Smith NickTASMAN DISTRICT COUNCIL (WAIMEA WATER AUGMENTATION SCHEME) BILLFirst ReadingHon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I move That the Tasman District Council (Waimea Water Augmentation Scheme) Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 7 November 2018 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area despite Standing Orders 191 193 and 194(1)(b) and (c).Four major issues for Nelson and Tasman as for New Zealand are cleaning up our waterways growing and diversifying our exports providing more housing and building our resilience to climate change. The easy part is giving speeches about those issues. This bill is about practical solutions. It enables the Waimea Community Dam to proceed by granting access to 11 hectares of public land. The biggest challenge for the Tasman District Council over this scheme has been funding the $100 million cost to be shared between ratepayers taxpayers and horticulturalists. That has caused some to-ing and fro-ing over recent weeks but is now resolved. The issue for Parliament with this bill is authorising access to the Crown land and frankly it's a no-brainer. The detail is very straightforward. It grants the Tasman District Council an easement over 9.7 hectares of the Lee Valley in the Mount Richmond Forest Park for the reservoir and enables the council to purchase at market value 1.3 hectares of riverbed managed by Land Information New Zealand for the dam structures.I wish to make four points about the question of access to the land and then four on the substantive issues of the scheme. The first is that the land area being required from the Department of Conservation (DOC) is very small. Out of the 166000 hectares of the Mount Richmond Forest Park it's not 1 percent. It's not even 0.1 percent. It is one seventeen-thousandth of that park.Secondly the DOC easement is only 11 percent of the reservoir area of 87 hectares. This is not the case of a piece of community infrastructure being put on DOC land as an easy or cheap option. Here the council has identified the most practical site for water storage for the region and has acquired the bulk of the land from private landowners and Parliament is being asked to unblock access to this last small remaining segment.Thirdly this is stewardship land the lowest classification of conservation land. It's not a national park. It's not one of the 14 different types of reserve. It's not a special scientific or ecological area. The area is so inaccessible that DOC has no records of any recreational use. It is riverbed vertical bedrock and beech forest. Now I would take a very different view if this was unique or premium conservation land like in Fiordland or in the Abel Tasman National Park. I am a practical environmentalist not an ideological one.And fourthly the inundation of this small area of land was approved by the Environment Court in August 2004 with the agreement of DOC Fish & Game and the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society. That consent order included an extensive biodiversity compensation package. It is disingenuous of individuals or groups who have had ample opportunity to submit on the environmental issues during the resource consent process to now want to relitigate those issues particularly those that agreed to the consent orders. To argue this project is not environmentally sound is to argue that the Environment Court got it wrong. The project also has the strong support of former Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Dr Morgan Williams and the Ministry for the Environment.Let me give some detail on the four broader benefits of the Waimea water scheme. The Nelson-Tasman region has good overall water quality with ratings amongst the best of anywhere in New Zealand but we have a longstanding and significant problem in the Waimea River: most summers around February to March the flows drop to a trickle the nutrients concentrate and we get ugly algae blooms that are so toxic that regularly dogs die and the council has to prohibit recreational activity. We also have in the lower reaches of the river during summer the serious issue of saltwater intrusion. This is not the clean green reputation that either Nelson or New Zealand prides itself on.The benefits to the ecological health of the Waimea River from the scheme are enormous. It will enable the minimum flows in the river to be increased by more than fivefold from 200 to 1100 litres a second—that's a healthy river rather than a polluted creek—and will provide big gains for fish life and recreation. The increased flows will dilute the nutrients addressing the algae problem. This scheme means the Waimea River will be able to fully meet the national standards for freshwater quality. Some critics argue more irrigation means more nutrients but that's far too simplistic. Irrigated horticultural crops like apples actually release less nitrogen than the existing dry land farming. Nutrients will still need managing but this scheme is the only realistic solution for cleaning up the Waimea River. The alternative of slashing summer water takes for all users would be devastating for the region and would cost thousands of jobs and millions in exports as well as introduce harsh water restrictions on households.Alongside these environmental benefits of the scheme are the economic gains. The Waimea Plains is an abundant fruit bowl because of its rich fertile soils high sunshine hours and natural shelter. It already produces over $250 million a year of apples grapes hops kiwifruit and berry fruit as well as an assortment of vegetables and nursery plants employing over 3000 people. This scheme in providing additional water for irrigating another 1200 hectares provides the capacity for another $100 million a year in exports and a further thousand jobs. We hear so much about diversifying our export base. This is doing it.The third issue is housing supply and affordability. The population on the Waimea Plains in the time that I've been a member of Parliament has doubled from 10000 to 20000. That's amongst the fastest of anywhere in New Zealand and it continues to grow. The biggest affordability issue is actually section price. The council cannot allow new residential subdivision in places like Richmond Brightwater and Mapua without secure water supplies. This project improves water security for existing households as well as providing for the new.The fourth benefit is building our community's resilience to climate change. Weather patterns are changing and that makes our water supplies more vulnerable. The scheme will ensure secure water supplies for the next century even in the more extreme climate change scenarios.Critics of the scheme say there are better alternatives. I'm a sceptic having seen 15 years and millions of dollars spent on investigations. I do cringe when I hear the Green Party saying that the answer for my region is to switch to different crops. Hops grapes berryfruit and apples are part of Nelson and Tasman's identity as well as being the foundations of our economy and I'm not prepared to see them sacrificed on some sort of ideological green altar. We have an abundance of water and we just need the infrastructure to be able to manage it through the seasons. I get equally frustrated with the Greens when they demand progress on water quality and demand progress on housing and on improving our resilience to climate change but then come to this Parliament and oppose the very practical measures that will do just that.The tight time frame for reporting this bill back to the House is necessary to meet the conditions of financial support for the project and to enable construction to begin this summer. It is not a complex bill and it still leaves time for public submissions and proper consideration.Can I pay tribute to the many community leaders particularly the late Nick Patterson people like Julian Raine John Palmer iwi leader Barney Thomas and Neil Deans and I particularly acknowledge Mayor Richard Kempthorne and his council for the work that has gone into the project and this bill. A vote for this bill is a vote for a cleaner Waimea River a vote for more jobs and for growing our exports and a vote for increasing the supply and affordability of the region's housing. It's also a vote for a local council that recognises that investing in water infrastructure is essential for securing its community's future. Can I acknowledge the Government's support from the financial side and those parties and members that are committed to supporting the Tasman-Nelson community as we address these challenging water issues with this bill.