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Post by Kiwi Frontline on Oct 21, 2016 17:23:58 GMT 12
REGIONAL CONVERSATION ON WATER NEEDEDIt is perhaps an ironic "tragedy of the commons" that water may be taken for free and sent overseas without any royalty benefit being received locally. Another significant reality is Article 2 of the Treaty of Waitangi whereby Maori were guaranteed "full exclusive and undisturbed possession" of their lands, estates, forests, fisheries and other properties. The Waitangi Tribunal has ruled (as Mr O'Sullivan's article pointed out, Hawke's Bay Today, October 15) that Maori rights and interests in water are equivalent to ownership. Translated into the water context, legislation enabling a royalty to be taken could simply preserve all existing property rights in water, thereby enabling the Crown/Iwi debate around that to proceed untrammelled. A proportion of royalties collected for commercial water use could applied to Treaty settlements, and directed to iwi more generally in the longer term..... www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503462&objectid=11732695
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