Cameron Mark; Rurawhe AdrianRESOURCE MANAGEMENT (REGIONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR CERTAIN AGRICULTURAL MATTERS) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingMARK CAMERON (ACT): Well thank you Madam Speaker for this wonderful opportunity to speak to this bill in my name. This bill has the principal purpose to provide for better regulations for on-farm practices—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! I apologise to the member. The member should have some words which he must say.MARK CAMERON: I apologise Madam Speaker. I move That the Resource Management (Regional Responsibility for Certain Agricultural Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. And I nominate the Primary Production Committee to consider this bill.Thank you Madam Speaker. For the last 18 months the rural sector has been treated as a metaphorical soft target a tirade of forced change. All the while as the Deputy Prime Minister says the primary sector has continued to perform strongly. We have continually been targeted by regulatory overreach. Well of course we have performed strongly: we're Kiwi farmers arguably the best in the world. Yet all too often we are faced with runaway regulation that often fails the logic or practical sniff test. It was never going to be hard to imagine the likes of Groundswell NZ getting much support from the rural sector and the urban sector alike. What the rural sector has been asked to deal with never ends: the Labour and Greens' continued song sheet that perpetuates a feeling that the Government has an animus to the rural sector all the while praising us whilst at the very same time impugning us. They're constantly finding ways to further entrench central government over regional practices and people's lives all too often affecting the wellbeing of communities and economic on-farm models ultimately affecting farmer morale and rural folks' mental wellbeing. Farmers are totally fed up frustrated and are being left with a sense of entrenched confusion of how to proceed and how to operate. Well the ACT Party has come here to fix it and offer better solutions than the centrist mantra out of the Labour and Green caucuses. My member's bill has a principal purpose to provide for better regulations for on-farm practices that will ultimately benefit all New Zealanders and regional environments. The bill targets the on-farm regulations that are most regionally specific and therefore are better regulated at a regional level not out of the bureaucratic machinery of Wellington. I have spoken to DairyNZ New Zealand Federated Farmers and Beef + Lamb New Zealand. They support this bill in principle. They said they agree that a one-size-fits-all regulatory approach across the country is not always best for the desired outcome for farmers and the wellbeing of the environment. In discussions DairyNZ noted regulations need to be well designed and fit for purpose to support farmers and rural communities to succeed environmentally and economically. This means that regulations need to be practical to be based on science and evidence and to allow for the complex nature of individual farms and their regional environmental variability. We all know that politicians like to play their political hand at central planning but in this instance as farmers and rural communities we simply know when it comes to regulating localised activity from the Beehive as often as not it simply doesn't work. The centrist methodology being asserted on farmers has often left communities with untenable direction or the needed tools on how to operate. OVERSEER and its failure was a classic example of the Government sadly getting it wrong: not enough science not enough localised understanding. Much of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management and how it affects localised communities and activities proves this. This bill speaks specifically to excluding and managing the effects of winter grazing the application of synthetic fertilisers sedimentation control and the exclusion of animals and livestock from various water bodies and importantly from central government planning and gives that oversight back to respective councils who have the capacity to set localised standards. The rationale is very simple. Localised activity and more importantly the effects on the environment are best understood by those that undertake it and the local councils that regulate it. After all what works in Gore doesn't necessarily work in Northland and/or Auckland. Comparatively they couldn't be any more different from each other both in terms of their environmental impacts but also the types of regional activity and needed environmental protection and mitigations. They are very regionally specific. This bill will prove better for farmers for local communities and for their overall environment. This given that specific regulations will be better understood and set at a local level. Just for a bit of banter if I could at the moment my dear friend and fellow farmer the Minister for Rural Communities said that We the Government are always prepared to make changes where there are faults and adjust when things are not practical." He said this when talking about the national statement on fresh water. Well on that basis I welcome the support of the Minister regardless of how the Labour Party votes.Hon Member: Don't hold your breath.MARK CAMERON: Ha ha! As an active farmer myself and knowing there are essentially no practical operating farmers in the Labour caucus beyond the aforementioned I'm intimately versed in how my own farming practices affect my own local environment as does my council. Equally this could be said of Auckland Wellington when they're setting standards for local rivers or beaches and the understandings of the effects on their environment. One could offer several examples. My own farm management is seasonally indicative acknowledging the 1300 to 1400 millimetres of rainfall I get per annum. This is taking into consideration the month-by-month variations; the varying soil types some of which are alluvial and other that are podzol clays; also the limestone substructure—this is all on my own property let alone 10 kilometres down the road and in my local council they understand this. As farmers we change our practices with seasonal constant changes giving consideration to the nuances of on farm and on-farm activities. All the decisions we make are premised on a myriad of localised variations. If I may one offer one further example: in Whangārei which is one hour of driving away from where I live there is 300 millilitres greater average rainfall there compared to my home with very different soil structures substructures topography and types of soil erosion. Their environmental footprint and needed mitigations are different and the considerations different because of it. Regionally Northland crop sowing dates to methods or environmental mitigations are principally better understood by those in respective regions. It's a no-brainer. We are significantly different from Southland comparative to them as they are to us. Clearly a centralised slate of national standards totally fails to accommodate the plethora of variations the type of environmental protection methodologies and on-farm practices we should use. To further encapsulate this narrative I could offer other examples about nitrogen and the effects on the environment. One that the Green members often frequently reference DIN or dissolved inorganic nitrogen levels and the respective leaching is highly respective of the volumes used the farming conditions they're used in permeable soil aggregate to non-permeable soil aggregate and the differences between the two what is needed in terms of mitigation therein and also how to preserve the environment. Putting a one-size-fits-all set of regulations on such use fails to acknowledge retention levels. That's why the ACT Party and thousands of regional members farmers and rural communities that support us see the logic behind this bill that we deliver: environmental protection and mitigation giving consideration to councils and their respective catchments most of which are already employing environmental planning and implementing better regulatory standards in their regions. They are regionally specific in most instances having considered better environmental outcomes. This bill is a better step to a more practical workable law that puts effect to better farming practices and gives consideration to local environmental impacts. It allows communities and councils and local industry the ability to work collaboratively ensuring better environmental outcomes and equally better fiscal outcomes for communities. Farmers want tenable solutions that offer better community outcomes across the board a better understanding of where their future in farming is going and practices that go with tenable outcomes forward: a robust set of local environmental standards that are set locally. The premise of this bill has the principled support as I previously iterated of the bodies such as DairyNZ Federated Farmers Beef + Lamb New Zealand and equally most regional councils. Therefore I and the ACT Party commend this bill to the House.DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to."