Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’ll just start again. I present a legislative statement for the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill.

I move, That the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Primary Production Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 30 September 2024.

For too long, New Zealand’s farmers have been tangled up in red and green tape which has prevented them from unlocking productivity on their own farm. We need to acknowledge that New Zealand’s farmers are some of, if not the, best in the world. Burying them under unnecessarily and unreasonable burdensome piles of regulations and compliance requirements is harmful for our economy—makes very little sense. This Government backs New Zealand farmers to make sensible, pragmatic choices which boost their productivity on their own farms and to protect the environment at the same time.

Getting Wellington out of farming is an important part of our plan to get the economy back on track. We are committed, as a Government, to unlocking development and investment in infrastructure, housing, horticulture, aquaculture, forestry, and mining whilst ensuring the environment is protected. To enable this growth and to support our primary sector, we are delivering on our promise to improve resource management laws and reduce regulatory burdens.

As the House knows, we are taking a phased approach to resource management law reform. We are currently in phase two, and this started with the introduction of the fast-track, one-stop shop approvals bill which is currently before the Environment Committee and it’s partly because the committee is extremely busy with that bill—

Glen Bennett: You can withdraw it if you like.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: No, no chance of that, Mr Bennett. The electorate for which Mr Bennett used to be the representative will discover that many of the projects and many of the benefits of the fast-track bill apply to the great electorate of New Plymouth, as will other electorates around the House.

So we’ve started with fast track, and today this is the first of two resource management bills which make urgent time-critical changes to the system. This is resource management bill one: quick, targeted changes to give certainty to councils and resource consent applicants to enable economic growth in key sectors including farming, mining, and other primary industries. Resource management bill two, we are working away on and we will have more to say about that in due course—that will be a more substantive bill and will also make targeted changes to the resource management system, but also national direction.

So let me run through the details of the bill. There are six key changes. The first is in relation to the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management (NPS FM). The bill proposes to exclude the hierarchy of obligations in the NPS FM from resource consenting. This will address concerns about the way it’s being applied while a review and replacement of the freshwater management policy statement is undertaken. Regional councils will be obligated still to give effect to this—the NPS FM, including the hierarchy—in their policy statements and plans. This is about individual resource consents having the hierarchy of obligations applied to those individual resource consent applications. That was never the intention of the NPS FM. There is some evidence that that is what is happening, and so we are clarifying that.

The second is in relation to stock exclusion regulations. It repeals the problematic and contentious low-slope map and associated requirements from stock exclusion regulations, reducing costs for farmers. Regional councils and farmers will decide where stock needs to be excluded based on risk and a catchment-focused approach, and this will be a good benefit for our farming community.

The third thing it does is in relation to intensive winter grazing. It repeals the permitted and restricted discretionary activity regulations and associated conditions for intensive winter grazing from the National Environmental Standards for Freshwater. Regional councils tell us there’s been a significant improvement in winter grazing practices around the country. Farmers are proactively making better decisions about where they plant crops and how they manage winter grazing. Sector groups have confirmed their continued and collective commitment to work alongside farmers and regional councils to ensure good outcomes. Winter grazing will instead be managed through freshwater farm plans, regional council plans, and farmers following good management practices as outlined in the winter grazing module.

The fourth thing it does is in relation to consenting pathways for coalmining. The bill aligns the provisions for coalmining with other mineral extraction activities under the NPS IB—the National Policy Statement on Indigenous Biodiversity—the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management, and the National Environmental Standards for Freshwater. So the bill extends the consenting pathway for coalmines to new coalmines and removes the sunset clause on consent pathways for thermal coal. This means that coalmines will have to meet the same tests and requirements to manage their environmental effects as similar activities. As the Hon Shane Jones would no doubt point out if he was here, coal is required for food production, energy security, and industrial production such as steel manufacturing. If it’s not mined domestically, all we do is import coal and steel with potential flow-on costs—increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Fifthly, the bill suspends for three years the requirements under the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for councils to identify new significant natural areas—SNAs—and include them in district plans. It also extends some implementation time frames until 31 December 2030. This is so we can do a full review of the operation of SNAs and changes made before the existing regulations are locked in through council decisions. Criteria in the NPS IB sought to standardise the approach for identifying our most important biodiversity areas, but there are real concerns amongst many communities that the criteria is capturing areas with less significant natural biodiversity, placing undue restrictions on how land is used.

