Muller Todd: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMuller Todd: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 29 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:3041. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty):I look forward to speaking for a few seconds now and after the break on natural resources. This evening I would like particularly to spend just a bit of time talking about water. This country is blessed with extraordinary natural resources and it is a privilege to be part of a Government that has provided more fresh thinking around how we manage our natural resources than we have had in a couple of decades. There was not a single major environmental plan from members on the other side of the House in either 2011 or 2014 and some others in this House were more focused on ensuring that—Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.TODD MULLER: We are talking at the moment in terms of natural resources and I was discussing water and particularly the leadership that this Government has brought to the management of fresh water. It was effectively outlined in the report that we are reflecting on tonight.When we came into Government there was not even a scenario in place whereby if you took water you had to measure it. We have obviously turned that round in the last few years because we held the view and it is a correct view that before you can manage something you need to be able to measure it. That came in in 2009.In particular tonight I would like to spend just a few moments talking about the national policy statement on freshwater. The debate had been going on in this country since 1995 and essentially had not gone anywhere. We introduced the Land and Water Forum and it helped us to deliver the first national policy statement on freshwater in 2010 and then as reported on in this report the limit setting and minimum standards over the course of the last year in 2014. I think these are profound reforms.The Land and Water Forum is an example of how this Government works to get enduring outcomes. It brought together a myriad of stakeholders who quite frankly had only really met each other either in the courtroom or in the media taking barbs at each other. We took the approach that you needed these people around the table and they were persuaded to sit around that table and create a collaborative framework that has enabled communities to have an informed debate on water quality and allocation issues.These are hard debates. Let us witness as an example the Canterbury water zone. Those battles are challenging. I have been in the middle of that myself in a previous life. You have incomplete data and you have a wide range of views amongst the community around how water should be improved and over what time frame. We have absolutely taken the view that a model of collaboration a model that sees well-informed debates based on good science is the way to go. That is how you build an enduring solution through a community. This is part of the reform package that we have driven as a Government particularly in respect of freshwater.I sat in the Land and Water Forum a couple of times whilst at Fonterra and I note that those issues are difficult and complex but through the leadership of Alastair Bisley and our previous Ministers Amy Adams and Nick Smith the framework worked because deep down we knew that there is more security and community-endorsed collaboration underpinned by science than in expensive litigation. As noted—and this report covers it—this year we expanded the national policy statement for freshwater with the introduction of our national objectives frameworks and in particular the associated bottom lines for ecosystem health and human health and recreation.We all know that freshwater management is ultimately the purview of the local council and the local community but it is significantly assisted with national guidelines to inform and guide debate and deliberation. That is what this Government has been involved with and driven in terms of its reform package over the last couple of years. Again this is genuine reform.There are two further policy commitments that we are driving this year in freshwater. One is the $100 million fund on freshwater. That again is a significant development. We all know that farming at times has ended up in places where in retrospect perhaps it should not still be. This fund is about the community working together identifying where those buffer zones should be and being able to work measuredly with the community to be able to restore that back to its previous use and create a buffer between intensive land use and the water body that is seeking to be protected and enhanced. It is good thinking. It is driven by this Government and as we work with communities we are seeing some fantastic outcomes throughout the country. For examples of those outcomes look at the water quality improvement in Rotoiti in Taupō and in Waituna. We have backed that with good reform and significant money. We are spending $350 million.