Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister responsible for RMA Reform: I present a legislative statement on the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

It is my pleasure to speak at this third reading of the bill on behalf of the Minister responsible for RMA Reform, the Hon Chris Bishop, and I acknowledge and thank him for his hard work. At its introduction, the Hon Chris Bishop outlined where this bill sits in the Government’s phased approach to the resource management reform. As part of phase two of the reform programme, this bill is about making quick and targeted changes to give councils and consent applicants the certainty they need to operate. Its aims are to reduce regulatory burden on resource consent applicants; support development in key sectors, including farming and other primary industries; make targeted changes to the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) that can take effect quickly to give certainty to councils and consent applicants while new legislation to replace the RMA is developed; and speed up the process for developing or amending national direction under the RMA.

Throughout the bill’s consideration, these core priorities have been retained, while further changes were introduced to address emerging issues. There were almost 2,000 submissions to the Primary Production Committee, and 137 oral presentations from organisations and individuals were heard. I would like to take this opportunity to again thank the committee, those that put in a submission, and this House for considering the bill.

The bill pauses the implementation of or removes several blunt regulations. We have done this to provide greater certainty to key sectors, councils, and resource users while we put in place alternative rules or approaches. This will lead to better outcomes for a range of sectors for whom uncertainty has real-world implications such as extra cost or time spent meeting a range of complex regulatory requirements.

The three-year suspension of the requirement in the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity to identify new significant natural areas (SNAs) will allow for a review of the operation of SNAs. The Government has heard the concerns of some stakeholders that the identification criteria are too broad. Capturing less significant native biodiversity and the processes can place undue costs on landowners. The changes to intensive winter grazing laws and those for stock exclusion aim to reduce costs and burdens for farmers and provide more options for land management, such as farmer management, regional plan rules, and freshwater farm plans when rolled out in a region. We think it should be for farmers and regional councils to decide where and how stock needs to be excluded based on the risk posed and within catchment-specific context.

The changes in this bill squarely align with the Government’s view that we should work collaboratively with landowners, rather than further restrict what they can do on their land. Other targeted changes to the bill will provide clarity and reduce regulatory burden on resource consent applicants.

We’re making it clear that the hierarchy of obligations in the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPSFM) is excluded from individual resource consent applications. This addresses concerns about its application while we review and replace the NPSFM.

Another targeted change we’re making is to align the consent pathways for the operation and expansion of new and existing coal mines that affect wetlands or SNAs with other extractive activities. This will improve consistency. Applications will still need to meet gateway tests which means significant adverse effects on wetlands and SNAs will be managed.

Changes to national direction: because making and amending national policy statements and national environmental standards under the RMA had become too costly, slow, and onerous. There are a number of situations where amendments to national direction are minor or have already been through robust processes of their own but still have to go through the full national direction process. Providing more clarity about the types of circumstances where minor updates can be made to national direction without going through full consultation and submission processes would promote greater certainty and system efficiency. This bill streamlines these processes and introduces a minimum 20 working days’ time frame for public submissions to align with other RMA submission processes.

A further example of how this bill improves and simplifies processes is the removal of section 32 evaluation reports for national direction, which overlaps significantly with regulatory impact statements. The bill removes the board of inquiry process, which was last used in 2010. National direction since then has been prepared and amended using a more flexible process that involves public notice, opportunities for public input, and allows for independent advice or the appointment of independent advisory committees where needed.

These changes to streamline national direction processes are important. This is because we plan to make greater use of national direction, national policy statements, and national environmental standards as part of phase two of our reform programme.

Since the bill’s introduction, three additional matters have caused us to take urgent action. The Government is pleased to have the opportunity to address them through this legislation. Freshwater farm plans help farmers identify, manage, and reduce the impact of farming on waterways. Pausing the freshwater farm plans’ roll-out will allow time to make the system more cost-effective and practical for farmers and enable more catchment-level solutions to be developed. It was important to make this decision before early 2025 because freshwater farm plans were due to kick off for farmers in areas where the system was already live—for example, the Waikato. If the change wasn’t made now, those farmers would be disadvantaged by needing to comply with the current law which is about to be changed.

A recent court decision about section 107 of the RMA and the granting of discharge consents required an urgent response. This meant discharges with certain effects could not be consented in degraded catchments, creating potential for a large number of consents for agriculture and horticulture to be declined or for applications to be put on hold. This would cost councils, industry, and primary sector producers, and could mean activities such as large-scale irrigation schemes can’t operate. Enabling consents to be granted for some discharges and catchments already subject to significant adverse effects, provided consent conditions contribute to an overall reduction in those adverse effects over time, provides clarity to consent authorities and applicants.

The bill also restricts the notification of freshwater plans until the current NPSFM is replaced. This is needed to avoid duplication of effort and uncertainty for resource users, as councils would need to amend their plans once the new NPSFM plan is gazetted. This is not a blanket measure. The bill provides exemptions from this new restriction where plans are required for specific matters, including plans for flood protection, the provision of infrastructure, and housing or drinking water. The exemptions mean any critical plans can still progress, but most freshwater planning will need to be paused to await the replacement NPSFM in mid-2025. We have already extended the time frame to notify freshwater plans from 31 December 2024 to December 2027 to allow councils time to make their new plans.

In conclusion, this is a timely piece of legislation. It streamlines existing processes and introduces greater efficiency and certainty in consenting processes. It also continues our ongoing commitment to unlocking development and investment in infrastructure, housing, agriculture, aquaculture, forestry, and mining, while ensuring the environment is protected. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, it appears that this Government is on a slow track for environmental protection, and all it wants to do is pause things at the moment. We’ve heard the Minister just refer to SNAs—significant natural areas—being paused, but just in the general debate just before, we heard the leader of the ACT Party say, “Oh, they’re gone—SNAs, they’re gone.”, which is a lot more than pausing. We know, of course, that farm plans are being paused. It just goes to show that this Government cannot adequately regulate for the environment and for what is our biggest export market.

Now, we also have the Otago Regional Council being paused—its notification that was supposed to be voted on today. I’ve addressed that in my general debate speech just before, but I want to add that not going ahead with a new plan is exceptionally inefficient. We keep hearing from this Government that they are interested in efficiency, but what happens when a new plan that’s been worked on for five years at a cost of $18 million doesn’t get notified and doesn’t continue on to have the process that happens after notification is that people are left with the old, outdated plan. What this means is that there will be some aspects of that plan that are not clear for people, land users who are going to need consents. It won’t be clear about that, so when consent applications are made, they’ll have to go up the chain to look at national policy direction or the purpose of the Resource Management Act. That seems inefficient.

We’ve had one of the Otago regional councillors saying, “Oh, the other councillors were playing chicken with the Government and the Government has won.” That is such a childish approach to how Parliament should be operating, to say to a council, “Oh, look, you’re following the law—the law that we’ve told you that we’re going to change at some point in the future; who knows when, and we’re not going to tell you what it says—so you should not do anything. We’re going to pause it.” This is a basic rule-of-law issue, that councils should follow the law and Governments with majorities should not be saying to those councils, “Don’t follow the law as it is now—we’re going to pause everything, and we’re going to do it with an amendment that we’re only introducing at the committee of the whole House stage and we’re going to make it retrospective.” It’s appalling.

Then we have Te Mana o te Wai, and, again, in terms of efficiency, you don’t need to say Te Mana o te Wai doesn’t apply to consents if you have plans that have already incorporated it. I can only infer that this Government needs to make that change because there is going to be so much change to the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management, and their terror of Te Mana o te Wai, that they’re going to allow for a whole lot more pollution. That is the only logical conclusion for wanting to be pausing everything at the moment, that they intend to make changes, and, in fact, those changes—they do know what they’re doing, and it is to allow more pollution. Shameful.

Then we have other changes to regulations relating to stock exclusion and winter grazing, and we’ve heard a lot from the Minister and from Government members that “It’s OK, we don’t need these regulations to incentivise the behaviour that stops animals in mud or stops sedimentation running off into rivers”—so, pollution—“We don’t need that. We accept that behaviour has improved while these regulations have been in place, but now, according to Federated Farmers, the farmer peer pressure, all the good farmers—many good farmers—means that we don’t need these regulations.” That is an interesting argument, but what we haven’t heard from the Minister, despite repeated questioning from me in committee stage, is an undertaking that there will be a review of the environmental effects that happen once these regulations are removed. We haven’t had an undertaking that if in fact Federated Farmers is wrong and the peer pressuring doesn’t work—and I certainly hope that it does work, but if it doesn’t work, we’ve had no undertaking that there’ll be any sort of new incentives for behaviour that stops damaging the environment. That, again, is shameful.

