O'Rourke DenisDENIS O'ROURKE (NZ First): Two of the early actions that could easily be taken to improve New Zealand's environment and to allow progress with climate change objectives under the Paris Agreement are to massively increase and improve New Zealand's water management and an early start to a huge new programme of afforestation in New Zealand.I want to say first of all that New Zealand First deplores the Government's lack of action on fresh water. The simple redefinition of what constitutes clean water hardly takes us very far and is at best irrelevant and at worst retrograde. We want to do some rather more important things and the first of those is that we say the current first in first served" approach to the allocation of water rights in New Zealand under the Resource Management Act is well past its use-by date and we need to do something better. We believe in a much more strategic approach and we want to see a New Zealand water strategy developed for that purpose.Rights to take and use water must only be available to New Zealand citizens and New Zealand fully owned companies. We do not think water should be taxed or subjected to any other financial imposition. We think that is not necessary. It is already very expensive for people to take water whether it is for urban use or for agriculture or irrigation. We do not want to see that made more expensive. But when fresh water is exported in either a pure state or a substantially pure state we want to see a royalty charged on that. We think that royalty should be developed on a region-by-region basis in consultation with each region concerned and that at least 25 percent of that royalty should stay in the region from which the royalty is derived and be used exclusively for the purposes of economic development and job creation.New Zealand First also wants to see the special character of New Zealand's wild and scenic rivers preserved. That is most important. They are at risk and they continue to be at risk. We agree with the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment who recommends clearly identifying and listing them and then adopting specific policies for their protection. We think that is the right way to go. Of course we do need to move much faster to avoid the pollution of our waterways which a lot of people are very concerned about at the moment. But it does need to be said that these apply to both urban and rural waterways. While there are many more rivers in the rural areas the amount of pollution in urban areas is far greater and that is actually an even more urgent requirement than the need to protect rivers in rural areas.New Zealand First wants to see much more assistance given to cities and towns to achieve a much greater level of protection for their waterways through better waste water treatment and better drainage facilities. New Zealand First also wants to see much greater attention paid to afforestation in New Zealand. We want to see a reliance on just exporting logs and for there to be a much greater emphasis on using wood in New Zealand for manufacturing purposes. That can be done through Government leadership and incentives. We do not see that in any of the Government's programmes and that is something that is urgently required.We actually think the Government should adopt New Zealand First's targets and those are first to increase the value of New Zealand's wood exports from currently around $5 billion to $12 billion by the year 2022; secondly to reverse the dismal rate of replanting of forestry in New Zealand and we think that can be hugely increased and it should be done urgently; and lastly to contribute to New Zealand's greenhouse gas targets by replanting a billion hectares of the 13 billion hectares of marginal land in New Zealand which is ripe for the replanting of forests which have so many advantages for regional economies tackling climate change and improving water and soil quality."