As the world goes mad around me, this awful lockdown is destroying livelihoods, small businesses, mental health and removing people's surgery timetables. While this confusion reigns, other issues keep exploding underneath people's watch.

The Three Waters is a prime example. Minister Mahuta is making it mandatory for all councils to adopt her dodgy plan which is taking by stealth multimillion dollar water, wastewater and stormwater assets away from council's ratepayers and handing them to one of four entities, with boundaries based on tribal areas.

We are in entity B with a great number of other councils, and the bureaucracy to even get to the board that will oversee this mammoth operation is mind-blowing. Worse still, iwi who have not provided those assets will have 50 per cent of the positions on those boards and 75 per cent will be required for every decision.

Our ratepayers understood what was happening and more than 500 submissions were made to Western Bay telling council they didn't want a bar of anything to do with this trumped-up proposal. Ratepayers will have no say, but will still be required to pay whatever is required. The minister says it will be cheaper - believe that and you will believe anything.

Margaret Murray-Benge, Bethlehem (abridged).