My nana used to say people got a brown arm from their elbow down from s#*t stirring, and dangerous expert ones were brown up to their armpits, Ruta Mave writes.

The way our Prime Minister has been acting lately it is no wonder his name is Brown. He is the epitome of an expert stirrer and he does so with our lives and our identity.

His latest pot stir of a new passport has nothing to do with giving us an identity. Perhaps, it’s to do with the United Nations – maybe more to do with him wanting an apartment in New York?

His ability to move around the world easily is completely due to his New Zealand passport. A Cook Islands passport will reduce us to face trouble securing visas and customs scrutiny. Our politicians will either claim immunity benefits, or enjoy staying longer in the Koru lounges; which is why they travel in the first place.

Brown is a Guy Fawkes of sorts. He drops firecrackers into important settings like AGM’s or Constitution Day, then stands back and watches the sparks fly. Taking every opportunity to drop his pet subject – seabed mineral mining – to get the blood bubbling amongst the crowd. 

The current water fiasco goes back to when Brown was the finance minister and ignored public outcry and petitions against giving the Chinese the contract. Over 100 million dollars later, we have a 10-year outdated water system that does not deliver potable water with improved pressure despite new pipes and extra filtering through gravel and UV. They advertise to boil the water but no one dies if you don’t. Is it all fear-based tactics to make you want to pay for something you are entitled to for free?

The public has forgotten the provision of water to the community was a government service paid fully by their taxes for the past 60 years. Brown has taken a public service, and made it a state-owned enterprise SOE, a government business. They claim to be a non-profit service to the people, but it is a business with an executive board who want their 100 thousand dollars wages, before providing proficient potable water to public homes. Brown has restricted TTV tax funding, so to make money they have to charge the customer with water tariffs.

The scramble to make money started on October 1^st. Charging residential homes is starting earlier than 2026. The rules are changing daily of how many hoops you have to jump through to get the free allocation of water Brown promised at the public meetings and on Facebook. Peaceful protests are not going to change the path Brown has. On the day the hardworking souls who are fighting for your rights arrived at Parliament to present the water petition Brown said ‘the netball is on I’m going to watch them instead’. Actions of a deserter.

On Saturday I walked up the Turangi water intake road to the large tanks, I found water running down the access road. The tank tap had water running out of it at top speed. The gate was locked, I returned and tried to call TTV. The website 24-hour link didn’t work. No one answered the contact landline, there was no answer machine with an emergency contact. This was before it rained. I posted it on Facebook, they stopped the comment section. Question – who pays for this waste of water?

Later on Facebook, TTV posted a photo of a business watering their entrance. They condemned the business for wasting water on a nonessential task. Question if a business has to pay for the water they use, are they going to be micromanaged on how they are allowed to use it?

If a resident uses up all their free allocation and pays money for running the hose in their garden, whose to stop them? Once you buy it, it is yours to do what you want with it right? If, water was a service, it relies on everyone being sensible about how they use water during a drought. But that is not what we have anymore. Now we have a dictatorship that says you have to pay.

What’s more, do not be surprised if TTV and Brown taxes you for water you don’t have, don’t receive and don’t want. They can and will do it, if it suits them. Stirrers stir then they step back. They kick the wasp nest then enjoy the mayhem it causes.