Then we’ve got coal mining. This is unbelievable, in a time when we are in a climate crisis, that this Government wants to treat coal mining just the same way as all the other minerals. We hear over and over from members of the Government, “Oh, you shouldn’t be anti-coal, you shouldn’t be anti-mining”—mining, they say—“if you have a cellphone.” There are some good arguments for why we need a whole lot of minerals for the way that we live today, but there is no coal in my cellphone. Again, I asked Ministers about that yesterday, if they understood that there is a difference between mining coal and other minerals because of the carbon emissions that we get from burning coal and that it is not a critical mineral—no answer to that. It’s just head in the sand stuff.

We have changes about indigenous biodiversity, and we had Ministers in this House yesterday talking about bogs. That is so disrespectful to all of the indigenous biodiversity that might live in what someone else might call a wetland. Now, if there is an area that doesn’t have significant biodiversity, fine, but there’s no need for calling things “bogs” and there is no need for stopping the identification of that significant biodiversity. You can argue about private property rights, and what should happen once that significant biodiversity is identified, but pausing the identification of that significant biodiversity is just a total backward step, and unnecessary if you follow the rhetoric and the logic of the governing parties.

Now, we also have changes to national direction, and, again, we’ve heard from the Minister how this is going to be faster than the current process, how there’s going to be no ability for a board of inquiry, even if there’s a lot more of this national direction coming. There has been no comfort given to this House that that national direction won’t be used to do whatever it is that various industry mates of this Government want it to do. Again, shameful.

Then we have in the Primary Production Committee report a new change to the bill that’s very different from the bill that’s introduced, regarding section 107 of the Resource Management Act. We’ve heard from the Minister how that relates to discharge consents. There was a High Court case that some people think is problematic, and it may be problematic, but the way to deal with a High Court case that may still be going to appeal and that does not deal with every single point in section 107, such as exceptional circumstances, is not to drop it in the select committee report where nobody can submit on it. You can do an Amendment Paper and put it out for consultation, you can do a separate bill, you can wait till after the court process has finished, even. These are all the options, but no, no, this Government has not done that.

What happened is that it allowed some submitters who were concerned about the High Court case to make submissions on 107 but did not let other submitters who think the opposite to make submissions on 107. This is an appalling way to make laws. Whatever the result of the court case and the Court of Appeal or any subsequent decisions, to just go ahead and listen to one side and not the other and not have the analysis is shameful.

There is no certainty provided from this bill and everything else that the Government is doing, except the certainty that they will do whatever it takes to do what their mates want. Shameful.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This Government is one of the most regressive, anti-environmental Governments we’ve had in 45 years. I mean, you need to look at the actual legislative frameworks that have been put through here and evaluate them against the previous decades of legislation passed in this House, and it is not easy to conclude anything but that we have a very anti-environmental Government here. Not since Muldoon’s National Development Act in 1979 have we had a year of actions by a Government that has been so anti-environmental, so bad for the planet.

This particular legislation is yet another case in point of an extraordinary kind of omnibus of anti-environmental options that they bill as dealing with regulation that is a barrier to business, basically. And that is shorthand for a perception that the environment is what is getting in the way of, as my colleague puts it, their mates making money.

Now, that is such a deeply regressive view of what the environment is, because the environment is the thing in which we exist. In fact, a healthy ecology is the basis of all life on Earth. Humans can’t thrive and prosper and have a viable existence if we do not have a healthy, functional environment and a stable climate. How do you protect that commons that is the rivers, that is the atmosphere, that is the ocean, that is biodiversity, the wetlands, the forests? They are a commons, and they are subject to the exploitation of private interests in a way that is not in the common interest, not in the interest of all of us, so you put in place regulations and protections that set the boundaries on which exploitation happens.

This legislation is all about getting rid of those protections of the environment, and that is so deeply short-sighted. One of the most inspired and visionary pieces of legislation to be passed in recent years was Te Mana o te Wai. Unlike what my colleague Simon Court says, who likes to characterise it as metaphysical, it was not metaphysical; it was actually about setting some really basic bottom lines in the case of what nutrients could or couldn’t be put into an ecosystem.

💬 Simon Court: That’s science, Steve.

In a way, it’s science—it is science, that’s right—it’s not some sort of arbitrary concept. It set out a hierarchy of obligations.

💬 Andy Foster: That’s the problem.

That’s what the Government perceived was the problem. In fact, when we, at length, prosecuted with regional councils the way that they interpreted Te Mana o te Wai, they saw that it was taken as a whole. But, when you come to the crunch on how you prioritise the issues that you need to protect in fresh water, there was a hierarchy set out. The genius of it was that—it turns out—by looking after the integrity and the wellbeing of freshwater ecosystems, you actually set us up to be able to do all the other things, which is have safe drinking water, and then look to the third priority, which is industrial exploitation, to put it in more accurate language.

This Government has removed, through this legislation, that hierarchy of obligations. That means, in a very practical sense, that protection of safe human drinking water is now not a higher priority than irrigation that will lead to dairy intensification, that will lead to contamination of human drinking water. This Government has explicitly said, “Your safe drinking water is now no longer a priority.” That’s the effect.

It’s interesting—my colleague Catherine Wedd from the Primary Production Committee is from the Hawke’s Bay and she will well remember that it was as a result of the terrible tragedy of what happened in Havelock North that the hierarchy of obligations was put into place. It was because of agricultural contamination of drinking water that people became very ill and people died. The hierarchy established that you cannot sacrifice the health of people’s drinking water with agricultural pollution. This legislation gets rid of that. This legislation does not learn the lessons of Havelock North.

Furthermore, this legislation is an instance where a thing that is a barrier to the exploitation of coal—in this instance, wetlands—is going to have its protected status removed. Wetlands are one of the most extraordinary, ecologically valuable things in our world. They are a provision of ecosystems that are spawning grounds for lots of species that are part of our oceanic ecosystems. They have this incredible ability to filter water. For example, interestingly, one of the best ways to deal with over-nitrification, which is a problem of agricultural intensity, is wetlands, because there are nitrate-scavenging microbes in those wetland ecosystems that actually consume nitrate. You have here a means of dealing with some of the problems of agricultural intensity—and we have only 10 percent of our original wetlands left. This legislation says the protected status of those wetlands that offer so much to the general wellbeing of our society is going to be removed—but get this—not to facilitate housing, not to facilitate, even, food growing—which perhaps you could justify, though in this instance I think it’s questionable—but actually to facilitate coal mining. I kid you not—to facilitate coal mining.

Minister Bishop, who gave an introduction to this at the first reading, I think it was, said “Quick and dirty”. He described this legislation as quick and dirty, and it’s a very accurate description. The Minister Penny Simmons earlier described it as “quick”—getting things done quick. Well, it’s certainly getting things done dirty as well, because coal is the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel we know. We know what Robert Muldoon didn’t know in 1979: if we are to avert the existential threat of climate change, we have to stop burning fossil fuels and we have to stop burning coal. This is the “Coal-ition of Environmental Destruction”—this is the “Coal-ition of Environmental Destruction”—from the ACT Party, to the New Zealand First Party, to the National Party, they have lined up and agreed to trash the planet for profit. That’s what this legislation is all about.

If we are seriously able as a species to recognise the existential threat of climate change and the existential threat of biodiversity decline, if we are truly that brilliant, adaptive, intelligent hominid that is able to see a threat coming and change our way of behaving to avert that threat, then when does it begin? That is my challenge to this Government: when do you start thinking about the future generations? When do you start thinking about the greater good and not doing the bidding of the vested interests who funded your election campaigns? When do you start thinking about how we all get to live on this planet by looking after the commons, a thing that does not belong to anybody but which we all need to exist and to thrive? It is in that context that we actually have to set the limits on what we do in the environment.

