There is at present an ongoing but private high level debate between Maori and the Crown as to ownership of fresh water.
The public are excluded from this debate, presumably until iwi and the Crown reach an agreement.
Once the occurs, we the people will then be ''consulted'' as to whether we all agree with the Government to transfer our use rights in the commons to iwi ownership and management.
The Waitangi Tribunal agrees with iwi that they have justifiable claims to fresh water.
The ''Commons'' is referred to in literature as a place that has a public good dimension, is free for people to enjoy and is owned by everyone who claim a share of its use and management.
The commons is also a publicly owned shared resource in which multiple individuals acting independently and rationally and consulting their own self interest seek to capture ''the commons'' for personal advantage.
It is the local regional council's job to try to balance all private interests to ensure all can share in the use of fresh water for a multitude of uses from town water supply, industrial, recreational and - yes - irrigation.
Many questions arise, however, when use rights are distributed by elected councils for public and private use. So who can use the ''commons'' for personal advantage? By definition - we all can.
Consider the following.
A pig hunter spends a day hunting on public or private land, hopefully with the appropriate authority from the land owner.
A feral pig is located (which knows nothing of boundaries or ownership) and is summarily dispatched by the hunter and his dogs and is then taken home for private use.
To whom does the pig belong? The owner/s of the private or public land? No - the feral pig is owned by no-one until ''capture'' has occurred.
The same principle applies to those who accept an invitation to gather firewood from a council-owned forest.
This wood stacked in the gatherer's shed back in town affords clears rights of defendable ownership despite the wood coming from a public resource.
Use rights and ownership, therefore, can only be vested once due process of ''capture'' has occurred.
Hydro-power generators invest billions of dollars to use publicly owned water to generate electricity as a public good use right where all can share but the power company also generates income for its investors, which is entirely appropriate regardless of whether the power scheme is owned by the Crown or by the private shareholders.
This particular use of water for electricity generation is not an extractive use.
Fresh water for private benefit contains a strong element of public good by way of job creation even if the water is bottled for local consumption and export.
In other words, ownership can only occur when infrastructural development/investment occurs around the use of fresh water. This has not happened with iwi.
A port company uses the publicly owned foreshore and sea bed for development of its vital infrastructure and can exclude all others for health and safety considerations.
Is the ownership of port companies also to be vested in iwi due to their claims of ownership of coastal resources?
The only time water was actually privatised was with the issuing of ''miners rights'' (in Central Otago) to water which was a defendable property right.
The Crown in the 1970s then exercised its right of eminent domain by appropriating those property rights back into full public ownership with no compensation, which can only be defined as theft.
These miners' rights revert into full crown ownership in 2021. If any claim of ownership of fresh water was justified then it must rest only with the irrigators of Central Otago.
Iwi are positioning themselves to acquire use and allocation rights, presumably with no compensation to those who hold deemed permits.
We all understand ownership of land can only occur once title has been issued by the appropriate authority. With water, that authority is not the Waitangi Tribunal. It is the Government and must remain so.
There is no doubt that iwi see a huge commercial opportunity now water use is metered both for domestic and industrial use, such as irrigation.
The real question for the Government is: is it prepared to say no and put an end to the uncertainty that pervades this vital sector and risk the Maori Party walking away from the Cabinet table?
As we all know, such questions under MMP are all about the retention of political power.
Principles and good public policy are usually interred in the graveyard of political expediency and so (regrettably) it will also be with the question of the ownership and governance fresh water in New Zealand.
Gerry Eckhoff, of Alexandra, is an Otago Regional Councillor. He has been an Act MP.