We recognise that landowners are already investing time and resources in protecting native biodiversity, and we take an approach, on this side of the House, which works collaboratively and in conjunction with landowners and incentivisation of this work rather than restricting what they can do with their land. Now, that’s what a property rights - based approach does. I want to acknowledge Associate Minister Hoggard for the important work he is doing in this area, as in so many other areas across the coalition between the ACT Party, the National Party, and the New Zealand First Party. There’s a real collective drive and commitment to sorting out our resource management laws.

Hon Member: Attack the environment.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Finally—I’m just going to choose to ignore that comment. Finally, the bill speeds up the process for—

Hon Rachel Brooking: Just like all the advice you’re given. Maybe you want to look at the supplementary analysis report.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, it’s easy to ignore when you didn’t actually hear it, but no doubt you’ll have your say.

Finally, the bill amends the process for developing or amending national direction. This is a really important change. The process costs too much and takes too long around national direction. It’s typically a two-year process to amend items of national direction, as other members in the House will know. We now have a suite of national policy statements sitting under the Resource Management Act across lots of sectors of the economy, and it’s important that there’s an expeditious process for making changes to that national direction. So there are targeted and technical changes to speed up the statutory time frame and evaluation reporting requirements. It streamlines and simplifies the process for amending a national environmental standard, a national planning standard, a national policy statement, or indeed the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement.

We intend to progress a suite of national direction changes next year to unlock development and investment in infrastructure, housing capacity, agriculture, horticulture, aquaculture, forestry, and mining while achieving good environmental outcomes.

Hon Rachel Brooking: Destroy the environment. Keep going. Fast track’s not enough.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: I hear the member over the other side going on simplistically and tritely about destroying the environment. This is not about that; this is about simplifying and reducing the red tape that holds our economy back, particularly our primary sector, from growing. I reject the proposition that you can have the economy or you can have the environment. Actually, modern economies that grow look after the environment and modern economies that are growing quickly—that provide jobs and growth for their people—provide the prosperity and the revenue to do all sorts of things in the environment that we would want to do. But much of what the environment requires is investment, is resource.

Ultimately, when the size of the economic pie is growing, investment can go into cleaning up lakes and waters, for example, in remedying waste sites that have previously been the province of harmful waste. But all of that takes resource. This is why economies that are poor tend to be the worst environmental vandals. Economies that are wealthy and prosperous tend to look after the environment, and there’s a direct correlation.

So members opposite want to have a trite debate about the economy versus the environment. We have a more sophisticated and nuanced approach on this side of the House. We can grow the economy, reduce our emissions, look after the environment—all at the same time. That’s what this bill does. Thank you.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I can assure the Minister responsible for RMA Reform that I’m not interested in having trite discussions, but what I have heard a lot of here has been trite. Now, first of all, this bill is being sent to totally the wrong select committee. It is going to primary production, and I have nominated the Environment Committee. I think that is where this bill should go to, because, of course, it is about amending the Resource Management Act (RMA), and what committee has always considered things to do with the Resource Management Act? Oh, that would be, of course, the Environment Committee that should be considering this, because the regulations that are being amended by this bill are to do with protecting the environment and improving the environment by stopping pollution. It’s all very well to say that you need investment to clean up the environment once it’s polluted, but, of course, the best and most efficient thing to always do is to stop that pollution from occurring in the first place.

What is the pollution we’re talking about? Well, a lot of it is sediment run-off into our rivers. Do our trading partners care about clean rivers? Yes, they do. Do our citizens care about clean rivers? Yes, they do. Do we want swimmable rivers? Yes, we do. This is the point of a lot of the regulations—

Grant McCallum: Farmers care too, by the way.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: —that are up for amendment today. I’m hearing farmers want clean rivers too—excellent news. I’m very pleased to hear that, and they should be talking to the Environment Committee about that.

