In its continuing rush of reform, the coalition Government is moving to make regulatory compliance easier for primary industries such as farming and mining.
Among other things, it will remove the need for councils, companies and individuals to comply with rules under the Te Mana o te Wai provisions of the previous Government’s National Policy Statement for Fresh water Management of 2020 (NPS-FM).
The new law, dubbed Resource Management Bill 1 (RM Bill 1), will bring in this and other changes during the year, while new legislation to replace the whole of the Resource Management Act (RMA) is developed
RM Bill 1 is expected to be introduced to Parliament next month.
The RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop says the change will give certainty to councils and economic sectors and consent applicants, and sectors, including farming, mining and other primary industries.
“These sectors are critical to rebuilding the New Zealand economy,” Bishop says.
The Bill will also amend livestock exclusion rules on sloping land, repeal intensive winter grazing regulations rules and suspend the requirement for councils to identify new Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) for three years, as was promised earlier.
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says the rules on stock exclusion and on sloping land will be based on actual risk. Farm organisations had earlier complained of maps showing areas of restriction that did not reflect the reality for each individual farm.
“Cabinet has agreed changes to stock exclusion and winter grazing regulations representing a move to a more risk-based, catchment-focused approach,” McClay says.
“Importantly, effective non-regulatory measures are already in place to support the continued improvement of winter grazing practices going forward. Sector groups have confirmed their continued and collective commitment to work alongside farmers and regional councils to ensure good outcomes.”
“Regional councils tell us there have been significant improvements in winter grazing practices, with farmers changing where they plant fodder crops and how they manage winter grazing. The national requirement for farmers to obtain prescriptive and expensive winter grazing consents is being removed in time for the 2025 season, and instead being managed through good practice and regional council plans."
Winter grazing is an especially important in Southland, where cattle are brought to lower altitudes to allow the regrowth of grass on hillsides during very cold winters. The rules were changed after animal welfare activists released pictures of cows wallowing and even giving birth in mud in confined areas during the winter grazing months. But farm groups complained of selective editing of the activists’ videos, and said farmers were as interested in their stock welfare as anyone, since it brings in their livelihood.
The Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard says property and catchment-specific farm plans make sense because they can be used to identify environmental risks and plan practical on-farm solutions.
The sweep of reforms have been welcomed by farmer groups.
Beef + Lamb New Zealand (B+LNZ) says it has been asking for changes like these, saying the “current rules have been problematic and impractical in their one-size--fits-all approach. "
“This announcement will be a relief for many farmers who were faced with an unnecessary regulatory burden and significant on-farm compliance costs,” says the organisation’s chair," Kate Acland.
“Farmers need clarity and certainty.”
Federated Farmers is even more emphatic, saying a “war on farming” is coming to an end.
"These impractical rules have been a nightmare since the day they were introduced," says Federated Farmers freshwater spokesperson, Colin Hurst.
"They were rushed through before the 2020 election cycle by overzealous regulators with a complete disregard for who would have to implement them from behind the farm gate."
"Regulation needs to be practical, pragmatic and affordable."
However the Labour Party says the changes will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits.
“These changes are being pushed through fast to avoid public scrutiny,” says the party’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking.
“They will water down rules that prevent our rivers from being polluted, and our native species being protected."
The Green Party says the reforms will add to the “heavy and ever-growing burden this Government is loading on to our environment."
“This legislation will accelerate the decline of our natural world and add fuel to the climate crisis fire in what is another classic case of environmental mismanagement from this Government,” says its environment spokesperson Lan Pham.
“This is an absurd dereliction of duty.”
34 Comments
'These sectors are critical to rebuilding the New Zealand economy,”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Too late. And be honest - these sectors are short-term focused, self-serving also. But too late - the GROWTH horse has bolted. As this reporter has been made aware - pity this was just a he-said/she said coverage. The reality is that growth is measured in terms of doubling-time. There is NO available doubling left; merely dribs and drabs. Pick your percentage - say 3% growth - and I'll tell you you have seriously less that 24 years to go before GROWTH stops.
Just what happens to the short-term bets at that point - is anyone's guess. Worthless, and probably no banks left to get the digits from, anyway. This is Lorax/Onceler territory; pity these folk can't read....
If someone finds a genuinely more fulfilling way from the mainstream to live their life, that's actually a beautiful thing.
If it's dependent on spending decades telling everyone else they're wrong, and making everything thunderbolts and lightning, it's probably not that fulfilling.
He thinks its ok to stack the field with the green lobby taking up council positions, to change district plan rules and make it extremely difficult to get basic consents. PDK claims to be batting for his grandkids when actually unwittingly ruining it. They're inclined to leave on a jet plane and go to countries with less environmental conscience
Get it right.
The lobby, is those who seek to gain.
That is not the Green folk - they seek to protect.
But you conflate from the get-go - this is about science, facts and truths. You nearly get there with the 'less conscience' bit. Think further: how long can an 'environmentally-conscienceless' country survive?
Your mental incorrectitude probably thinks: forever. And also probably thinks that when it gets rich enough, it can clean up its mess?
Using what? They'll have used it up driving round in tin boxes that they believed gave them status. Not much room for status in a f---ed 'environment'.
this is about science, facts and truths.
Science tells us:
- nothing lasts forever
- the only constant is change
- humans are extremely adaptable
If someone's stamping their feet telling us what's going on currently is forever, well then we can make a good case against that.
But trying to envisage the how, what and when, science (particularly where you look for it), can't do that.
