Delahunty Catherine: Resource Management (Restricted Duration of Certain Discharge and Coastal Permits) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Delahunty Catherine: Resource Management (Restricted Duration of Certain Discharge and Coastal Permits) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 29 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4901. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 I move  
That the Resource Management (Restricted Duration of Certain Discharge and Coastal Permits) Amendment Bill be now read a first time 
. I nominate that the Local Government and Environment Committee consider the bill. All of us put ourselves forward in this House because of a particular passion as well as the broad political framework of our own parties. I am here because of a number of issues including a river and the river people. This bill is about that river its wildlife and the river people who have suffered from its contamination since 1955—a mere 77 years. Thus the bill’s correct title is the “Black Drain Bill” and the Parliament of Aotearoa New Zealand created the “black drain:. This bill is a simple amendment to section 107(2)(a) of the Resource Management Act. It puts a 5-year time frame on that section which permits discoloration and toxic effects from discharges to waterways in exceptional circumstances. We believe the clause should exist but with a time frame. It has scarcely been used by councils and industries for more than 4 years and that is as it should be. We support that. However it is also used in one place to justify one of the longest and most extreme point sources of pollution in our entire country’s history. 
In 1954 the Parliament passed the Tasman Pulp and Paper Company Enabling Act. This Act facilitated Sir James Fletcher’s company to use the Tarawera River as the drain next to the Tasman Pulp and Paper mills at Kawerau. Overnight a sparkling body of water—a whakapapa a water resource and a fisheries—was turned black. The enabling Act was the end of farmers’ water supply on that adjacent plain. The Pakeha farmers were given an alternative water supply and the Maori farmers were not. From the outset those tangata whenua were lied to by Fletcher Challenge which promised them jobs and a clean river for ever. Neither promise was fulfilled for the blacklisted whanau who dared to stand up to Fletcher Challenge and for the river that turned black. From that day some staunch tangata whenua stood up and challenged whether they worked at the mill or not and many mill workers have stood in this struggle. That upper river which is a sparkling beautiful and dynamic river was home then and is home now to many fish to many fishers to recreation and to people who live alongside it. But the lower river was renamed that day and still is called the “black drain”. It is still recognised as being compromised for angling and swimming for food gathering and for the people’s identity. 
The enabling Act was finally repealed thanks to a campaign led by my partner environmentalist Gordon Jackman whose commitment to this issue filled a whole room of our house with written excuses for pollution that we had to address. He even went to university and did a chemistry degree entirely to take on the science of the pulp mills and to support the tangata whenua and local residents who wanted a simple thing clean water and to be able to go and catch a healthy whitebait and to have a job as well. The river discharges and the air discharges as well were then subject to years of debate and campaigning and struggle until finally it was forced to be heard under the Resource Management Act so that it could be addressed in terms of a consent. Section 107(2)(a) of the Resource Management Act was apparently written partially to keep facilitating the pollution of the Tarawera River as an “exceptional circumstance” which is the section in my bill that I want time-defined. 
 On one level this can be said to be true. It is an exceptional circumstance when both Government and regional government have abrogated their responsibilities to set a fair limit on pollution—a time limit on pollution. It is a breach of article 2 of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and it is up to 150000 tonnes of pulp mill effluent per day containing resin acids which blacken the river and up to 5 tonnes of organochlorines from the bleaching of that pulp. And yes the levels of dioxins have been reduced and the river does not literally foam like it used to up to 3 feet deep but the invisible contaminants are still in that sediment 77 years later and the Bay of Plenty is also affected. The effects on trout and native fish including goldfish have been shown over years and they are still alive but those tuna and those goldfish have been shown to have livers and kidneys that are sick. Like many humans these species can live in a contaminated environment but it is not a good living. 
Tonight this House could give this bill and this river a chance. We need to hear from the councils and from industry but most of all we need to hear from the river people about the “black drain” in section 107(2)(a). More than 10 years ago we brought a photographic exhibition to Parliament to show the MPs. We had photographs of the river we had photographs of the peoples of the river and we held it down in the bottom foyer and not a single MP turned up. So here I am 10 years later bringing this picture to you today as a positive opportunity to help this river enter the modern world where cultural and environmental issues and all kinds of relationships with rivers are not trampled on as if there were no alternatives to clean it up other than to close it down. A select committee could ensure that this bill is both fair and practical. 
I want to take my opportunity to pay some respects to the brave ones to the people of NgatiTuwharetoa Ngati Awa and NgatiRangitihi who have fought so hard and held the line in the face of section 107(2)(a) without its time limit: to exceptional people like the rangatira the late Jack Fox Isobel Fox and their son Tomairangi Fox; and to the whanau from Onepu and Kawerau and the Ngati Awa people from Te Runanga o Ngati Awa who have all worked at different levels through different processes over many years. They have not asked for the mill to be closed; they have asked for the effluent to be cleaned up and dealt with appropriately. And many of us have stood with Greenpeace which brought the  
Rainbow Warrior  
at least three times into the Bay of Plenty to say that enough is enough. 
I want to pay tribute to the late Bill Marr to Tiipene Marr the man who stood on the “black drain” bridge with his taiaha day after day after day and to all the Marr whanau who have stood up for this issue and to Mr Reuben Cohen and the mill watch crew who gave most of the 1980s to this cause. You might think that is a long time ago. Well it is a long time ago and that is our disgrace. So we must stand up for the unrecognised people who are not heard in houses of power who have fought so long and hard to see this change be debated in this House today. We had a slogan then “Chlorine-Free by 1993” which is kind of hopeful. We are not there yet but my even getting to Parliament is a tribute to the fact that the river still inspires us and that we can have a chlorine-free non-polluting relationship with the environment and indeed with paper and pulp production. I also want to acknowledge the last objectors in the last court case so far: Tiipene Marr himself and also David Potter and Andre Paterson from Te Rangatiratanga o NgatiRangitihi Inc. 
In 2010 the Environment Court heard an appeal and listened to the so-called experts who said that 150000 tonnes of pulp or effluent—including organochlorines the effects of which have not been properly identified and concentrated resin acids—pouring into the river was acceptable under section 107(2). But the court also acknowledged that section 107(2) could not be relied upon for ever and let us make sure that it is not. A 25-year consent was granted in 2010 after the appeal was lost and section 107(2) was relied upon yet again. Of course employment at the mill is critical but the excuse that mills must close if required to clean up is not defensible. Pulp mills can carry out pulp and paper bleaching without polluting. They can use oxygen bleaching and they can reuse waste water. It is called closed loop it is modern pulp and paper production and it is high time the Bay of Plenty got with that. 
I worked in many councils to make sure I would not compromise the emergency overflows and still-water consents and apart from a couple of historic examples including one in Tai Rawhiti which I was proud to fight every inch of the way and which we eventually won people are no longer on this clause except for Environment Bay of Plenty in relation to the Tarawera River. This issue will be a stain on the Bay of Plenty in a very literal way and a stain on the Resource Management Act so we really need to make this change as soon as possible. Tonight I am asking the House to hear this true story and to give the lower river a chance once that current consent expires. It still gives the pulp mills 22 years to figure it out after 77 years but it also means that no one else will try to use the law for a permanent and unexceptional dirty discharge. It is time for positive change and I ask you all to send it to the select committee. Kia ora tatou katoa. Kia kaha Tarawera!