Now, of course, the other irony is that most of the changes—the Minister just said that there are six main changes. Of those six, five of them are amendments to regulations. There is no need for primary legislation to make these changes. The sixth one, of course, is about how those regulations are made in the first place, and a lot of that is taken from the now-repealed Natural and Built Environment Act. The Minister often says that his legislation can be done swiftly because it is modelled on that of Labour’s. In terms of fast-track, that is totally wrong, because, of course, the fast-track bill that we have before us at the Environment Committee has nothing about the environment in its purpose. It is all about the facilitation of development, and that overrides all of our environmental regulations that are there to protect our environment from pollution. However, in this case, the only amendment to the RMA that is actually needed by primary legislation is similar to what was in that Natural and Built Environment Act—not exactly the same—and it should be considered by the specialist committee, the Environment Committee, but no, it appears to be going to the Primary Production Committee.

I also note that the Minister talking to us is the Minister of resource management reform. Making changes to regulations is not the reform of the resource management system. I note that the Minister for the Environment was not even involved in the press release about these changes, which is mind blowing.

Now, we know that this Government has some real problem with Te Mana o te Wai. One of the changes to the regulations here is that that Mana o te Wai hierarchy doesn’t apply to consents. We see in the documents supplied with the bill that the officials have said we don’t even know if this is a problem. We don’t even know if consents are being stopped, because the Te Mana o te Wai hierarchy is being considered in those consents. There have been a couple of cases where it was mentioned, but likely those consents would’ve been not granted—refused—based on environmental outcomes. So there’s very little analysis about that point, but then we see in the bill, in the explanatory note, that there are going to be many further changes to this national policy statement on fresh water around Te Mana o te Wai.

I want to pause here and remind members about this hierarchy. It is, first, the quality of the water body that comes first. Second comes the ability for humans to use that water—so things like drinking water; that’s important. Third is the consumptive use—that’s the ability to make money from the water. How can there be any discussion of rebalancing that hierarchy unless you intend for profit to come over the environment and to come over people? It is outrageous that there’d be any talk of going further with that, but that is what this Government is happy to do, and it just terrifies me, the state that our environment will be in when we come back to Government.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. When I joined this Parliament, I was really heartened to learn of and also experience the immense privilege that we have here to actually access information in this place. I know especially for my colleagues across the House that is even more accessible when the Public Service can actually go to work and do the consultation, get the data, get the evidence that Ministers need to actually make truly informed decisions. I want to raise that today in the context of this Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, because this bill makes a mockery not only of this Government’s claim that they care about data and evidence but it also makes a mockery of their duty of care that Kiwis expect of their Government when it comes to responsible governance for te taiao, or our environment, and within that, Kiwis’ rights to actually have their say.

So I want to begin there on the consultation aspect, because official advice across these supplementary analysis reports make it clear that the Government simply has not had the time or the care about what Kiwis would have to say on these bills. Let’s take, for example, the coalmining aspect. There was official advice that said there was no time for consultation, none with iwi Māori, no assessment of the Treaty impacts, including on the Crown’s Treaty settlements or commitments. For the amendments that have to do with fresh water, consultation was “limited”, and the limited feedback that they did receive from iwi Māori was “one of disappointment and frustration” and concern about the potentially irreversible negative impacts on freshwater quality.

So that’s a bit of a taste of what the Government might have heard if they did take the time to go out for public consultation before getting to this stage. But let’s go back to the data and evidence part of what this Government cares about and ask what the experts actually say. Because when these changes were first announced, 50 of Aotearoa’s top freshwater experts and leaders were so concerned about it that they actually organised and wrote a letter to the Prime Minister and Ministers, clearly and concisely stating their concerns. I want to quote them here: “New Zealand’s rivers, lakes, and aquafers are in a dire state. … The country’s freshwater policy, including Te Mana o te Wai, is the result of decades of public concern and policy development. To weaken this now, would be to take the country and our communities backwards.” That’s just the freshwater aspect of this bill.

