Sage Eugenie: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sage Eugenie: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Sitting date: 18 October 2012. Volume:684;Page:5972. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
3. 
EUGENIE SAGE (Green) 
 to the  
Minister for the Environment 
: Does she stand by her statement that “My preference will always be for all our sites to be safe for swimming”? 
Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 Yes. 
Eugenie Sage 
: If that is her preference why is the Government not using the Resource Management Act to set clean water rules through national environmental standards? 
Hon AMY ADAMS 
: I would remind that member that in fact we are undertaking a considerable amount of Resource Management Act reform amongst which is the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management which we have set up. We have the Land and Water Forum which we established to give for the first time serious consideration to these issues and we have indicated that the response to some of those recommendations will indeed form part of our Resource Management Act reform. But I would also point out to the member that at least our Government is getting on and dealing with these issues—something that the Labour Government propped up by her party failed to do for 9 years. 
Eugenie Sage 
: Given that her Government’s weak National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management gives councils until December 2030 to put in place water-quality limits does she accept that water quality in New Zealand rivers will get worse not better while the Government sits on its hands? 
Hon AMY ADAMS 
: The member is right that the national policy statement gives councils until 2030 at the outside but I am very pleased to report to that member that in actual fact a number of councils are taking very prompt action and I am even more pleased to report to that member that it is only thanks to the actions of this Government that we have a national policy statement on fresh water at all. Furthermore in actual fact the recent report indicates that water quality has improved under this Government after taking over from the incompetence of the previous one. 
Eugenie Sage 
: Why will she not help those councils clean up our rivers by introducing national environmental standards so that there are consistent limits rather than leaving it to each council to do it in an ad hoc way and set their own limits for their own waterways? 
Hon AMY ADAMS 
: Well I am sure that the councils are delighted that the Government is putting nearly half a billion dollars over 20 years into assisting them with exactly that. It might interest that member to know that in the time this Government has been in office we have spent $101 million on freshwater clean-up which compares with a mere $17 million spent by the previous Government in its last 4 years in office. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It was a question about national environmental standards which is a specific instrument under the Resource Management Act and the Minister failed to address that at all. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: To assist the member I invite Eugenie Sage to repeat her question because she asked if I recollect correctly why certain things were not being done and I do not think the Minister actually addressed that at all. 
Eugenie Sage 
: Why will the Minister not help councils to clean up our rivers by introducing national environmental standards with some consistent limits rather than leaving it to each council to set its own water-quality limits in an ad hoc way? 
Hon AMY ADAMS 
: Well I remind the member that I answered—she asked how we are helping councils and I gave her one very explicit example of how we are helping councils which is funding them by $101 million over the last 4 years compared with $17 million. But if the member wishes me to go on about the extensive actions of this Government on freshwater clean-up I certainly can do so and— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! [ 
Interruption 
] Order! The Minister must resume her seat. I listened fairly carefully to the member’s question. She did not ask for that at all. The member if I recollect correctly asked why the Government— 
Hon AMY ADAMS 
: No. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Forgive me. When the member repeated her question I believe she repeated the question she actually asked the first time round. I invite her to repeat it again because she did not ask what councils were doing; she asked why the Government was not doing something different. The Minister is perfectly capable of explaining why the Government is choosing to do what it is doing but I think the question should be answered. 
Eugenie Sage 
: Why will the Minister not help councils to clean up our rivers by introducing national environmental standards with some consistent limits rather than leaving it up to each council to set its own limits for rivers in an ad hoc way? 
Hon AMY ADAMS 
: Well for the third time we are assisting councils to help clean up their rivers firstly in the way that I have just indicated and secondly we have a dedicated programme of experts and officials working on exactly the issue of limits of quality and quantity setting which will help to guide that work. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The question was: “Why will the Government not assist councils by introducing national environmental standards?”. That was the essence of the question. The Minister talked about many other measures which is fine but she did not address the question of why the Government will not introduce national environmental standards. 
