Court Simon; Parker DavidSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Madam Chair. Minister I just want to come back to the freshwater conservation orders and the implications of that and also address the issue of nutrients on water quality and ecosystems. New Zealanders mostly agree that there are some places around New Zealand where freshwater resources have been over allocated or where discharges from certain types of land use are negatively affecting the environment in a way which we all agree is not an appropriate way to treat our common resources. But Minister what we've seen through this legislation through the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management—is a top-down approach; a centralised approach making rules: whether it's a nitrogen limit or banning development in wetlands which actually don't reflect the needs of communities especially where communities might have a differing view on how resources should be allocated particularly freshwater. What we have seen are special rights allocated to iwi Māori based on spiritual values which they are perfectly entitled to hold—Māori culture is a taonga—but that which now require decision makers around water to have regard to Te Mana o Te Wai which puts the health of the water the spiritual concept mauri first above the needs of drinking water allocation and above the needs of water for economic and social development which of course is water used to grow things and make things Minister. Many people in the primary sector have been suspicious of this Minister this Government and the Ministry for Environment which he is responsible for in the way they have gone about lawmaking. In most recent times there has been a suggestion—and we understand was tabled at Cabinet—that there could be a fertiliser tax on nitrogen potentially to help save us from climate change—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! The member will come back to this particular bill; refer to the clauses that you're asking questions on. SIMON COURT: Subpart 3 clause 412 Purpose": "The purpose … is … better monitoring of actions taken to improve freshwater quality and freshwater ecosystems." Of course better monitoring aligns with recommendations from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment to collect better data to monitor and to make that available—absolutely important ACT would agree with that. However in clause 413 "Meaning of nitrogenous fertiliser" it spells out what nitrogen-based fertiliser is and then goes on to say that under the regulations of clauses 414 and 415 the Government is entitled to collect information about fertiliser used on land "the date and place of purchase" "the names of the seller … and the purchaser". I mean this will be a surprise to farmers this will be a surprise to organisations that rely on producing things on the land—the Government now wants them to supply records of their inputs; of their production inputs; of their economic inputs. Because of course farmers are competing; they're not all sharing the best knowledge. They want to do better than some of their neighbours—you know that's the nature of our economy. They might not want to give this information to the Government about the amount the type and volume of fertiliser purchased. What the Government and what the public should be interested in is what are the impacts on receiving waters on our common resources of land use—whether that's using fertiliser or whatever. So farmers and others will be suspicious that this Government has not given up its intention to impose a fertiliser tax because it's quite clear in this legislation that they want to collect all of the information about fertiliser inputs and other inputs to land. Well what would ACT do? We would say rather than trying to micro-manage this stuff from head office Minister; rather than try to make rules around who should be allowed to apply how much fertiliser to their land ACT would say we need to adopt a market-based system. Because where a local council identifies a limit on water quality—the state of the environment that a community agrees is acceptable—then above that limit nutrients should be able to be traded because some farmers; some producers will have better ways of mitigating nutrient loss from farms using better fertiliser technology and monitoring and application systems—whereas others would prefer to do things in a different way. But if nutrients and water quality are allocated in a market-based system where people could compete for water quality attributes Minister wouldn't that be fairer?Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): I do find the ironies in these contributions worthy of comment occasionally because the only two times New Zealand has ever adopted a cap-and-trade scheme for nutrients inputs were around the Taupō catchment—who did that? The last Labour Government—and the Rotorua catchment. Who did that? The last Labour Government. This very bill encourages more of that and the last part: I won't go into that because we've already been past that but it actually enables those market-based mechanisms for exactly the reasons that the member indicated. So I look forward to his stirring speeches in support of those provisions in subsequent contributions.Simon Court: What about the fertiliser tax Minister?Hon DAVID PARKER: In respect of the fertiliser issues they're a carry-over of the existing Resource Management Act which enables that information to be gathered if regulations are made to that effect. What are the standards for water quality—again I agree with the member that we've actually moved past the point of debate in New Zealand that we were going to have wadeable rivers. We actually want contact recreation to be safe for people that use our rivers where they're in a kayak or having a swim; effectively swimmability is the standard for New Zealand rivers and streams in both rural and urban areas and in some of those urban areas particularly—but also in some rural areas we've got some ways to go to get back to there. But we're actually agreed as a country that that's what we should be heading for and that's what the current regulation and the subsidiary instruments provides for."