This legislation is a terrible example of a Government that is cutting away those protections, that is sacrificing the environment for short-term profit; for short-term gain; for some Aussie coal miner; for some Aussie gold miner; for some intensive winter-grazing farmer whose cows are living in miserable conditions, that is polluting the water, that is polluting the climate. That is not the way forward. We need to find a way to get over this sort of attitude, this regressive attitude, and I think the way is to vote these buggers out in two years. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of this bill. I’ve been in this House for a little over a year, and in this time I’ve heard the members opposite talk quite a bit on how we should spend money, costs we can add, regulations we can put in, and also lots of things that we could ban, but I’ve heard very little on how we can actually grow this country’s economic pie, as it were, aside from, of course, some strange belief in being able to tax our way to prosperity.

One of the ways our country has historically grown its economic pie and what also continues to be the backbone of our economy is, of course, farming and growing. It’s through the hard work of people who spend their days in tractors, woolsheds, and cowsheds up down this country that we can afford cancer drugs, police on the front lines, and all the other things that we want our Government to provide—the list goes on—yet for the previous six years, these people have felt like they’re under constant attack. Their confidence in their future went absolutely downhill, and without confidence, who is buying that new, more fuel-efficient tractor? Who is investing in solar panels for the cowshed roof, the new eco-pond addition to the effluent pond, or irrigation-efficiency technology?

The measures contained in this bill are all about restoring confidence to farmers for what the future can hold for them in terms of not only improving further productivity on their farms, which will help this country, but also lowering their environmental footprint on farm. These things don’t come cheap; they cost a lot of money, and you have to have confidence that your investment will pay off, whether it’s for farm profitability or environmental sustainability.

For many farmers, gaining that confidence comes from getting the consent in the first place. For many of us, there are activities on our farm that require monitoring, that require a consent. Now, Te Mana o te Wai—the hierarchy of obligations—has been a barrier for getting consents. There has been confusion in councils. I have seen the papers written by Environment Canterbury where they said, “We are uncertain about all of this. Our interpretation is that we can’t grant consents or renew consents because of these provisions. We don’t know what to do.”, and there was a massive backlog in consents. You don’t believe me? Well, some of you have already sent Official Information Act requests to my office and you’ll already have that document from Environment Canterbury, so merry Christmas.

It’s not just the hierarchy of obligations around confidence for a consent. We recently had two High Court cases and they mentioned section 70 and section 107. Now, take those two together—and, obviously, we’re only dealing with one in this bill—effectively, what they are saying is that all farmers, and not just those dirty dairy farmers everyone likes to go on about—so that’s including me and Mark Cameron—but all farmers—

💬 Hon Nicola Grigg: We still love you!

—er, cheers—are, basically, going to require a consent to farm; we have to have paperwork to produce food for everyone to eat. What it means is that if you have that consent, or if you’re trying to get that consent and you happen to farm in an area that’s over-allocated, the council, through the other ruling, isn’t allowed to grant that consent. You end up in this circle: must have a consent; not allowed to have a consent. How do we go forward with this?

This is what we are trying to solve with this amendment; to make sure there is certainty because we cannot have a situation where we just say to thousands of farmers across the country, “You’re no longer allowed to farm. You must leave your farms”. The intent from even the previous Government was that this water-quality improvement had to happen over generations, not overnight. We need to make this decision to give farmers confidence in their futures. You know, confidence—it’s many things. It’s for a farmer in the deep South to know that they can grow feed that will be able to feed their animals the calories that they need over that winter to be healthy and to be able to produce in the coming season. Having confidence that they are able to grow those crops and that the rules around them are sensible—that’s the sort of confidence you need to keep going with farming.

It’s also around stock exclusion rules—having confidence that you’re not going to have a draconian, one-size-fits-all national policy placed on your farm that requires you to fence, effectively, what turns out to be hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of fencing for what may be little or small environmental gain, or no environmental gain when you look at some of these very extensive sheep and beef farms. Now, the dairy farms, the intensive farms—they’ve already done this work. It makes sense and it’s cost-effective to do it, but for these extensive farms, all you’re going to see there is a drive to forestry. I saw that firsthand in Taranaki. This was a farm that had a whole series of supposed waterways on it where no water was actually flowing. The council had said, “You’ve got to fence all this off. It’s going to cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars”, and the farmer said, “Plant the lot in pines.” That’s not the answer we want for this country.

The way to address these issues, obviously, is much more targeted actions. Through the Farm Plans—now you’ll say, “Oh, but you’re pausing them.” Of course we’re pausing them. Again, that’s to give confidence that we’ll get these things right, that we’re not duplicating so farmers have confidence that the actions they are going to take are going to be real, and that they’ve got proper tools that they can actually use, and not tick-box exercises. Confidence also comes from knowing that you’re not going to have your property rights taken away from you by someone mapping what may not be that significant a natural area, and having that overlay put over your farm as to what your rights are going forward on your own land. This is challenging.

💬 Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Imagine having your land mapped like that.

Oh, I know iwi are very concerned about significant natural areas, as well.

Just responding to a couple of the comments I heard, it was an interesting comment from Rachel Brooking around “Councils should follow the law.” I recall an interesting conversation I had 2½ years ago with the then Government around the Nitrogen 190 reporting. Now, they hadn’t quite got everything right and ready in time, and the rule was farmers had to report it by such and such a date but the system wasn’t ready. They told councils, “Ignore the law. Don’t worry about the law.” How things have changed. We argued, “Why can’t you just pause these regulations? Why can’t you just change the time line so that our farmers don’t become criminals?” But, no, we just had to ignore the law; so I find that rather rich.

We keep hearing about pollution. Like I said, this is about confidence. It’s about giving farmers confidence that they can make the investments in their farms so that they can move forward.

You talk about it being generational—that we want generational actions. That is what farmers do. You know, everything my dad has worked for in his life benefited me. Everything I am doing on my farm now benefits my daughters. That’s what every farmer is focused on: how can we make it better for the next generation? That is the stuff we do.

I look at the indigenous biodiversity on my farm and I take pride in it. I look at the water quality on our farm and I take pride in it. These are the actions farmers are doing, and the public at large can have confidence. It’s not only farmers needing confidence; the public need confidence that farmers up and down this country are doing the work. We have 180,000 hectares in the QEII National Trust. We have catchment care groups up and down this country. Farmers are doing the work, and not just ticking admin boxes.

In conclusion, I feel a lot of pride, quite frankly, in the fact that I’ve been part of this bill and in a number of the actions—I’ve done the work here. To me, this is what I came into Parliament for: to bring confidence back to farmers and to show them that there was a way forward and that there was a future farming in New Zealand. Not only do I commend this bill to the House, I also commend our country’s farmers and growers for all the hard work they do. Thank you.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support this Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. This is what delivering on your election promises looks like. All three of the coalition parties recognise the dog’s breakfast that the freshwater regulations were—those regulations that had seen, actually, towns closed down by tractors in the streets on more than one occasion. Farmers are not unreasonable people, and as Minister Hoggard has just outlined, they do care deeply about the environment, but when they saw really impractical, unworkable, and bureaucratic rules, they rose up, and that just can’t happen without there being some real reasons for that to happen. They’ve got more to do on their farms than be driving around the local town.

The farming sector was genuinely affronted, and I’ve heard some of the commentary from the other side of the House already in this debate and earlier in this bill, with some apocryphal stories about farming conditions in this country. Here’s an anecdote: one of the professors at Lincoln University, an international professor who trains our Master’s degree students there, he said to me that he has trouble placing the Master’s students on the international part of their courses. He said, “There’s nowhere I can send them that they could learn anything about pastoral farming. New Zealand pastoral farming is akin to magic, by international standards. We do it very well.”

We were affronted by some of the commentary that went round this and went into some of the original 2020 measures—the one-size-fits-all nature, particularly—the stock exclusion rules and the low-slope maps. As Minister Hoggard outlined earlier, what we were capturing, in many cases, was small tributaries and low-intensive areas that were going to cost, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars and make farming, essentially, uneconomic. We note the Beef + Lamb New Zealand economic service forecast for this year showing the average sheep and beef farm making about $60,000 before interest, tax, and drawings. You can see why that would be a problem. Every cost is going to affect farming sustainability, really, in an economic sense, and that would be for no real environmental benefit, in the grand scheme of things, so we are being much more practical about it.