The rest of it contains a litany of shortsighted environmental destruction. I wanted to take the example of the coalmining aspects, because I couldn’t quite believe my eyes when I read the supplementary analysis report for this bill on “amending the consenting pathway for coalmining in or around wetlands and significant natural areas”. This, I might add, is in addition to the three-year suspension for actually identifying these significant natural areas for councils. The advice from officials made it clear that it is not possible to quantify how many new coalmines or extensions for existing coalmines would be affected by the proposed changes—that there is a risk of irreparable damage to, and loss of, wetlands if a consent pathway is to be provided.

I don’t know where to start with this aspect of the bill, other than to say the science is crystal clear that if we want to prevent a future filled with climate catastrophe and extreme weather, then fossil fuels need to stay in the ground. Protecting nature or keeping fossil fuels in the ground is not some woke idea or whatever the latest culture war buzzword is; it’s about the scientific fundamentals of human survival on this planet that we call home. When this Government won’t listen to the science, the evidence, to iwi Māori, or to the public, we have a serious threat to our future in our hands, and the only solution is to get organised, get loud, and make our voices heard. On Saturday, 8 June, we’ll be heard. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

The Hon Andrew Hoggard—you’re taking this full five-minute call?

Yes, five-minute call. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to speak to three components of this bill that I’ve had involvement with. Those are the provisions around significant natural areas, the rules around stock exclusions, and the winter grazing component.

Now, before I do, we’ve heard a bit about how this is going to be the end of nature in New Zealand from the other side, despite these people previously protesting and getting all aggrieved about being accused of being at war with farming, yet these words clearly demonstrate they’re still at war with farming. Up and down the country, farmers are taking care of biodiversity on their farms, making changes to winter grazing practices, all before any regulations came about. Since 2003, 25,000 kilometres of riparian margins have been fenced off. That’s just by the dairy sector alone that we’ve measured; we haven’t measured all the work that’s been done on the sheep and beef farms up and down the country. I’m seeing more and more of that on a regular basis. If you added that all in, I am sure you would probably double that number.

Turning to the proposed changes around the mapping of significant natural areas, this comes from the ACT-National coalition agreement. “This suspends the requirement to identify new SNAs by councils while we review how SNAs are managed in the future.” There have been numerous concerns from many landowners around the implication of having significant natural areas (SNA) on their land. For many, it’s the principle of their property rights being trampled on and where this might go in the future with zero compensation or recognition of those property rights. For many, there is the question around, “Is this really significant?”. When you’re a landowner on the West Coast of the South Island where around 86 percent of the land is included in the Department of Conservation estate, you are quite justifiably scratching your head going, “Why the hell is my half a hectare so vital that all these restrictions need to be placed on me?” Haven’t we already protected quite a significant amount of the land in this region already?

Then there is that word, “significant”. We see numerous examples of what could generously be called “scrub” being viewed as significant. Going forward, we need better definitions of what “significant” is and we also need a much better carrot-type approach to improving biodiversity on private land as opposed to the Opposition’s favoured “go to stick” method.

The previous stock exclusions, low-slope map, and its various evolutions have proven once again that one-size-fits-all from Wellington isn’t the solution. There would have been extensive properties forced into financially crippling fencing programmes. Think of all the farms you see on Country Calendar. These are the sort of farms that would be put out of business by having to do all this. These are not farms that are having an impact on water quality. Instead, many of these farmers looking at these regulations, their only option was to go into pines, which is not what we’re wanting. Many regions also had longstanding stock exclusion rules that made sense for these regions. As I mentioned, the dairy sector had already been long-time engaged in this job.

I mentioned the changes around the winter grazing regulations. Once again, it was a one-size-fits-all approach from Wellington. Farmers have made significant gains in the last four to five years in how they manage this practice and we have seen great uptake of the winter grazing module.

All the current and soon-to-be previous regime did was add cost by forcing a regulatory burden on councils and farmers. The biggest frustration many had with this system was the fact that there was supposed to be an alternative pathway for Farm Plans. However, what we got instead was not fit for purpose. It was costly, complex, and also overlooked in a practical sense all the existing Farm Plans that were out there. Having a farmer-focused Farm Plan system is where I truly believe we will turn the dial forward on improving water quality outcomes out there in regional New Zealand.

