Norman Russel William: Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River Iwi Waikato River Bill — Second Reading 
Norman Russel William: Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River Iwi Waikato River Bill — Second Reading 
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Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 It is with great pleasure that I stand to speak in support of the Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Awawa River Iwi Waikato River Bill. I think it is instructive in terms of understanding the significance of this bill to look at the vision and strategy that are to be implemented which are contained within schedule 1. The ACT Party has quite rightly pointed out that it is the vision and strategy that will gain legal force assuming that the bill passes through the House. I think the rabble-rousing that the ACT Party has engaged in around the vision and strategy shows something of its values because when we look at the vision and strategy we see they are things that we think as New Zealanders are tremendously important. 
For example the strategy states that in order to realise the vision certain objectives will be pursued. Those objectives include the “recognition and avoidance of adverse cumulative effects and potential cumulative effects of activities undertaken both on the Waikato River and within its catchment on the health and well-being of the Waikato River”. It is not understood by people who do not follow river ecology closely that what happens in the catchment of the river is actually much more important than what happens in the river itself. Most of the pollution that ends up in the mighty Waikato River is a result of activities undertaken within the catchment. More than three-quarters of all the nitrogen that ends up in the river comes from intensive agricultural practices undertaken in the catchment of the river and the vast bulk of these agricultural practices are permitted activities. There is no control over these kinds of activities. 
So when we say we want to give power to the co-governance body to implement the vision and strategy it seems to me that that is a wonderful thing to do—to give power to local tangata whenua to have some say over the activities that are resulting in the destruction and pollution of this river. When we look at the contaminants that end up in the Waikato River we find they are the nitrogen and the phosphorous that come directly from intensive agricultural practices. The point source discharges such as the sewage treatment plants in Hamilton and other places are a very small part of the overall pollution that goes into the river. So I say to the river iwi that they have an enormous challenge ahead of them. It is absolutely true that the regional council has failed in its duty to protect the river and it has been left to a minority within the Waikato region not only tangata whenua but also greenies and environmentalists to speak up for the river because the river has been polluted over many many decades. 
It is also important to look at other aspects of the wonderful vision and strategy that is in schedule 1. Clause 3 states: “In order to realise the vision the following objectives will be pursued:”. It talks about the recognition that the Waikato River is degraded and should not be required to absorb further degradation as a result of human activities. It also talks about “(i) the protection and enhancement of significant sites fisheries flora and fauna: (j) the recognition that the strategic importance of the Waikato River to New Zealand’s social cultural environmental and economic well-being requires the restoration and protection of the health and well-being of the Waikato River: (k) the restoration of water quality within the Waikato River so that it is safe for people to swim in and take food from over its entire length:”. By the time the Waikato River reaches the river mouth visibility within the river is less than 1 metre. When it leaves Lake Taupo visibility is more than 14 metres. That loss of visibility happens between the top and the bottom of that river system because of the massive contamination that goes into it and overwhelmingly that contamination comes from intensive agricultural activities. That is realised by anyone who cares to look at the science on the issues rather than at the rhetoric that comes from Federated Farmers and others who are merely advocating for intensive corporate agriculture. 
The iwi have a tremendous challenge in terms of being on the co-governance body that is to try to implement that vision. I point to one of the real problems that we have which is that most of the activities that are polluting the river are not activities that require resource consent but are permitted activities. Most of the agricultural farming activities that contribute the vast bulk of the pollution do not require resource consent. If we want to clean up the Waikato River we must make intensive agriculture a consentable activity. Only when we make intensive farming require a consent can we clean up the Waikato River. That is something that is quite radical in New Zealand at the moment because a very powerful lobby says we cannot possibly require intensive agriculture to be a consentable activity. But in fact if we do not make intensive agriculture an activity that requires a consent to control and reduce the nitrogen phosphorous sediment and faecal loads that currently go into the Waikato River we will never clean it up. 
Some people say dairy shed effluent is a consentable activity but in fact dairy shed effluent is a tiny part of the pollution that goes into the river. The vast bulk of the nitrogen that ends up in the river system comes from the fields where the cows are grazing. Each cow produces as much faeces and urine as 14 people. We have a million cows or more standing on fields in this river catchment producing the same faecal load that we would have if 14 million people were standing in that catchment and doing their business on the ground. That is the equivalent of the intensity of the dairy farming within that catchment. It is that massive faecal nitrogen phosphorous and sediment load that is contaminating the Waikato River. Until we make those kinds of intensive agricultural activities ones that require consent and can be controlled we will not clean up the river system. That is a tremendous challenge and nobody in this Chamber should underestimate—of course most members do not even understand this—how great the challenge is and what a fantastically huge job it will be to clean up the Waikato River. We have been fighting an incredibly powerful lobby in New Zealand that does not want to clean up the river. The Greens constantly find themselves in battle against Federated Farmers and the intensive agricultural industry which do not want to clean up that river system. 
It is fantastic that we have this vision and strategy for the Waikato River. It is also fantastic that the river iwi are to be involved in some of the decision making and governance around this river system because the iwi and hapu on this river system are tremendous allies of this mighty river. They are allies who will stand up to help clean up the river and this vision statement is a fantastic statement about what the river system should be like. But my warning if you like to the iwi and hapu who are embarking on this journey is that if they cannot get control over the activities that actually produce the pollution—the intensive agricultural activities that produce the nitrogen the phosphorous the faeces and the sediment that end up in their mighty river—then we will fail in our job to clean up the river. 
So this bill is just a start. It is great that this vision statement will go straight into the regional plan because the regional council has not done its job properly. It should have adopted a vision statement like this many decades ago and thank goodness that the iwi have managed to get this vision statement put into the regional plan through this legislation so that we will have a standard against which to judge the management of the river and so that we can improve its management. This is necessary not only for Maori but for Pakeha as well so that their children may be allowed to swim safely in this river and be able to fish in it for tuna and for whitebait because this river system is part of our natural heritage. We spend a fortune on our cultural heritage which is fair enough but rivers like this one are our living natural heritage. The Green Party will support this bill tonight.