You only have to look at technology. Technology has come along. Since this 2020 legislation came through, the collars, the halters, the Gallagher’s—it’s like magic. Simeon Brown, actually, was showing some interest in this yesterday. He thought he could become a farmer, because you can actually farm from your couch. You get on your app and draw a line on the map there and you can shift stock around without even having to leave the front door. There’s all sorts of innovation and different ways we can go about getting the same outcomes without having to be heavily bureaucratic and expensive in the way that we as a central government are imposing on our rural sector.

The significant natural areas—now, that is a property rights issue, pure and simple. We have got to get back in this country to where if you own a block of land, you have certain rights, and you can’t have other people coming on and dictating to you what you’re doing on your own land without a very high bar. That is exactly what we’re looking to do in terms of pausing what had been overreach and having a really good look at this. Where there are ecologically significant areas, we do want to see that protected, but for many of the examples we were seeing, they certainly didn’t reach that threshold.

I’ve heard so much about wetlands, and there’s some sort of faux indignation about someone calling them a “bog”. Well, I can assure you, Steve Abel—and I know that you know this, but one of the main things we are doing in terms of the catchment groups and the like is that we’re going back to wetlands. We’re creating wetlands. We’re doing it at a catchment level for exactly the reasons you mentioned, because they are good at catching nitrates and sediments. We’re actually reinstating a lot of these wetlands.

The intensive winter grazing regulations had unintended consequences, actually, in terms of some of the tightness around the rules. Farmers trying to get around those rules had gone to bale grazing and trying to winter on grass in wet conditions in Southland, which has caused much more damage than a well-constructed winter grazing programme would have done on traditional cropping.

The other thing around this, too—you know, our markets are demanding this. We’re not oblivious to the need to look after our environment, our animals, and we have that pressure from our markets. We are accountable to our processing companies and the like to qualify to supply and to get into the premium end of that market.

Also, many people wouldn’t know—I haven’t heard it in this debate—that we are monitored from the air by helicopters or planes by a regional council. They do flyovers—random flyovers. We don’t know it’s happening. They’ll come over three or four times a winter to monitor the winter grazing practices. They do it in Southland, Otago, and Canterbury, and possibly in other areas too—I think the Waikato. The regional council actually can interfere. What we’re seeing now is the practices have got so much better that we’re getting 95 percent, 97 percent that are compliant in terms of good management practice. The outliers, those that aren’t following good management practices, are then managed intensively by the council, by the Ministry for Primary Industries and their farm support team. They’ll go in there to make sure there are no animal welfare issues. There are pragmatic things that we’re doing—actual things that we’re doing that don’t necessarily sit in a piece of paper in a drawer; they’re actually actions on the ground.

Now, I need to address the issue of the Otago Regional Council (ORC) and the measures we took with the amendment. The Government has been very clear that we are amending the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020. Most councils—almost all councils apart from one—have respected that position. They do know that we have serious concerns around Te Mana o te Wai provisions and the hierarchy that will be such lethal planning. It’s so vague, to have that as your basis for your planning. We’re having a completely new look at that and how that fits into a planning process.

The ORC, by moving to notify their plan today, if it had gone through, would have been working with a moving feast. They would have been, essentially, setting off a chain of actions that would have ended up in the Environment Court by default, because that would have been the process that would have been set off. There would have been no way of stopping that. The farmers would have fought it. We would have been absolutely torching ratepayers’ money for no reason, because the macro rules that we are going to change and have clearly signalled that we’re going to change would, at the end of that, mean that they would have to start again. All the other councils had respected that. The Otago Regional Council had not, for ideological reasons, I believe, amongst some of the councillors.

I object to the apocalyptic representation of Otago’s environment and waterways. They are some of the best in the country. There is no danger at all if we have a pause. They absolutely are. You look at the statistics—you look at the statistics. Go and look at the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s report and you can see Otago is a shining example of water quality. We are bringing in sensible, pragmatic solutions. We’re going to do it in a timely manner. This bill buys us some time, really, to do the stuff that we really want to do so we can get some proper regulations for our farming sector. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Tēnā koe e te Pika. I rise on behalf of Te Pāti Māori to speak in opposition to this bill for a few reasons: the removal of Mana o te Wai, the diluting of mana whenua, making it easy to mine and destroy indigenous taonga, the impact on significant natural areas—for example, wāhi tapu—and making it easier for bad farmers. That, really, is what is at discussion here, and as the original rural farmers here—as tangata whenua—what we’re really doing is talking about those who don’t meet and/or don’t want to meet any thresholds.

I heard, here, and I want to sort of capture the whole aspect about this mana o te wai, and you can’t regulate mauri. Actually, Māori have regulated mauri for thousands of years through something called “tikanga”, and if you don’t know it, go and find out for yourself. It is not my role here to make the allies’ jobs easier. Māori farms and Māori approach to farming, despite our natural development being interfered with, is extremely values-based—indigenous - values-based.

Lake Taupō, Miraka, Wakatū, Ātihau-Whanganui, Ngāi Tahu have all adopted kaupapa-based ways of how they look after te mana o te wai, of how they put the taiao first, of how they are also contributing to the economy for the whole of Aotearoa. What we have here is lazy, lazy politicians who don’t want to sit there and understand what is required for te ao Māori, mana o te wai—[Interruption] And they’re all speaking at the moment. There you go.

What I want to do is talk about the fact that what we have here is a whole bunch of people who are making it easier for the bad farmers, because good farmers have pride in looking after their wai, they understand mana, they understand the mana of their whenua, they understand the mana of their wai, they understand the mana of their mokopuna. And that is what this is about. Those who don’t understand the mana of their mokopuna aren’t future focused. In Te Tai Hauāuru, we had multiple submissions. We had Ngā Iwi o Taranaki who strongly oppose this. They said there was a lack of ministerial transparency. There was poor due diligence. They said that there was absolutely no compliance of the principles of Te Tiriti—surprise, surprise. They talked about the health and wellbeing of water bodies. They talked about the fact that there was absolutely no respect for the rangatiratanga, kaitiakitanga, and community interests.

South Waikato, Maniapoto, Te Nehenehenui, and Raukawa talked about the fact that this cannot succeed at the expense of restoring the health and wellbeing of waterways, as provided under the Waikato River arrangements. They talked about how the politicians here are frightened of te ao Māori and its source of matauranga and the kaupapa of mana o te wai. They talked about how the Crown is failing to meet its Te Tiriti duties of participation, it was unacceptable in the purpose of Waikato River arrangements, and how we must protect the health and wellbeing of the Waikato River. was South Waikato who have huge experience in the awa.

Ruapehu, Whanganui, and Ngāti Rangi oppose this. They talk about the violation of Rukutia Te Mana settlement provisions and the undermining of Te Waiū-o-Te-Ika. They talked about, under the provisions of this, how it has been granted protection in its own legal entity and the tangata tiaki of Te Waiū-o-Te-Ika comprising the Whangaehu River and the rivers and streams that flow into it. They talked about, on behalf of these awa, how they are extremely distressed by what has been happening to them because of these changes. They talked about how this is an extension of the fast-track bill and the undermining of the principles of the partnership. Now, these are—let’s go back to it—all iwi who contribute to the economy of Aotearoa. The proposed changes in Ngāti Rangi’s settlement view is that it violates their living entity, Te Waiū-o-Te-Ika, and breaches their international obligations under the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Now, let’s go back to visiting who is putting these submissions in. They are innovative, they are contributing to the employment and the productivity, indeed, of the primary sector of this nation. They are investing in world record taiao kaupapa. They have a world record in what they do in the research and science sense. They are not bad farmers; they are progressive not only in how they invest but how they think. They have extensive international relationships, and these entities take exception to what this Government is forcing on them.

Te Mana o te Wai is something that the iwi have fought for for a very long time, to have regulated and accepted, and it is disgusting to be here with this Government, but not surprising, with what’s going on. Kia ora rā.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. This is a sad day for fresh water and biodiversity in Aotearoa, and it’s, therefore, a really sad day for all of us, because so much of what makes living in Aotearoa incredible is the one foundational thing that is so foundational, so core to our health and wellbeing. That is Te Mana o te Wai, ki uta ki tai [from inland to the sea]—it’s water—and yet here we are, this Government is doing an absolute disservice to wai Māori and, therefore, a disservice to ourselves.

