Campbell HamishDr HAMISH CAMPBELL (National—Ilam): It's my pleasure to rise and speak on the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill in the first reading. I'm proud to stand and represent the farmers of Ilam—all 300 of them! But in all seriousness this is a serious topic. Freshwater reforms actually go right to the heart of our resource management and what we are going to do with it.We are navigating this challenging situation. When we do face these challenges we must not forget the crucial role our primary producers play in this country and in our society. We require them three times a day—breakfast lunch and dinner—to be able to put food on the table. It's essential that we allow them to have access to water for their production. It's key to ensuring our food security our economic prosperity and a sustainable future for all. If you are a farmer or you are a horticulturalist and you're growing something you need water to be able to make that food to be able to reach its full maturity. It doesn't matter whether you're a farmer a grower an orchardist the backbone of agricultural sector we work tirelessly to ensure that there's food on our table crops in our field and livestock on our farms. However the ability to produce food and fibre heavily relies on the access to water. As I know as an orchardist myself when it comes to that summertime we need that water otherwise all our inputs for a whole year can go to waste if we can't get our fruit up to size. It puts our livelihoods at risk and also our food supply as well.Now the changes to this bill are focused on changes that will take effect quickly to give certainty to councils and to consent applications. Unfortunately a lot of the previous reforms have just added cost and complexity but have gained very little for our environment. I think we need to be very clear that it's not a binary situation. We can produce food we can look after our environment and it is a win-win situation.We can stand here and legislate things. We can stand here and change the rules but we need to think of what's actually happening at the coalface. I think that is what has been missing over the last six years. Regional councils cannot process that absolute volume of consent applications that are required for the winter grazing. Our farmers wouldn't be able to actually do that because they'd be waiting for the paperwork to come through.Now let's be clear: we do care about the environment. I want to do a big shout-out to our farmers. We have heard others all around this House making a big shout-out to our farmers but usually there's a but" in there and we always know what's before the "but". I don't think I'm allowed to say it in this House unfortunately but I think we know where we're going. So 98 percent of farmers have excluded stock from waterways with around 25000 kilometres of fencing erected while 94 percent of farmers have buffers around their waterways to filter contaminants. We are talking about farmers who have been innovative. They know their land they know what they can do they can know how to improve it. Just think about how far our farming practices have come over the last 50 years. I just also want to make a shout-out to our researchers and AgResearch and the New Zealand Institute for Crop and Food Research who have done work over water flows and all sorts of things. It is great that we have such talent here in New Zealand.We are going to get to the same point with or without these extra regulations—this extra complexity which is just adding cost to our farmers who are already under the pump. I will just point out that there's been a recent report from the University of Canterbury which has revealed that 24 percent of New Zealand's native vegetation—that's about 2.8 million hectares—is estimated to be on our sheep and beef farms. Just pointing out how much our farmers care for the environment.A blanket one-size-fits-all heavy-handed regulation doesn't actually suit anybody. But I don't think anybody in this Chamber will argue when I say we need to look at our resource management in this country. It's in desperate need of an update and this bill is our first step in that process as we go. We will be backing our farmers. They are the world's best producing farmers that we have. We need to have safe produce we need to have a good environment and we can have both of these things. Therefore I recommend this bill to the House."