No not because they are accused of Criminal Activity, only to get judicial support for their increasing desires of governance that will also lead to ticket clipping in the extreme

The current leadership of the majority tribe of South Island Maoris, positions achieved by slaughter, enslavement and extinction of maoris they defeated in intertribal warfare, want the control of all South Island Water. Rivers, lakes, dams, canals sea and foreshore, and rainfall because their rights of pre European immigration give the all encompassing overview they are the custodians with superior knowledge and understanding of what is best.

They suggest they do not wish to monetize through such control but anyone with a functioning intellect well understands there will be no free lunch. The ubiquitous Koha or bribe will be a necessary component of any and all outcomes for water use, always with the tribe exempt from such impositions.

Now the taxpayers of all New Zealand citizens spent millions in creating the “Upper Waitaki” canals and lake controls that give a great schematic control of several once independent waterways that must give a maori with their inane beliefs that waters may never be mixed conniptions when the waters involved have been mixing for aeons
Beginning with Lake Tekapo in the north, the raised lake leaves the Tekapo River without any water except for during a heavy rain event when stored water is spilt. Every drop of water that flows into the raised lake is fed into a canal that traverses the northern McKenzie plain to Lake Pukaki where electricity is generated by Genesis Energy.

Lake Pukaki then discharges into a further canal the travels overland to the Old Ohau River bed having been joined by a canal from Lake Ohau to generate electricity at Ohau “A”, delivering the spent water into a man made Lake Ruataniwha where Max Smith the project engineer built the international Rowing Course using remnant concrete left overs.
The combined Ohau, Pukaki, and Tekapo waters then head seaward from Lake Ruataniwha through Ohau “B” and “C” generating further energy then delivered into another man created Lake Benmore that covers the river beds of Tekapo Pukaki and Ohau rivers. The water then exits Benmore into Aviemore near Otematata, another man made lake that discharges into the Waitaki river where it again generates energy travelling into Lake Waitaki near Kurow built without the massive machinery advances Max Smith marshalled in the mid 20th century, using a pick and shovel technology in the early years of the great depression of the 1930s

Now a handful of Maori elite wish to garner control of an extensive water control scheme that incidentally would likely never be consented in these benighted times, that they had no part in creating from the barren wastes of the Pastoral McKenzie Basin. Genesis and Meridian energy companies will be forced to go cap in hand to an unelected, entirely unaccountable tribal elite to make any moves to alter their generation business. Meridian have already been coerced into millions of overt bribery by Ngai Tahu for involvement in an additional Lower Waitaki canal scheme that has never eventuated.

A scheme that generates electricity with only one constraint, precipitation, delivering day and night so long as the storage provides water is a man made miracle that a bunch of thieves with ex National Minister Christopher Finlayson involved up to his eyes are making a judicial play that previous decisions from the bent indoctrinated judiciary indicate will likely rule in favour of. One might hope there is a legislated solution to counter such avarice but the philosophies of the current Prime Minister surrounding such, does not give hope.