Sage Eugenie: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to MembersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSage Eugenie: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members[Sitting date: 12 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:15836. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]7.EUGENIE SAGE (Green) to theMinister for the Environment: Why do the Government’s proposals for improving freshwater management allow New Zealand rivers to have higher concentrations of nitrogen pollution than China’s Yangtze River?Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for the Environment): As usual the member is deliberately scaremongering on water quality. Although the Yangtze River indeed has serious pollution issues nitrogen is not the only pollutant there is and even according to the World Wide Fund for Nature it is not the pollutant of particular concern for the Yangtze River where the issue is in fact primarily around industrial and sewage waste and the management of sediments. The Government’s proposals for freshwater management will improve water quality and not allow the degradation of New Zealand rivers something that that member’s party failed to do in 9 years of propping up a Labour Government. Furthermore the nitrate toxicity threshold for the bottom lines is only one of the ways that nitrogen must be managed to meet the national bottom lines and most rivers will need to be more aggressively managed for nitrogen levels to meet periphyton standards a fact that the member either does not understand or deliberately chooses to ignore.Eugenie Sage: Will she review her proposed nitrate toxicity bands and the national bottom lines for rivers which Fish and Game has described as an “abject failure” and effectively a licence to pollute in relation to farm nitrate pollution?Hon AMY ADAMS: The first point I would make in response to that question is that they are not my nitrate toxicity levels; they are the levels that have been devised by an expert panel made up of more than 60 water-quality scientists. They are specific levels that none of my colleagues or I have had any input into. Furthermore as I mentioned in answer to the primary question the nitrate toxicity level is only one of the ways that nitrogen is measured in our rivers.Eugenie Sage: Will she change her proposals given that nitrogen pollution can have significant impacts on river health at much lower levels than her proposed bottom line of nitrate being toxic to fish and aquatic life?Hon AMY ADAMS: The National Objectives Framework levels have been out for consultation. We are now working through the submissions that have come in and no final decisions have been made. But again I would reiterate for the member that the nitrate toxicity level is set which is only one of the ways that nitrogen is controlled at a level where there is full species protection for 80 percent. And for the remaining 20 percent it is the level at which you would start to see some impact on growth. I think it is a very reasonable level and it is the level that was chosen by the expert science panel and the work that it did to come up with these levels.Hon Tariana Turia: Does the Minister agree with Te Wai Māori Trust that if the Government waits to develop additional attributes there is a danger that nothing will happen; if so will she agree that the implementation deadline should be dropped from 2030 to 2020?Hon AMY ADAMS: I do not agree that nothing will happen. There are two aspects to that question. One is around developing additional attributes. I certainly agree and I have been saying for some time that the National Objectives Framework would continue to be a developing tool and there certainly will need to be more work done but we need to start and start now with what we have. In respect of the time line for implementation that is something that we can certainly continue to talk about but I would point out to the member that in actual fact the information that I have suggests that most councils are well on track to having these guidelines in place between 2016 and 2020. There is a review set in 2016 where we can certainly look at it but the indications that I am seeing suggest that councils are actually taking to this with some vigour.Eugenie Sage: Will she strengthen her weak water-quality proposals given that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has described them as “not adequate for protecting water quality to even current levels in New Zealand”?Hon AMY ADAMS: Well I think the best way to address that question is to remind the House of what the national bottom line on nitrogen pollution was under the Labour-Greens Government which was: do what you like. There were zero limits from central government. It had no interest in requiring councils to lift their standards. This Government has. This Government is lifting them. Can I remind members also that quite apart from bottom lines we still have an obligation to maintain or enhance. No river quality is allowed to deteriorate under this framework despite the member’s scaremongering.Eugenie Sage: If the Minister is so confident that her proposals will maintain water quality how does she respond to the submission and analysis of the New Zealand Freshwater Sciences Society the professional body of freshwater scientists which says that her proposals have “the potential for New Zealand rivers to become some of the most nitrogen polluted among OECD countries.”?Hon AMY ADAMS: Very easily. I respond by saying that they are simply wrong.