There are many commercial enterprises making lots of money from using New Zealand water and they're not just Chinese water bottling companies. Water from the Waikato River is used for all manner of things from irrigation, town water supplies, industrial uses, power generation, supporting Auckland's burgeoning population and of course water bottling facilities, breweries, soft drink companies and water tanker companies too. And while our region is not fed by the Waikato River, local river levels and allocations in the Coromandel region also dictate the decisions to impose water restrictions, or not. The conversation of who owns water and the commercial gains made from it. We have skirted round the issue suggesting companies pay royalties on water taken and we've tweaked overseas investment rules to manage water bottling enterprises, but we still don't want to talk about water ownership.

Source: Stuff January 24, 2020 16:00 UTC