The only thing the "Green" party is keen to protect seems to be the right of everybody to have a share of the pie regardless of whether or not they work. Also it is they who made an "absurd dereliction of duty" under the last government by not adequately maintaining the DOC estate. I was talking to a milk tanker driver recently who says he runs over an average of two possums a night. There's a plague of pests at a time when effective local government rates and tax rates are going up. Six years of incompetence, 20 years of recovery.
Crazy talk. If you had your way we would have no industry, no manufacturing, and no farming whatsoever.
The solution to our growing electricity needs isn't building more hydro, it's closing down Tiwai.
Farmers don't need robust laws and regulations to bolster our primary industry exports, they have to be taxed on each and every metric with their projects delayed for years.
We don't need to maintain energy security by mining our own coal and drilling for offshore oil and gas, we need to import it all from Singapore and Indonesia.
The more I consider the so-called green narrative, the more it seems to be a plan to gut our economy and revert back to the stone age.
Regarding your growth comment, the financial markets beg to differ. There will always be a better way to do something in this world, and technology will progress (globally at least) whether you like or not.
Truly depressing regression. Some regulation to protect the environment for all = a war on farmers! Which other industries don’t have compliance obligations also?
Its continuing rush of reform, ie government’s desperation to wind the clock back to 1950s. Who needs freshwater management anyway? Let’s all allow farmers to decide how much environmental degradation should be inflicted…
…farmers need clarity and certainty - there were rules before which provided certainty. It’s just that farmers didn’t want to comply.
the critical sector that really DOES need clarity, certainty and attention is national infrastructure - resilient clean energy, transportation and water, and strengthening defences against climate change.
RickStauss, get your facts right!!! Farmers were never in favour of spending hundreds of millions to "eradicate" (LOL!!!) MBovis. In fact they wanted to self manage it.
Ardern and co decided to have one of their "world first" hero moments and decided only they could stamp out MBovis. Jury still well out on that one! So calling it taxpayer welfare to farmers just shows up your true bias. But hey, never let the facts get in the way of a good story! As soon as I read the headline of this article I new the same old farmer bashers would be on the keyboard immediately, i.e. PDK, solardb, chrisofnobrain and you! Disappointing but entirely predictable!
It isn't just about having nice rivers either. We all need to drink water - https://maps.greenpeace.org/maps/aotearoa/know-your-nitrate/
I'd be really interested to know how many farmers are annoyed by this. The ones who pre-emptively have been putting labour and $ into mitigating the downstream effects from their land use and those who have been following the rules to date. vs. the laggards who now will be benefiting the most. Because some farmers will be getting a way bigger free pass than others. What's the mix here?
The farmers will tell you the bulk are looking after their lands and their animals and it's a few rotten eggs causing the problems. My travels around my wider family's farming interests suggests the 'rotten eggs' are higher in number than farmers' groups would like you to believe, less than half but certainly higher than 'a few'.
Put into a historical context though ... Much of Europe's environment was completely transformed by farming (and the building of wooden ships). Is it so bad? (I guess the wolves and lions et al that used to live there have extremely mixed views on that. But tourists love it.)
I fenced off my waterways because I don't want stock in them, not because regulators told me to - managing pollution was enough of an incentive for me. Riparian planting along the banks is next on the list, to filter any runoff that might make its way there. It was only about 1.3km of fencing though and I did it in stages to spread the cost. Farmers with more waterways may not be so sanguine.
Once again ... We see Total Cost - which includes both financial and environmental costs - being ignored so private interests can secure private profits while passing the environmental costs onto the public. Just another example of privatizing profits and socializing losses.
Worth a read: The Tragedy of the Commons
Harding was a great thinker - great at putting concepts into perspective.
Lifeboat came later - 6 years, as I remember:
http://fs2.american.edu/dfagel/www/Class%20Readings/Hardin/Hardin-Lifeb…
That is the bind we find ourselves in, now.
Compare that to the 'just leave us alone to make money' (but let us screw future generations) comments above.
At long last some common sense. NZ has only two strings to it's bow (and its meagre income), tourism and agriculture. Both essential but not able to deliver the first world incomes we aspire to. Hence the rush for Australia's superior incomes (like $200k pa driving trucks in the mining industry). Now NZ needs to open up its land for mining, minerals, oil to get our national income up and provide a 3rd string to our otherwise stretched bow. Thank goodness adult realists are back in charge.
No, it only has ONE string to its bow; Fossil energy.
Farming turns fossil calories into food calories - inefficiently if animals are involved.
Tourism turns fossil calories into digits in a bank computer.
Fossil energy is a finite resource. In both cases then, I ask the one question: What then?
All defenders of 'now' activities, have one thing in common; an avoidance (or an overlooking) of a longer time.
Having been a farmer after I was a professional sportsman and then business person, I used a similar mental approach to improve my farm. That is, consider best practice, look at role models, figure out the small steps, do it, and monitor, did I achieve what I intended? Adjust . I call that on the job learning. I was free to innovate and, when I measured myself against a matrix of benchmarks, I “passed “. My environmental footprint was pretty low, but not nil. Always a concern, how reduce.
I was not under the pump from a lender, so could make “free “ choices.
when I hear farming spokespeople saying, leave it to us, we know what we are doing, I tend to believe them.
But, I have one proviso. What do those spokespeople say about the fraction who fail to care for the environment or their livestock? When the first one says, that failed farmer should be required to exit farming, and pending the exit, cease any management of that farm, then they will gain credibility. No second chances. No excuses for some factors outside the farmer’s control. If you can’t handle it, don’t be the pilot, be a passenger. There is lots of space back there for passengers. No shame, lots of fun, a good life.
I believe a fundamental problem in our society is a failure to have consequences. Bad money drives out good?
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