This Government is committed to ensuring we have a fit for purpose system that doesn’t create duplication of paperwork and that provides farmers with good knowledge and plans on how they can make a difference in their catchments. That is the way forward, not an endless stream of green tape from Wellington. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. “The end of [the] war on farming” is how Federated Farmers have responded to this piece of legislation getting introduced to the House. This is a critical piece of legislation for our agricultural sector, and I congratulate Minister Bishop on bringing it forward and actually expediting it through as the first tranche of Resource Management Act reform in what is a much bigger body of work to try to undo the mess that we have inherited in this space.

Rachel Boyack, I can say to you, the Primary Production Committee is absolutely the right committee to be seeing this legislation go through there. It is the fact that the Environment Committee stuffed it up so badly the first time around because there weren’t enough farmers or people that understood the implications of the things they were signing off that we’re in this place now.

So, farmers: we are freeing them from the tyranny of one-size-fits-all regulation being imposed on them by Wellington, and we are fulfilling those promises of getting Wellington out of farmers. Farmers do care about the environment, and to say anything else—I absolutely dispel that sentiment for anyone that may be raising it in this debate. Grant McCallum, the Northland MP, and I spoke the other day at the Aotearoa New Zealand catchment collective. There are 290 catchment groups now in this country. They have proliferated throughout from Southland to Northland. This is actually people on the ground doing things—fencing, riparian planting, restoring wetlands, and dealing with it at a catchment-level solution. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Simon Upton, has just come out with a report on this, and he has said that the catchment-level solution is the only way forward here, that regulations that work within farm boundaries, catchments, and ecological systems do not.

There has been a quantum shift—a quantum shift—on management practices on farm, around things like intensive winter grazing. We have recognised that some of the practices of the past have fallen short, and that has been acknowledged by regional councils, which has given us the trust to take the measures that we have. And there is real oversight of this. We have fly-overs in Otago and in many parts of the country. You’re actually monitored from the air to make sure that you are complying with good management practices, and you’re exposed if anyone’s trying to cut corners; they’re picked up. They’re intensively managed by the regional council and often Dairy New Zealand, Beef + Lamb New Zealand, and Federated Farmers, and they’re working with those farmers—actually doing stuff—but we’re leaving the farmers that are following good practice alone. We’re letting them get on with the job. We’re not imposing heavy compliance and cost on them to do what they do when they’re doing it well. It will be a risk-based approach, and it will be locally driven with local solutions. We will be getting to the same place in environmental outcomes. We will be just doing it in a different and more practical way.

The Te Mana o te Wai provisions that also have been referenced, they are incredibly problematic. That was an incredibly powerful piece of planning legislation. It was a vague, catch-all term that could have meant anything. It could have shut down any farming operation for any reason. It had no place in a resource management setting where real lives, real livelihoods, real communities were on the line.

The significant natural areas—and I commend Minister Hoggard on his work there. That wasn’t an attack on property rights. We are a property-rights Government across this side of the House. There are hundreds of thousands of hectares of native vegetation, particularly on our sheep and beef land, much of it in QEII Trust, much of it preserved for perpetuity. Farmers care about this stuff. Genuinely significant natural areas may need to be captured. That is a piece of work that was going on. The low-slope maps, the stock exclusion, that was incredibly onerous on high-country farmers—little or no environmental outcomes. We trust our farmers. We’ll back them. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Well, thank you very much, Mr Speaker. As the newly hatched, bright-eyed, shiny chair of the Environment Committee, I’m very happy to support this piece of legislation going to the Primary Production Committee, because I think that is a very good place for this piece of legislation to go.

Now, we’ve heard a little bit—not much but a little bit—of concern from the Opposition parties about why this bill, in their view, might be a bad thing. But I want to put to members of this Chamber, and also anyone that may be listening at home on their crystal sets or watching on television, they will be able to take reassurance from the fact that this is a good piece of legislation that brings a degree of sanity and purpose back to resource management in New Zealand.

So, for the last six years, we had a regime that thought Wellington knew best. They thought that they knew best. They thought that shiny, painted people sitting in front of computer screens looking at Google Maps of landscapes and slopes and things like that, they thought that those people had a better understanding of land, of catchment areas, of resource, of land slopes and all those sorts of things than the farmers and people who worked that land. Well, we take an entirely different view. It’s always been our view in the National Party, and I know that it is also the view of our hard-working and very collegial coalition partners, that a catchment-by-catchment approach is the best.

