More puzzling is why the Government is hellbent on spending all its political capital on a policy that people just don’t like ...