Estimates Debate — Vote Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has done some amazing work in the last financial year, and we look forward to more of his significant and very important reports in the coming year. At the end of last year, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment produced a report called Growing for Good: Intensive farming, sustainability and New Zealand’s environment. This report followed other similar, major reports, such as See Change: Learning and education for sustainability. Those reports have challenged our collective failure to address farming sustainability, in particular, in this country. Clearly, the biggest threat to farming and to the environment on which farming is critically dependent is the degradation of our clean waters, rivers, and streams. The agriculture sector is still the cornerstone of our export economy, but the fundamental advantage that it enjoys today springs from the historical accident of New Zealand’s clean, green image. Consumers are not going to continue to accept food from a system that is degrading water quality and overusing water quantity, and the fact is that 95 percent of our rivers and streams are now unfit for human drinking and swimming.

Growing for Good clearly identifies these major risks. Farming is becoming more intensive. Between 1994 and 2002 the number of dairy cows increased by 34 percent but the area of land used for dairying increased by only 12 percent. Intensification leads to greater use of nitrogen fertilisers and chemical pesticides, and the dairy industry has increased its use of urea fertiliser by 162 percent in just 6 years. Nitrogen and phosphorous fertiliser runoff is poisoning our streams and causing algal blooms and oxygen depletion. We hear more and more reports of our lakes dying, such as Lake Taupō, which has been poisoned by runoff that is 50 years old. Effluent disposal, especially from meat processing plants, and land use intensification are all contributing to the poisoning of our fresh water. Long-finned eels are now endangered, and short-finned eels are not far behind. Loss of habitat from this poisoning is the primary cause of their decline.

The medium-term outlook for our waters is very bad. The long-term outlook is disastrous if we do not act now. Even those who care little for our environment, for the species that we share it with, and for the New Zealand way of life that is our beautiful outdoors might be spurred to action by the major economic implications that will arise from our declining water quality. The loss of our clean, green image—no longer really deserved, frankly—will degrade the competitiveness of our food exports and environmentally-conscious overseas markets. The cost of upgrading our water quality systems to render our water fit for human consumption will rise. Our tourism industry will face more difficulties as tourist attractions, such as our lakes, degrade and die, and there will be increasing health costs arising from ill-health from the drinking of dirty water.

We have no choice but to act now, and to follow the recommendations of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in his report in order to repair our freshwater systems, because ultimately the measure of how successful farmers are is not how hard they are trying but how clean the water in our rivers and lakes actually is. Practical indicators to measure the sustainability of farming and to monitor the state of the environment are critical. The Ministry for the Environment is working on this, but it needs to be done urgently.

Project Green, stream fencing and planting, shed effluent management, and nutrient budgeting are all good, sensible initiatives for farmers. Those who have adopted them should be congratulated. Sustainable land-use practices will add premiums to our food-export markets and increase our market share. That is all good for farmers who take action now and who do not lag behind.

We must face the possibility that some limits will have to be put on the rapidly growing dairy industry. The faster and better farmers respond to the need for sustainable farming practices, the more likely it is that we can postpone or avoid the inevitable decline. If farming is to become sustainable, it must be rethought on the basis of ecological systems, not just on the basis of short-term economics. Farming cannot be economic if it is destroying both its own resource base and the natural capital on which our future depends.

The Greens look forward to further challenging reports from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in the future, and we hope that our country finally sees sense and does this work, which urgently needs to be done.

I am pleased to rise in support of this estimate. I concur with a lot of what the last speaker said in relation to the importance of one of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s reports last year, called Growing for Good: Intensive farming, sustainability and New Zealand’s environment, which highlighted the degradation of waterways caused by the increasing rate of application of fertilisers, and in particular by phosphates and nitrates finding their way into our waterways. I think there has been something like a six or sevenfold increase in the rate of application of nitrates in New Zealand over the last 20 years, and that is having adverse effects on waterways. It is quite notable in parts of my own electorate in Otago. It is not just associated with dairy farming; it is also associated with the increasing intensification of land use generally.

One of the things that has happened as a consequence of increasing the profitability of farms is that land prices have more than doubled in rural areas. It then becomes more economic for a farmer to increase production by way of increasing the intensity of production from existing farm units, rather than by purchasing a bit more land to expand production in that way. The more intensive land use requires irrigation, high-energy usage to make that irrigation work, and higher labour utilisation, as well. Those higher cost structures, in turn, demand a higher return per hectare for the farmer, in order for that farm to be economic. That entails having more livestock per hectare, and, in order to feed them, more grass is needed per hectare, and therefore more fertiliser. So in the end that has created an enormous pressure on our rivers, because we are seeing that astronomical increase in the rate of nitrate application, in particular, on sheep farms, on deer farms, and, most noticeably, on dairy farms.

That meant that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment became concerned about the issue and wrote his very good report, noting how fertiliser use was not just affecting fresh water on the surface but it was also becoming problematic in ground-water. I think the Parliamentary Commissioner quite rightly pointed out to the Local Government and Environment Committee and this Parliament that although we do not need very many things to live on this planet, we do need clean water, food, and shelter. Clean water is a most necessary part of that, and if we in a country like New Zealand, which is blessed by quite substantial water resources, cannot get it right and produce clean water by the time it flows into our oceans, what chance is there for the rest of the world to keep our oceans relatively clean and free from pollution? So the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment is an office that is showing its value, and I am very supportive of the provisions in this appropriation for the office to continue with that good work.

I note some of the remedies that are required to address this issue, but I do not think it is a case of the end of farming as we know it. I disagree with the Green member to that extent. I think that with better management of riparian margins, fencing of waterways, and greater care with the use of fertiliser, we will see a return to some health in our waterways. But we will also see an economic advantage to farmers, because at present they lose much of the nitrate they apply in the form of urea, through that being washed off their farms and lost from their farm production into waterways.

I am pleased that we are supporting the work of this office, and I recommend the appropriation to the Committee.

Vote agreed to.

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