This piece of “quick and dirty legislation”, just to quote the Minister’s own description, is just one part of this Government’s comprehensive dismantling of not only the capacity and capability of our environmental agencies and our science institutes, with these crippling funding cuts that we’ve seen, but to add to that, the systematic override and weakening of our environmental legislation. The bare minimum of laws that formed what we understood in this country to constitute an environmental protection. This bill is yet another abomination of democratic override, with the truncated time frame for public submissions and the last-minute additions of Government bowing to the whim of industry demands to actually override local democracy and allow this continued pollution and environmental damage for the private profit of a few.

Who gets left to pick up the tab of the legacy pollution of all of this, the contaminated streams, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches? It’s the public. It’s iwi Māori, it’s our kids and our grandkids. Quite frankly, the inaction—I agree with my colleague—it’s lazy, it’s cancelling, it’s delaying, it’s removing protections that are ultimately insulting. They’re insulting to New Zealanders because thousands of them have worked in good faith alongside councils, alongside mana whenua, community industry, NGOs, and they’ve actually agreed on ways to improve fresh water, and they’ve agreed on ways for their own local environment. I’m really sick of hearing this one-size-fits-all description of Te Mana o te Wai and the hierarchy, which simply it was not and is not and needs to be ended.

Now, we’re left with nothing but delay and decline. I just want to point out just one example among the litany of mistakes that this Government is making with this bill, and that is around the removal and weakening of the intensive winter grazing regulations. I want to quote, within this, the Public Health Communication Centre and their submission, because they’ve actually looked at the evidence and made it crystal clear that intensive winter grazing “is a highly polluting activity”. It results in frequent “high nutrient, sediment, and faecal matter pollution of [nearby] waterways”, with four to five higher nitrate losses and 12 times higher sediment losses than those from pasture grazing. It “Impacts on waterbodies” and the impacts of intensive winter grazing “can last for many decades as they are cumulative.” It’s those cumulative impacts that this Government is also removing the ability of councils to actually address. This change to section 107 actually allows higher levels of pollution in some of our most degraded waterways. It’s a fundamental baseline of protection for freshwater ecosystems that is now unable to be upheld.

The changes to it in this bill will not only shut out iwi Māori and public voice in having a say on this, but everyone in Aotearoa who cares about fresh water and deserves the right to actually have a say about our protections, about those things that ultimately impact the health and wellbeing of them, their whānau, and all the native critters and fish who once thrived in our freshwater ecosystems and who will no longer. It’s a real shame and it’s a sad day and Te Pāti Kākāriki do not support this bill.

The Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill is a great piece of legislation and I welcome it. This bill removes the hierarchy of obligations, amends certain provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity, amends national environmental standards for fresh water to align the consenting pathways for new and existing coalmines with other mineral extraction activities, suspends councils’ requirements to identify and include new significant natural areas in district plans for three years, removes the map of low-slope land and associated requirements, and removes the intensive winter grazing regulations. These changes are designed to remove excessive red tape and the costs associated with regulation that ratepayers and businesses have to endure.

The problem that exists with the hierarchy of obligations, as set out by Te Mana o te Wai, is that interpretation varies wildly from council to council and from planner to planner. This inconsistency has made life difficult for councils and those applying for consents.

The provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity that are being amended have caused enormous stress on large numbers of people due to the arbitrary way in which these areas have been identified. In most cases, landowners’ first knowledge of such areas are when draft plans have been published. These landowners have had no interactions with council staff or any ecological reports performed on identified areas in draft plans. The councils have the attitude that these can be ironed out during the hearing phase or when the subsequent Environment Court hearings take place. This is not only incredibly slack but it’s also costly. Councils are committing their ratepayers to costs that they can ill afford, and individuals and groups to expensive court proceedings, all while knowing that in less than two years, the regulations will change and the planning processes will need to start again.

Interestingly, Torlesse Environmental Ltd performed an independent review of the development of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management and found significant issues in the way that sediment and E.coli attribute frameworks are being set up. Key flaws in this framework include that it’s based on model data and not on measured data; 38 percent of rivers would not meet national bottom lines, even if developed catchments were reverted back to their natural state; data collected during heavy rainfall and floods has to be included and all waterways have to be included, even those that have never been suitable for swimming.

To achieve the national bottom lines, it’s estimated that 44 percent of sheep and beef farm land would need to be retired and pole planting would be required on 8 percent of the remaining farm land. This is a major concern for the rural sector that is already under enormous pressure, both financially and mentally.

Councils around the country, councils who are dominated by city representatives, are imposing their ideology on the rural sector, directly conflicting with the rural representation on these councils. In the case of the Otago Regional Council, they have consistently opposed the way the council has progressed its land and water plan. These local representatives have despaired at the lack of engagement of council with local communities.

Communities throughout the Waitaki have echoed this complaint about their councils, the lack of engagement with communities, and the dismissal of the science presented by these communities. This is why a catchment-by-catchment approach is supported by the National Party. So I have great pleasure in commending this bill to the House.

I’d like to speak about this Government’s kamikaze lawmaking, to get its own way, that will result in Otago’s rivers being less swimmable, if swimmable at all, over the next 30 years, through a kamikaze amendment and a process that is worrying and that in some ways feels sinister and Machiavellian. I want to preface my comments with the context, then talk about the build-up that’s been occurring all year. Then the final piece, the kamikaze landing, last night, with a really anti-democratic amendment that was dropped on this House and the resulting confusion it caused to the people of Otago and the impacts it will have on us.

The context is as we’ve heard. There has been a five-year process on consultation for the plan that was to have been notified. This involved thousands of people, many hundreds of hours of submissions, and $18 million—not of taxpayer money but of ratepayer money. That’s a significant amount of money for the local community to invest, and it came on the back of an Environment Court decision 10 years ago that said that Otago’s plans didn’t comply with the Resource Management Act. All of that was happening, and we had a council that was taking the process seriously and was going to act in the best interests of the groups, having taken into account all the stakeholders and all the submissions and all the science.

Then, this year, we started to see a series of meetings being called—special and extraordinary meetings—by a small faction of the Otago Regional Council, who were putting up urgent motions to try to stop the notification, knowing that they were going to lose the vote. This made me think that there was a bigger plan here. There were tactics being used to try to create perceptions of chaos, which is what I said in the Otago Daily Times last Monday, a manufactured crisis if you like, to try to involve Government intervention. We’ve seen the playbook this week in other councils, and these were the types of tactics, in my view, that were being used in Otago. They were trying to create the perceptions of a shambles.

Then on 1 March, Minister Shane Jones took a helicopter ride to the river that is central in this particular stash, and that was a helicopter ride that was funded by lobbyists. He went over the Falls Dam, he was invited by the National Party MP Miles Anderson, and he travelled to the dam via Bendigo Station. At the dam, there was Councillor Gary Kelliher from the Otago Regional Council, Murray Heckler, the chair of the dam group, somebody called Roger Williams, Miles Anderson the MP, and a Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment official. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. That is ministerial work. However, the trip was sponsored by the Manuherekia Catchment Group, and my understanding, from a journalist who asked questions on the back of my Official Information Act and Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act requests, is that the gift register of Minister Jones has now been updated to reflect who paid for that trip.

Holding that thought to one side, we then had a letter from Councillor Kate Wilson, which came out in the media on Tuesday, the day after she became aware of—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Can we just calm down? I can’t hear. That’s too loud.

Then we had a letter that was unilaterally published and released by Kate Wilson in the Otago Daily Times on Tuesday, after it became apparent that I was asking hard questions about what the connections were between the council and lobbyists and the Government. She released a letter that she’d written to Minister Simmonds in August, asking her, asking the Minister, to get the Otago Regional Council to reconsider the vote. Again, there is nothing particularly sinister in that, but it did take an Official Information Act request for that to come out.

Then, yesterday, an amendment was dropped in this House at 1 p.m. with no select committee process, with a retrospective provision to make the law apply from yesterday. It was done very deliberately and it was designed to put pressure on the council to not proceed with the vote or to cause considerable confusion, which is exactly what happened.