Now, I heard the Hon Mark Patterson making a comment in his presentation just a few minutes ago about the very good report released just last week by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment—none other than the Rt Hon Simon Upton, a former member of this House who knows a bit about this kind of stuff. He has said, without any hesitation in his very good report, that actually a catchment-by-catchment approach is entirely the right approach.

Now, on this side of the House, we don’t take the view that matters relating to the environment and use of land are a binary equation, that it’s either one or the other. We think that actually there is a potential for us as a smart nation with clever people who have a regard and concern for our natural environment, to also be able to protect, maintain, and enhance that natural environment while at the same time encouraging a development, encouraging proper and appropriate land use that encourages the wealth and prosperity of our entire nation to give us the economic performance and strength that we need to provide for that maintenance, protection, and enhancement of our natural environment. Because without a thriving, growing economy, none of that other good stuff that we need for our environment can occur.

It’s often said in this House, and something that I think the Green Party members often forget, that it’s very hard to be green when you’re in the red—very hard to be green when you’re in the red. I know that on that side of the House, on the Opposition, they have only three policy objectives. There are only three things that they ever consider when it comes to policy, and that is either to tax it, make it compulsory, or to tax it again—no; ha, ha! So, actually, the third one is to ban it. So it’s tax it, make it compulsory, or ban it. Those are the only three policy options when it comes to anything in relation to the environment. We take a far more broad view of that. In fact, this piece of legislation is part of a coalition agreement we’ve entered into with the ACT Party. So we’re fulfilling that, but it’s also part of a broader three-phase plan that is to entirely reform our resource management landscape and our way of administering by statute and regulation.

The first step, of course, was to repeal the hopelessly inadequate Labour legislation; the natural built and environment, and spatial planning pieces of legislation that would have only made things worse—that would have only made things worse.

The second step is of course to introduce the fast-track consenting system so that we can get things done in New Zealand, and that is currently before my select committee and we’re working our way through that.

Then, of course, the third part will be ultimately to amend or develop an entirely new resource management statute that will actually achieve the objectives that we see on this side of the House that, as I said, are not a binary option—it’s not just the environment or development; it is actually both. We think that as a smart, nimble nation and a smart, nimble Government, we can achieve both those objectives.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just find it quite fascinating that the member who just took their seat, the Hon Scott Simpson, praised this fantastic report by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and yet that side of the House took absolutely no notice of his views on the fast-track Resource Management Act (RMA) bill. I find that quite fascinating.

What I also find quite fascinating is that there are a couple of things that members opposite have brought up that I actually kind of agree with. I agree that our New Zealand farmers are some of the most environmental farmers around the world. I also agree that catchment groups are doing some fantastic work. The Minister who introduced the bill mentioned that winter grazing practices have improved.

Minister Hoggard also talked about the fact that there are farmers who have been making improvements on their properties and around waterways for many years—that is also true, and I absolutely 100 percent agree with that. However, whether it be in agriculture, whether it be in the corporate world, there are always going to be those laggards who let everybody else down who is doing the right thing. The purpose behind the regulations that were introduced by the previous Government was to help to pull those laggards into line because they were dragging the rest of the sector down.

New Zealand is very, very proud of our clean, green image; our beautiful, pristine waterways—we trade off the back of that. That is why we are able to sell our product to the world: because of our clean, green image. I do genuinely worry that this piece of legislation is somewhat short-sighted. I seriously hope that it doesn’t come back to bite this Government in the backside.

The other thing that I am concerned about with this piece of legislation is the consultation process—the member from the Green Party touched on this—and the fact that iwi and tangata whenua don’t feel that they have been consulted with in a way that is meaningful for them. One of the things that I did notice in the regulatory impact statement is that they felt that the engagement process has been inadequate for reasons including insufficient information, lack of time, and that decisions appeared to have already been taken, which was in reference to a letter from the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform to support this view. Because of this limited engagement and the uncertain impact on the proposal on fresh water, it’s difficult to assess, as noted in the regulatory impact statement, whether or not the Treaty principles of partnership and active protection have been met. So, once again, iwi and tangata whenua are not being consulted with properly on something that has huge impact for them.