Hon AMY ADAMS 
: To introduce a national environmental standard you first have to develop quality and quantity limits— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! [ 
Interruption 
] Order! The House will come to order. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! Does someone want an early shower? That is not speaking to a point of order. That is actually answering the question. It would be very helpful if the Minister now actually did answer the question because that was exactly what the question was asking—exactly what the question was asking. But it is not a point of order. It actually should be the answer to the question. 
Hon AMY ADAMS 
: Before a national environmental standard could be introduced we would need to develop a system of quality and quantity limits. As I mentioned in my previous attempt at answering your question that is what we are working on. Whether it leads to a national environmental standard or to other forms of assistance to councils has yet to be determined. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I call Eugenie Sage. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! Eugenie Sage. 
Eugenie Sage 
: Is she aware that the Marlborough District Council is today considering whether to “take the opportunity provided by the national policy statement on freshwater management to delay the introduction of cumulative contaminant limits” for rivers until at least 2023-24 and that that means rivers like the Rai and Taylor Rivers will remain at high risk of illness for anyone swimming in them? 
Hon AMY ADAMS 
: No I was not aware of that specifically but that is a matter for the Marlborough District Council and that community. But I would point out that under the time that the Labour and Green Government was in charge there was no requirement on councils to have any sort of limit. 
Paul Goldsmith 
: What steps has the Government taken to improve the swimmability and quality of fresh water? 
Hon AMY ADAMS 
: The Government has taken extensive steps to improve the safety quality and swimmability of our water and a number of them have already been mentioned today but I will repeat them for the benefit of members. We have introduced New Zealand’s first ever national policy statement on fresh water and we have established the Land and Water Forum bringing together all the key stakeholders in water management for the first time and allowing a real collaborative approach to water management. We have committed to continuing with a 20-year investment of half a billion dollars in cleaning up our polluted water sites. We have spent more than five times what the previous Labour Government propped up by the Greens did in its last years in office. We have assisted the industry in refreshing the Dairying and Clean Streams Accord. We have put another $15 million—[ 
Interruption 
]; well Mr Speaker there is so much—into the Fresh Start for Fresh Water Clean-up Fund and we have established a dedicated group to work on water quality and quantity issues. This is a Government that is actually doing something about fresh water. 
Eugenie Sage 
: Given that 52 percent of our monitored rivers are unsuitable for swimming and another 28 percent are graded only fair why is the Government planning to spend more money on irrigation subsidies than on clean water clean-up? 
Hon AMY ADAMS 
: That is the usual sort of confusion of information. The report the member refers to first of all reports only on the monitored sites and the report makes it very clear that it is not a useful indicator for the state of freshwater bodies in New Zealand. It makes it clear that they monitor only the sites they have concerns about. The other interesting thing is that because of the change in methodology you cannot directly compare. But what it actually shows is that there has been an improvement in our freshwater lakes and rivers. Having said all of that we are not happy that quite a number of rivers are unsafe for swimming. That is why we are taking all the actions I previously outlined to address it. But the other thing is that it is not right or fair to land this fully at the feet of the farmers. Livestock is one of the issues as is human waste as is wildlife and as is water fowl. All of them must be addressed. 
Eugenie Sage 
: Was the Minister for Primary Industries correct then when he stated: “We need to acknowledge that intensive agriculture has environmental impacts. In some catchments we need to limit those impacts …”; if so will she not take real action to protect our rivers by introducing national environmental standards now? 
Hon AMY ADAMS 
: Yes I do agree with the Minister for Primary Industries that intensive agriculture has an impact or is capable of having an impact and that we have to address it. We are in fact addressing it. The issue around national environmental standards I answered previously. We have a dedicated group working on how we might go about assisting councils with quality and quantity limits and where that gets to we will know in time. 
Eugenie Sage 
: What does she say to the children and families who want to go swimming at Coes Ford or the Upper Selwyn huts on the Selwyn/Waikirikiri River in her electorate but who cannot do that because those once popular swimming spots are graded poor and very poor respectively and are unsuitable for swimming with no prospect of that improving any time soon? 
Hon AMY ADAMS 
: What I would say to those people is that the quality issues we have with some of our water bodies have taken an awfully long time to come to be. They will take even longer to fix and at least now we have a Government in place that is doing something about it.