What makes me say it was pressure from the Minister is she admitted to my question in the House, last night, that she had made a phone call to the chair of the Otago Regional Council at 1 p.m. yesterday to advise that this amendment was being dropped and that the law would change.

The result of that is that the Otago Regional Council put out a press release yesterday to show that the law was potentially going to change. There was confusion. The item on the agenda was removed by the chief executive, who has stated in the media today he took legal advice. The meeting went ahead. There was a big hall that was booked because there was considerable public interest in this matter, and councillors asked why the item had been removed from the agenda. Very sadly, the chief executive removed it because they did not have time to get the official legal advice that they needed in order to provide the councillors with the information to make the right call on the process. The Minister’s plot to cause chaos and confusion at the council and to make sure that the vote didn’t happen worked based on a technicality.

Today, my good friend and colleague the Hon Rachel Brooking sought a special debate on this because of the issues at play here. Penny Simmonds had said on Radio New Zealand this morning that this matter had not come out of the blue. In fact, the amendment was dropped yesterday at 1 p.m. The vote was due today, and it was pretty close—7 to 5—but there was every chance it was going to go in favour of those who were going to notify the plan. It caused confusion, and, as I say, it ultimately didn’t happen.

Here we are in the third reading. Here we are in the third reading with an absolute travesty of democracy in my view. The will of the democratically elected Otago Regional Council has been overturned, been usurped, by central government with its kamikaze lawmaking and its Machiavellian approach to democracy. We see $18 million of ratepayer money down the drain. Years of consultation, significant public input, and, in my view, real democracy in action would have happened today, had that vote taken place.

What would have happened, had that been allowed to happen, is that the plan, in all likelihood, would have been notified. Now, yes, there is no alternative plan, which makes this even more ridiculous, the fact that they didn’t want the vote to proceed, but what it did mean is that when decisions were ultimately taken, those who supported environmental protection would have been able to argue more fulsomely and with more certainty in the Environment Court that the law was on their side, because that was the law. Whereas, now, there is a huge gap which is going to allow the status quo.

The upshot, really, is that the Ministers have got their way and the minority group on the Otago Regional Council who have had direct lines of communication into the Ministers have got their way against the greater will of the people of Otago. The rivers in Otago—about 85 percent, I think, are swimmable. That’s going to decline very quickly over the next 30 years, and once they’re not swimmable, it’s really hard to get them back.

We have now got a precedent for a Government working out that its kamikaze-style lawmaking has had the impact it wanted. Why wouldn’t it do it again? Why won’t it pull this playbook out in future cases where it just doesn’t agree with the local councils making their local decisions on behalf of the local people? That is my real concern about what’s happened. It is the riding roughshod over democracy. It is the attitude of a Government that continually thinks it knows best to the point where it has no regard for due process and for any of the promises that it made pre-election to support local decision-making. It worries me that if it is doing this overreach in this context and with councils, where else is it going to think it knows best on behalf of the people of New Zealand?

I leave you with these thoughts, today, as a really concerned local member of Parliament for Taieri, as a buddy MP for Invercargill. For the greater region in the south that is impacted by this decision, it will have far reaching implications.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a privilege to speak to the third reading of the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I am a proud farmer from Turakina. Farming and agribusiness is what we do in the mighty Rangitīkei—it’s who we are. It drives our region’s economy. So many of the businesses in Rangitīkei, large and small, depend on a buoyant agriculture sector.

💬 James Meager: Literally puts bread on the table.

You are absolutely right—it puts food on the table. Farming has been the backbone of this country for the last 100-plus years. It got us through the global financial crisis; it got us through COVID. Sustainable farming is not an oxymoron, despite what our colleagues across the House will tell you; it’s what we do. We are guardians of the land.

The values of our nation’s farmers are very much reflected in the values of the National Party: manaakitanga, caring communities; mana motuhake, personal responsibility; haua te mahi, hard work; and, most of all, kaitiakitanga, guardianship of the land. It’s what we do; it’s who we are, yet farmers have been vilified and drowned in green and red tape. The last Government has created a bureaucratic nightmare. They’ve created a framework that’s regulatory and predatory. Regional councils have been holding our productive sector to ransom.

I find that really sad, because, once upon a time, the relationship between our councils and our farmers was constructive and productive. I can speak from experience. I’ve been around long enough for when we were friends, and Tunnel Hill, our farm—we were the proud farmers. We were the first people that the Manawatū District Council did an environmental plan for. They soil-mapped the farm. It was a massive piece of work, and a shout-out to Dave Harrison, who stuck with us for many years. That first plan mapped the farm. We talked about erosion, we talked about flood protection, we talked about weed and pest control. We fenced off wetlands and we created new wetlands. We planted the fragile sand dunes in pine trees so we could create shelter and shade and protect the fragile soils. It was a plan that was 30 years in the making and I yearn for those days, and I do think they are possible again.

This bill is about common-sense, practical-approach, and simple rules. It’s about working together, a regulatory framework that works, communities that thrive, and catchment groups—a fantastic initiative and a fantastic addition to our communities and protection for our waterways. This bill’s a significant step on the way to achieving these goals. We’re giving farmers clarity and we’re giving them purpose. We’re minimising inefficiencies and duplication and preventing unnecessary costs for ratepayers.

I want to thank Ministers McClay, Simmonds, Hoggard, Grigg, and Patterson, and also my fantastic Primary Production Committee. I’m incredibly proud of this bill. It will allow farmers to get back to doing what they do best: farm. It will help us achieve our goals to double exports in the next 10 years. It will sort out the regulatory framework and it will get New Zealand back on track. It’s a privilege to commend this bill to the House.

This is a five-minute split call.

In 1992, there were two piece of legislation: one was the Resource Management Act (RMA), the other was the Health and Safety in Employment Act. The Health and Safety in Employment Act said wherever you identify risk, you must do everything to minimise or remove that risk. The RMA said the same thing, and it said wherever you see degradation to the environment, we should do something about it—identify significant natural areas, etc., etc.

What happened? We saw rapid growth in agriculture through the 1990s and through the 2000s, but, during that time, we started to identify some risks. Around water, there were over-allocated catchment areas, and the outputs from some of those farming systems were polluting the waterways and the aquifers. We saw soil loss from some of the farming practices. We saw biodiversity loss that had been occurring for quite some time, but we identified that as a risk. We had animal welfare issues that we also identified—needed and required change in some farming practices in some locations.

The vast majority of farmers in this country do the right thing with the guidance that they’re given. The guidance has shifted. If farmers are to farm, then leaders should lead—if farmers are to farm, leaders should lead. If this was the 1980s, the group over there would be the group voting to continue with subsidies. The Labour Government made the hard calls for the long-term benefit of agriculture. The leaders over there don’t have the guts to make the right calls for the long-term sustainability of agriculture. If we are to claim to be the best farmers in the world—indeed, most are—we have to prove it. We have seen images go around the world of very poor farming practices. We’ve started to see increase in nitrate in some of the aquifers. There are many, many examples of very poor—in fact, outrageous—farming practice.

We are all governed by the lowest common denominator whether we like it or not. If we’re to sell our products—and it’s not just good enough to farm them and sell them at the gate, because we need customers and we need consumers for just about everything that we do. Those customers and consumers are scrutinising every part of our farming system, believe it or not. What leaders should do is show some leadership—that is, give clear standards for fresh water, for animal welfare, and for other areas of farm practice.

Nick Smith will probably say that I don’t acknowledge much of what he did, but at least Nick Smith had the guts to create Te Mana o te Wai to acknowledge our indigenous values in our freshwater systems, and at least he had the guts to put in place the National Environment Standards for Freshwater. This Government, this coalition Government, doesn’t even want to do that. Nick Smith’s standards had “wadeable”, but the public licence for agriculture was starting to run pretty thin.

Most people would expect, in our country, to have swimmable rivers, and indeed that’s what we in Government, in partnership with New Zealand First at that time, tried to put in place. It wasn’t perfect, we made some mistakes, but we were giving a clear signal to farmers, now and in the future, that “swimmable” will maintain our social licence to operate. Because, if it goes back to “wadeable”, and if the degradation continues—what we said is we want no further degradation, and, over a generation, we want to see the restoration of those waterways that have been degraded; a perfectly reasonable and achievable goal. But, if they degrade and we lose our social licence, farmers will face uncertainty from councils who will have to implement what their public demands. The public will demand waterways that are swimmable, demand farming systems that don’t see cows in mud up to their guts and that don’t see soil continually washed down into the estuaries. These are basic requirements.