So, whilst I have agreed with some of the comments that have been made opposite with regard to the great work that our farmers are doing, I am concerned about the lack of consultation. It’s something that we are seeing time and time again from this Government, consultation legislation that is being rushed. I do worry that there will be serious unintended consequences as a result of rushed legislation. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. On Saturday, 14 October 2023, the war on farmers ended. To the 360,000 people from across the country who are involved in the primary sector and who form the backbone of our economy, including those from the mighty Wairarapa, Central Hawke’s Bay, and the Tararua: thank you. Thank you to those who grow our grains, our fruits, and our vegetables; to those who milk the cows; to those who grow our meat. Thank you to all those that support our farmers and growers: the mechanics, the vets, the accountants, the retailers, manufacturers, labourers. Thank you to everyone else involved. Thank you to the farmers—all of you—for your commitment to being amongst the most carbon-efficient farmers in the world. Thank you for taking our food and fibre to the world. Thank you for your export dollars, which help to pay for the roads, the schools, and the hospitals we need. Thank you for keeping the farm gate open whilst members of the other side of the House vilified your industry. The reality is we need you now more than ever, given the near $100 billion debt that we’ve been left with by those same members over there.

We have the opportunity to make improvements to the Resource Management Act and slash the red and green tape, as my esteemed colleague so aptly put previously. This will allow those that, like I said, are the backbone of the country to do what they do best, and that’s just get on with it.

Changes to the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management will allow us to find better ways to achieve the outcomes we continually look for. Those regulations have added cost, stress, and little in positive change or practice that wasn’t already happening on farms across the country. This is the same for the winter grazing regulations, which have never been fit for purpose and again added cost and stress without significant or positive results being seen over and above what was already happening before those regulations were introduced.

We need to recognise that those who work, live, and play on the land want to see an improvement in the environment—and they already invest in this. There’s many examples, as the Minister said. The 25,000 kilometres of waterways already fenced off—almost 100 percent of all waterways on dairy farms are fenced off. The 2.8 million hectares of woody vegetation that’s already on our farm lands. The amazing work the catchments continue to do—close to 300 of them—and the Queen Elizabeth II (QEII) National Trust covenants are a perfect example. Let’s be clear: we didn’t need regulation or law for our farmers to want to do this. The 5,000th QEII covenant was registered in the Wairarapa very recently.

Stifling businesses that utilise the land to produce both local and export products is not in the best interests of all of the people in this country. The assumption that the environment will get worse typifies the previous administration’s narrative that the farming sector are villains. On this side of the House, we don’t hold that view. We trust our farmers. We back our farmers. We can grow our economy. We can get Wellington out of farming. We need to let our farmers farm and, at the same time, continue to look after our environment, as they have always done. The war on farming is over. We’ll get the sector back on track. I commend this bill to the House.

Today, yet again we have legislation that is introduced to this House which shows the Government’s disregard for our environment and for fresh water. I take offence when I hear people in this Chamber talking about the war on farmers, something that we never did. I heard a previous member talk about “Well, go and see.” What do I know? Well, I know a lot, because I live in Taranaki. I know the challenges. I leaned in and listened. I leaned in and I spent time sitting around kitchen tables in farms all around the electorate of New Plymouth in Taranaki, trying to understand the complexities and how this works, to get it right.

But we look at this piece of legislation, and I do see it as a war and an attack on nature, an attack on our fresh water. An example is Te Mana o te Wai. Te Mana o te Wai—the sacredness of water—which, of course, is the thing that gives life to us. We need to make sure that we get our fresh water right. We need to make sure that we get our soils right within the water systems, ensure around the animal welfare that we need to provide in terms of the water.

We worked hard. I hear lots of rhetoric around everything sort of coming out of Wellington—the bureaucrats sitting here with their pens, pushing them. Well, I remind the other side and the Government that it was the Labour Government that put funding into the catchment communities in the last term, who ensured that they were strong and thriving. I see those in Taranaki and I see them working well.

