Sage Eugenie: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSage Eugenie: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 12 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14545. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]10.EUGENIE SAGE (Green) to theMinister for the Environment: Will her proposed changes to the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management ensure our rivers and lakes are safe for swimming?Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for the Environment): The amendments to the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2011 and the creation of the national objectives framework will help to improve water quality across New Zealand particularly through the national bottom lines and a new collaborative option for water management. Many of the attributes to meet bottom lines will be attributes that also improve water towards being suitable for swimming. Where a community determines that particular rivers or lakes are valued as swimming spots the national objectives framework provides a robust scientifically backed set of attributes to help communities plan to meet that objective. These are bottom lines; they are not targets. They do not limit the ability for communities to set an objective of swimmable water for any water body in its catchment.Eugenie Sage: So to be clear is the Minister saying that the proposed changes to the national policy statement will not actually ensure that New Zealanders can safely swim in our rivers?Hon AMY ADAMS: The amendments are very clear. They set nationally required bottom lines for ecosystem health and secondary contact for human health. If communities wish to also add requirements to manage those water bodies for swimming they are absolutely able to do so. That is a choice for their communities. If they do the national objectives framework provides a robust set of measurable criteria that they should use to work towards that goal.Eugenie Sage: When does she expect that the 61 percent of monitored river sites that are unsafe for swimming to be clean enough to swim in given that her proposed changes to the national policy statement do not make it mandatory for councils to set standards for swimmability?Hon AMY ADAMS: The first point I would make is that that member continues to misquote that sample. It has never talked about the percentage of rivers in New Zealand. It talks only about the ones that are monitored. It is not representative and it does not suggest that 62 percent are unsafe for swimming.Eugenie Sage: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I said: “When does she expect that the 61 percent of monitored river sites …”; I did not say 61 percent—Mr SPEAKER: Order! And I have heard enough from the member. The Minister was responding to that by saying that she disagreed with the way the member had phrased her question. She has every right to do that in her answer. Does the Minister wish to continue with her answer?Hon AMY ADAMS: What I would say is that the improvements we are making will ensure a significant improvement in the quality of water bodies across New Zealand. That will lead to cleaner waterways. I think it is somewhat rich for members of the previous Government which did nothing and allowed the situation we now have to develop to sit there and criticise the fact that we are doing something when they were happy to oversee a Government that did absolutely nothing. I would have thought they would welcome it.Eugenie Sage: Did she decide to have a national bottom line for boating and wading but not for swimming because she considered that it would be too costly for industries like dairying to reduce their contaminant leaching so that we could have rivers that are suitable for swimming?Hon AMY ADAMS: The first point I would make is that the recommendations to have bottom lines for ecosystem health and secondary contact for human health are recommendations of the Land and Water Forum. They are not my recommendations or my decisions. The second point I would make is that they are backed up by a very robust combination of science to support them. Finally I would make the very clear point that these indicators that we are rolling out are currently out for discussion. That is the point of a discussion document. We are now consulting with the public on the framework that we have developed based on the Land and Water Forum’s recommendations and I encourage people to put in their views on those.Meka Whaitiri: Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēna tātou e te Whare nei. Why given the advice of “60 of New Zealand’s top scientists” and having received the Land and Water Forum’s third report some 12 months ago is she unable to come up with comprehensive minimum water-quality standards?Hon AMY ADAMS: I reject the member’s assertion that we have not come up with comprehensive standards. What I have always said is that the development of water-quality standards under the national objectives framework is a process that will continue to develop and evolve over time. But what I am not prepared to do is do nothing until we have every answer. My view has always been that we have to start to improve water quality with all the information we do have and continue to develop it. That is a significant step forward. And as I have said it is somewhat rich for parties that did absolutely nothing and were happy to watch our water quality deteriorate to now complain when we are taking action that they think should be stronger. We are doing it; they did not.