Three Waters co-governance: more of the same or different?

Three Waters co-governance: more of the same or different?
Waikato-Tainui co-manages the Waikato River. (Image: Getty)
Julian Ludbrook
The government is presenting the co-governance structure proposed for its Three Waters reforms as a continuation of the model used previously for the governance of natural resources, usually coming out of the Treaty of Waitangi settlement processes.There, boards with 50/50 participation by iwi and government have assumed direct governance responsibility for natural resources with which particular iwi or hāpu have had an historical association (eg Tainui and the Waikato River; Tuhoe and Te Urewera).The structure proposed for Three Waters would h...

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