As we hear the attacks that we seem to have on farmers, I wonder about our wetlands. If there’s any attack that is being used within this legislation, it is on our wetlands. Do you know that 90 percent—90 percent—of our wetlands have been lost since we arrived. Ninety percent. So when I see the attempt to put coalmines on wetlands to ensure the degradation, the destruction of more of our wetlands, of the few that we have left, I think this is dangerous.

But I see that side of the House seems to fraternise with the coal industry, and that’s their thing. I guess that’s something that we’re going to have to watch and follow as the weeks and months progress.

This is a backward step yet again. As the Hon Chris Bishop said at the start, these are just some quick, targeted changes, just repealing a few things and there’s more to come. We’re in challenging times. Our environment needs us. Our water needs us. We need to fight this and we need to fight hard.

It’s my pleasure to rise and speak on the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill in the first reading. I’m proud to stand and represent the farmers of Ilam—all 300 of them! But in all seriousness, this is a serious topic. Freshwater reforms actually go right to the heart of our resource management and what we are going to do with it.

We are navigating this challenging situation. When we do face these challenges, we must not forget the crucial role our primary producers play in this country and in our society. We require them three times a day—breakfast, lunch, and dinner—to be able to put food on the table. It’s essential that we allow them to have access to water for their production. It’s key to ensuring our food security, our economic prosperity, and a sustainable future for all. If you are a farmer or you are a horticulturalist and you’re growing something, you need water to be able to make that food to be able to reach its full maturity. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a farmer, a grower, an orchardist, the backbone of agricultural sector, we work tirelessly to ensure that there’s food on our table, crops in our field, and livestock on our farms. However, the ability to produce food and fibre heavily relies on the access to water. As I know, as an orchardist myself, when it comes to that summertime, we need that water, otherwise all our inputs for a whole year can go to waste if we can’t get our fruit up to size. It puts our livelihoods at risk and also our food supply as well.

Now, the changes to this bill are focused on changes that will take effect quickly to give certainty to councils and to consent applications. Unfortunately, a lot of the previous reforms have just added cost and complexity but have gained very little for our environment. I think we need to be very clear that it’s not a binary situation. We can produce food, we can look after our environment, and it is a win-win situation.

We can stand here and legislate things. We can stand here and change the rules, but we need to think of what’s actually happening at the coalface. I think that is what has been missing over the last six years. Regional councils cannot process that absolute volume of consent applications that are required for the winter grazing. Our farmers wouldn’t be able to actually do that because they’d be waiting for the paperwork to come through.

Now, let’s be clear: we do care about the environment. I want to do a big shout-out to our farmers. We have heard others all around this House making a big shout-out to our farmers, but usually there’s a “but” in there and we always know what’s before the “but”. I don’t think I’m allowed to say it in this House, unfortunately, but I think we know where we’re going. So 98 percent of farmers have excluded stock from waterways, with around 25,000 kilometres of fencing erected, while 94 percent of farmers have buffers around their waterways to filter contaminants. We are talking about farmers who have been innovative. They know their land, they know what they can do, they can know how to improve it. Just think about how far our farming practices have come over the last 50 years.

I just also want to make a shout-out to our researchers and AgResearch and the New Zealand Institute for Crop and Food Research, who have done work over water flows and all sorts of things. It is great that we have such talent here in New Zealand.

We are going to get to the same point with or without these extra regulations—this extra complexity which is just adding cost to our farmers who are already under the pump. I will just point out that there’s been a recent report from the University of Canterbury which has revealed that 24 percent of New Zealand’s native vegetation—that’s about 2.8 million hectares—is estimated to be on our sheep and beef farms. Just pointing out how much our farmers care for the environment.

A blanket, one-size-fits-all, heavy-handed regulation doesn’t actually suit anybody. But I don’t think anybody in this Chamber will argue when I say we need to look at our resource management in this country. It’s in desperate need of an update, and this bill is our first step in that process as we go. We will be backing our farmers. They are the world’s best producing farmers that we have. We need to have safe produce, we need to have a good environment, and we can have both of these things. Therefore, I recommend this bill to the House.

The question is, That the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be considered by the Primary Production Committee.