Labour, in coalition Government, and in Government, gave a clear signal, and the time lines, through our legislation for the farming sector. This Government has come in and offered confusing signals to farmers now and in the future. They will rue the day that this confusion was allowed through the passage of this legislation.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. These reforms signal welcome relief for my community, mid- and South Canterbury—the farming community of mid- and South Canterbury. These changes offer much-needed certainty and a more practical approach to water management, and this is a significant shift from the previous operation, especially the previous Government’s contentious 2020 National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management, which many of my local farmers found overly complex and financially burdensome.

Can I take the opportunity, as it’s my first contribution to the debate, to acknowledge those who submitted to the Primary Production Committee from my area, in particular the irrigation companies, who raised a number of pertinent issues which have been reflected in the changes in this bill. Can I just point out the fact that as members opposite sit down to have their toast in the morning, their soy and linseed toast, bear in mind where that toast comes from. Toast doesn’t grow on trees, but the grain does grow in the fields and so does the soy and so does the linseed, and all of that is powered in mid-Canterbury by irrigation. Members opposite should remind themselves, when they’re sitting down and buttering their toast in the morning, that that is where it comes from. It is the farming sector and the farming communities that feed them, that feed their families, and they need to bear that in mind when they are considering previous Draconian legislation that they’ve put through.

Secondly, can I also just raise a point around the Te Mana o te Wai hierarchy. Now, I was fortunate to sit in on some of the submissions, and I raised a number of questions to submitters who were commenting on the hierarchy. If you think about the concept of Te Mana o te Wai, it is an admirable and valuable concept: consider the life force, consider the health of the water, when making decisions around resource management.

The issue is, however, the hierarchy, and it’s a hierarchy for a reason. A hierarchy sets an order of values: one, two, and three. I know members opposite don’t quite believe that to be the case, but if you go to the Ministry for the Environment website, it says—and I quote—“The first priority is the health and well-being of the water body, ahead of any human uses of that water.”—and that includes drinking water. Priority number two: the health needs of the people. Under Te Mana o te Wai, essentially, you cannot do anything to affect the mauri or the spirit of the waterway which benefits any sort of human health benefit. That, to me, is an inhuman application of a hierarchy. The more appropriate way of doing this is to have the balance in place where we consider the social, the cultural, the economic, and the environmental values of the waterways when we are making decisions around resource management.

For our diverse agricultural sector in mid- and South Canterbury, which stretches, of course, from the plains to the foothills, oceans to the alps, these changes could not have come at a better time. The region’s farmers, who have already invested very heavily in irrigation infrastructure and water-quality improvements, will benefit from these changes. The practical implications for my local farmers are substantial. Under the previous framework, farmers were facing the prospect of multiple consent applications for normal farming activities—those farming activities that put the toast on the breakfast table of the members opposite every single morning. This intervention means that those operations can continue without disruption while still working towards improved environmental outcomes. This is a good day for practical, common-sense changes to our resource management laws. I commend the bill to the House.

Just because you say something 10 times in a row doesn’t make it true. We’ve heard repeated claims by the members of the Government that Te Mana o te Wai—[Interruption] I have to shout because the boneheads on the other side of the House will not listen. We’ve heard repeated claims from the other side that Te Mana o te Wai created an absolute hierarchy. The select committee was told by the ministry that that wasn’t true.

💬 Hon Member: No, not so.

I was there. In respect of process issues, Mark Cameron—

💬 Mark Cameron: Oh, here we go.

Yeah, Mark Cameron—I would have thought you would like to be a man of your word. Mark Cameron gave, as the chair of the Primary Production Committee, an undertaking to Sally Gepp, King’s Counsel—appointed by Judith Collins to be a King’s Counsel—that the bill would not override the existing section 107 of the Resource Management Act (RMA), and, therefore, he did not want to hear her submission in respect of those issues. Then, the bill was changed at select committee to do exactly that with no submissions from any submitter, including Sally Gepp.

We raised this with the Minister in the committee of whole House stage. The Minister did not once respond. We raised it with Mark Cameron. He didn’t defend himself once. That is a disgraceful episode in the history of this Parliament—that submitters were told that section 107 wouldn’t be overridden. Now, there may be a case for overriding section 107, or limiting the effect of those judgments that the Government complains about, but they should do that in separate legislation. They shouldn’t add it on to this, because it’s an appalling process to do it this way.

In respect of the issues, look, I can accept some of the criticisms or concerns that are in respect of significant natural areas (SNAs). There are different ways of doing that. I accept that there is a limit to, and there is an intersection between, SNAs and property rights. I don’t accept how far the National Party take it. The National Party would have you believe, or the ACT Party would have you believe, that if you had the last habitat of something, your private property right includes the ability to change the habitat of that species—that’s, effectively, the argument that they make. Now, my property rights in a city are limited. I can’t change the use of my land from residential to industrial. The extension of a property right in respect of an area of rural land that has some important residual biodiversity is similar. You can’t change the land use of that and knock it all over and turn it into a pastoral farm.

That said, I can accept that there are broader issues in respect of that for SNAs, and I can also accept that fencing regulations can be changed. What I can’t accept in respect of the fencing regulation changes is the example that I gave in an earlier part of this debate, about a farm that I was shown with the Prime Minister—from a dairy farm looking over the back fence of an area. Mark Cameron shakes his head. I saw other members of the National Party—

💬 Mark Cameron: One farmer—big deal.

“One farmer”, he says, “big deal”—OK. So we’ve got metres of deep sediment getting into the Kaipara, one of the biggest harbours in the world. We’ve put hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer and council money into cleaning it up, and there are some farmers who are recalcitrant and will not fence their waterways from heavy cattle, notwithstanding that it’s so obvious, and has been for decades, that they’re trampling the banks into the river and that’s a big cause of sediment pollution of the Kaipara. Now, I can accept that those regulations need to be changed, and I can even accept some of the regulation changes that are being made here, but the idea that you go so far as to not fix the problem that was identified as one of the reasons for those regulations in the first place is overreach.

Now, in respect of the intensive winter grazing thing, I heard Andrew Hoggard deny that we had a problem with intensive winter grazing. The whole of New Zealand knows that we’ve had a problem with intensive winter grazing in some parts. The ACT Party went around saying the rules that we had to control the adverse effects of that, by having a permitted activity pathway that was practical, was going to cause 10,000 resource consents to be needed in the country. They took that from a report—that was a ridiculous report—where someone had said, “Look, the range of consent applications needed will be something between 300 to 10,000.” Do you know the actual number of resource consents that have been required? It’s about 100. It hasn’t been 10,000; it’s been 100 because the rule has worked.

The rule has worked to improve the practice by setting out some rules as to how you could do it as of right, if you were doing it responsibly. The main rule for that has actually been slope. If you go from 10 degrees to 20 degrees, as the Hon Damien O’Connor said in an earlier contribution, the amount of sediment getting into the rivers and clogging up the estuaries and killing the kelp beds out to sea—and this is true—doesn’t go up just by a small percentage; it goes up by factors. Many, many more tonnes per hectare of sediment are lost per annum.

There are streams in Southland where we’ve got good data on macroinvertebrate health. These are the little critters that live under rocks. I think just about everyone in the House recognises that a healthy stream needs to have those critters alive. There is the Otapiri Stream—there are peer reviewed scientific studies going back to the 1950s and 1960s, to the current day. In the fast-flowing water, more than 90 percent of the macroinvertebrates are dead, and in the pools that don’t move as fast, more than 99 percent of the macroinvertebrates have gone. This river used to be a special fishery where people went fishing. There are not many fish in it now because there are no macroinvertebrates for the fish to eat. There are problems that have been caused by the increasing intensity of land use in some parts of our country.

💬 Simon Court: I mean, don’t blame the farmers.

