Mallard Trevor: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Mallard Trevor: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:646;Page:15069] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 I thank the member for her contribution to highlighting what is a very important issue. Jacqui Dean has taken a proper approach to the issue. Although there was a lot of rhetoric in her speech she did highlight a very very serious issue which is the quality of water and the long-term problems we have had in New Zealand. It is something that has been one of my main focuses as Minister for the Environment. 
I think all of us—people of our generation—know that there are places where we could swim and even drink from when we were young that we would not let a dog swim in now. That sort of change over quite a long period of time is very very serious and it is something we have to work on reversing. 
In some places a lot of progress has been made. There has been a lot of progress on point discharges especially in urban areas. In some of the clean-up there has been progress as well. I invite the member to have a briefing or to visit the Waiwhetu stream and see the clean-up there of probably the dirtiest water in the country. It is a stream in the middle of an industrial area where for about 30 years chemicals were dumped through stormwater into a stream. 
Jacqui Dean 
: I was part of the project. I’ve cleaned streams. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The member would not get in this stream to clean it. It is so dirty and so infected that the member would not go near it. In fact I tell the member that that stream—the Waiwhetu stream—actually has lead in the sludge coming out that is of mineable level. If that stream was slightly bigger it would be a source of income because one could mine it for lead. A lot of other heavy metals are involved in it too. 
After years and years—decades—of inaction by Governments on both sides of the House we are finally getting on with cleaning up that stream and a number of others. For example work is going on in the Taupo catchment. I think most people are aware that a lot of nitrates are going into the lake and that this has to be reversed. A large amount of Government funding is going into a trust that is working to reduce nitrate levels. 
But I tell members that it will not happen quickly because nitrates that are used on the surface of farms now around the western part of the lake— 
Jacqui Dean 
: Is this your speech from earlier today? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I have made a number of speeches today on a number of topics—not so much on the western access. Some members care about Lake Taupo and the environment and I tell them that even if we stopped now for another 30-40 years nitrates will be flowing into Lake Taupo from those farms. It is important to work not only towards stopping it now but also on mitigation methods. 
Clearly there will have to be some policy changes over a period of time. We cannot go on intensifying farming in the way we have in areas where water is at risk. It is obvious to everyone who is concerned in the Waikato for example that the discharges going into that river cannot continue even at their current rates. Therefore the intensification that has been occurring during recent years will have to be unwound either by technology new methods of fertilising new methods of fixing fertiliser or reducing stock numbers in some areas. 
That will be hard because it will involve some changes in what people previously regarded as their rights on a particular farm. But there will be a question in the end over what is for the greater good of the country that particular region and the farmers’ neighbours. That will be policy that I will be prepared and pleased to lead this year next year and for the years after that. 
Report noted.