It’s so obvious—it’s so obvious. There has been a 600 percent increase in nitrogenous fertiliser use over a period of decades in New Zealand, with a comparative increase in land-use intensity. Now, that’s not saying all farmers are bad. You know, we, on this side of the House, really go to the trouble to compliment all of the farmers, to thank them for their efforts—

💬 Mark Cameron: That’s why they booted you lot out.

—to thank them for their—we do. We do it time and again; hundreds of times—hundreds of times. But, whenever we criticise the recalcitrants, the other side of the House hear us as criticising all farmers. It seems to be that this view, and we heard it—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Comments, not commentary.

—from Ms Redmayne saying that pioneer conservators really is how farmers see themselves. I think that’s part of the problem here, because, although that’s true for nine out of 10 farmers, there’s one out of 10 farmers that’s not of that mindset. It might be because there’s a share milker who’s pressured or willing to drive the land a bit harder. But the farming sector club together and will not criticise the people who are ruining their own reputations.

💬 James Meager: Not true.

💬 Hon Nicola Grigg: Not true.

Now, it’s all—well, it is true. I’m now going to move to the Otago Regional Council because I’ve only got two minutes left. Until now, there has been respect across the House for gradual changes in national policy statements. If a Government wants to change a national policy statement or an environmental standard imposed by a prior Government, they go through a process to do it. That’s been thrown out of the window by what this Government has done, and that is a breach of convention. That is a very, very serious change in convention.

What does the next Government do? The Greens have long called for input controls. We have resisted, in the Labour administration, input controls because they are less economically efficient, even though they’re simpler. What are we to do next?

💬 James Meager: Retire.

Oh, he says “Retire.” No, I’m not ready to give up, because I know that the vast majority of New Zealanders do actually want their rivers to be swimmable. They want to be able to put their head under without the risk of getting crook.

Now, that’s what makes it so appalling that they’ve stopped the regional council who’ve got a 20-year-old plan which has been criticised in the Environment Court for long being in breach of the RMA, which has no minimum flows on a lot of rivers and inadequate controls on increases in intensity. They’re responsible for all the rivers in Otago, and they’ve been through a process that’s cost $18 million. They say on that side of the House, “An incredible waste of money”—the equivalent of $70 per resident in Otago, in respect of what is their most precious resource: their water. They’re cutting across that—so hypocritical compared with what they said about three waters and their hatred of centralisation. They’re centralising, they’re over-riding the will of local government, and it’s a sad day for New Zealand.

I rise with great pleasure as the last speaker on the third reading of the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, because our Government is delivering on our election promise to replace the Resource Management Act in three phases. Phase one was repealing the Natural and Built Environment Act and Spatial Planning Act, which was designed by the member who just sat down. Phase two work has begun with the Fast-track Approvals Bill, because, on this side of the House, we are about getting things built and delivery. Part of that phase two is this bill, to make targeted changes to the resource management system.

Growing exports and building infrastructure—that’s what this bill is all about, and it is very welcome news for the people of my electorate, Tukituki, Hawke’s Bay, a rural electorate. Actually, speaking of infrastructure and the Resource Management Act, I’d just like to take this moment to acknowledge the work that has already started on building the four-lane expressway in the Hawke’s Bay. This is the first road of national significance to start work, and this work is happening at the moment, which involves removing vegetation and removing the silt. It means that the four-lane expressway is actually going to happen 12 to 15 months faster than scheduled.

The reason I’m talking about this is because this is amazing news for the people of Hawke’s Bay—

💬 Ingrid Leary: Point of order, Mr Chair—point of order. This is a third reading, and I don’t believe the member is speaking to the bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Just allow the Speaker to judge that, thank you. But, Ms Wedd, you will be warned that you are now straying a long way away from the topic of the third reading, and I’ll expect you to be back on it.

OK, no, thank you, Mr Speaker, but the reason I did speak about that was because we are obviously committed to reframing the resource management in this country, and part of that, in terms of phase two, was the Fast-track Approvals Bill. You will have seen the list that came out recently, and, of course, the four-lane expressway in Hawke’s Bay was on that. That was just showing us to be a Government committed to building infrastructure, and that includes the Fast-track Approvals Bill. It was very much part of this third reading.

Coming back to this particular bill, in phase two, it’s part of our Government’s plan to take Wellington out of farming. We have heard that a lot tonight, being aspirational for our farmers and making practical decisions and stopping that avalanche of red tape and regulation which has been holding us back. I think a good example of this was the move that we made with the amendment that has been also discussed tonight. This amendment restricted councils’ ability to notify freshwater plans before the replacement of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management. These steps were taken to reduce cost, reduce duplication, and to provide farmers with the clarity they need around freshwater management.

Labour’s National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management is extremely complex and expensive for farmers and councils to implement, and despite that, it doesn’t deliver the outcomes for fresh water that New Zealanders would expect. That’s why, late last year, we legislated so that councils would have an additional three years to notify their freshwater plans. Our Government is committed to reviewing and replacing the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management. This is about protecting the interests of the primary sector, resource users, and ratepayers.

Ratepayers and farmers, they need certainty, and that’s been spoken about quite a lot tonight as well. They don’t deserve to have money wasted. Ratepayers and farmers, they need that certainty, and by delaying plan notifications, we’re providing certainty to farmers. That’s what they need right now in terms of their planning. Our farmers are doing the farming, they’re doing the fencing, and they’re planting their waterways. As we’ve heard from Andrew Hoggard—he spoke about the catchment groups, and we have many, many catchment groups across the country, because, you know, farmers are committed to protecting the waterways. They don’t need to be told by bureaucrats in Wellington what to do. They don’t need a piece of paper, a strategy with tick boxes. It doesn’t need to be that exercise. They need a Government that’s backing them and backing our farmers and growers. We need a balanced approach.

We’ve spoken about protecting waterways for future generations, and I just thought it was worth noting, when we’re talking about future generations, that I was actually at a Fonterra meeting this morning and I was with a wonderful dairy farmer from Te Awamutu. He spoke about himself being a fourth-generation farmer, and next week his son was coming back to the farm and he was going to be a fifth-generation farmer. He spoke about how important it was with farming and being responsible so that we can protect our waterways and land for the seventh- and eighth- and ninth-generation farmers that are coming back to the farm.

The only way that we’re going to create the best environment for our future generations is if we make sensible, practical decisions now which ensure that there is aspiration and confidence once again for our primary industries. We want to attract our younger generations back to the land and back to our place so that they can work and live and have their families here. That’s what farming is all about in New Zealand, and we want to see those next generations of farmers coming through. Our farmers have a real commitment to the waterways, and to planting and fencing, of course.

This bill targets changes that can take effect quickly and give certainty to councils and consent applicants while our Government develops new legislation to replace the Resource Management Act, as we’ve heard. The bill will also speed up the process for preparing or amending national direction.

During the select committee process, we heard from a lot of councils who were very, very committed to localism, and they believe that they can do it better in terms of the winter grazing regulations and, of course, the stock exclusions, which have been also widely spoken about tonight. Our Government, on this side of the House, is very, very committed to localism, to ensuring that we are trusting our farmers and we are backing our primary industries.

This is what this legislation is about. It is about making practical solutions for provincial, regional New Zealand, which is obviously where I’m from, Tukituki—the mighty fruit bowl of New Zealand, but also we have a very large red meat sector and, of course, a very large horticulture sector but also dairy sector as well. Of course, many of our farmers in my electorate are very, very supportive of the direction that our Government is taking, where we are putting aspiration and confidence back into our primary industries. Of course, you know, with reducing the red tape and regulation, we are starting to see some green shoots in the economy again where we’ve seen inflation come down to 2.2 percent and, of course, interest rates coming back, which is good for our primary industries.

Along with this great, practical legislation and this bill going through the House today, along with stopping the wasteful spending and ensuring we are getting Wellington out of farming and backing our farmers—it’s these types of things that are going to really make a difference and support the mighty rural areas of the Rangitīkei, which we’ve already heard about tonight; the mighty Hawke’s Bay, and, of course, South Canterbury, Rangitata. This is the backbone of New Zealand. This is where the work really, really happens, in regional, rural New Zealand, and this bill tonight, the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, is going to go a long way to supporting our agriculture sector. So, without any further ado, I have great pleasure in commending this bill to the House.

The time has come to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The House is adjourned until 7.30 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 5.57 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.