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Dairy booms, rivers bust - time for Green Solutions & Govt Reply

Thursday, January 31, 2008
Posted in Environment | Tagged Environment, NZ Election 2008

The announcement today of the first ever one billion dollars in dairy exports in a single month, coming at the same time as the release of the State of the Environment report showing declining water quality, makes it plain that now is the time to invest in the sustainability of this important industry, and that so far this Government has failed New Zealanders, says the Green Party.

“This Government has had more than eight years to begin to put right the problems identified in the last State of the Environment report after years of bad management by National Party Governments, but instead things have only got worse,” says Dr. Russel Norman, Green Party Co-leader.

“Not only have they failed to solve the problems threatening New Zealand’s biodiversity which were the key problems identified in the 1997 report, we now have the addition of major problems of environmental degradation caused by land use intensification and increased roading transport, which are also driving water quality problems and greenhouse emissions.

“Now is the time for Green solutions not more rhetoric.

“We have doubled the number of vehicle kilometres travelled. New Zealanders are crying out for better public transport, but this Government’s response has been to launch the biggest road-building spend this country has ever witnessed. We need more public transport.

“We need central Government to provide strong direction on cleaning up our waterways via a National Policy Statement and a National Environmental Standard under the Resource Management Act. These must contain timelines and targets for improvement.

“Federated Farmers will oppose this kind of regulation but the Government must act on behalf of all New Zealanders who want clean rivers and on behalf of those dairy farmers who are doing the right thing by the environment and being undercut by corporate agribusiness.

“Local Government must too play its part. Councils should require resource consents for agricultural land intensification, including dairy conversion, with limits on nitrogen and phosphorous run-off.”

“The equation is simple, we can not allow unfettered growth of dairy without the environment paying the price. There are limits to growth.

“We do acknowledge that there have been gains in some areas such as point source pollution, driven by the RMA. But overall the picture in water quality, fisheries, biodiversity and greenhouse emissions is not good.

“The environment has endured eight years of hard Labour, and decades of National Party indifference, it’s time for Green solutions.”

Russel Norman, Green Party Co-leader

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Hon Jim Anderton

Minister of Agriculture, Minister for Biosecurity
Minister of Fisheries, Minister of Forestry
Associate Minister of Health
Associate Minister for Tertiary Education

Progressive Leader

Greens’ conspiracy theory complete nonsense

Claims by the Green Party that the Government has been “hijacked” by Federated Farmers over water policy are simply ridiculous says Agriculture Minister Jim Anderton. “The Green’s are clearly not living on the same planet as the rest of us. If the Greens were actually involved in these issues at the coal face, they would know the relationship between the Government and the Federation over water quality is far from “cosy”.

“At the end of last year I boycotted the launch of the Federation’s RMA reform campaign because I was concerned they were not taking environmental issues seriously enough. At the time I issued a public statement condemning a call by Federation President Charlie Peterson for farmers to be compensated for regulation on water quality. I stated ‘Farmers, like all industry, must accept responsibility for the effects of their production and sometimes this will mean time and money for farmers, just like other businesses’.

“The Greens clearly haven’t noticed that the Ministerial Advisory Group that is guiding the Government’s Sustainable Water Programme of Action does not include any representatives from Federated Farmers but does include Forest and Bird, and Fish and Game. We have agriculture industry representatives on the group who are committed to action and I am very grateful for the time and effort they are putting into the Programme. To suggest pressure from the Federation is hampering progress on water issues is completely without foundation and is simply Green Party conspiracy theory.

“Furthermore, we are the only country to have included agriculture in an emissions trading scheme. The industry has been given a baseline of 2005 emissions so the industry will have to take responsibility for the current growth in dairying. This is despite years of campaigning by Federated Farmers against agriculture facing any emission costs. The record shows that the Labour-Progressive Government makes environmental policy on merit, not in response to industry lobbying.

“Water quality is a serious issue that will need the concerted attention of central and local government, and industry and communities, for many years to come. Much has been achieved but much remains to be done. As part of the Programme of Action the Government is working closely with local government to improve the mix of tools available to councils to manage water quality and quantity issues. These measures will be rolled out this year,” Jim Anderton said.
“The Greens, in their usual fashion, want all the world’s problems solved today, but the remaining challenges of agriculture’s impacts on water quality in New Zealand have been accumulating for over a century and will take at least a generation to fix,” Jim Anderton said. “These are not simple issues and they affect many stakeholders. What is important is that we are getting on with the job, which is more than the Greens are doing by waving press releases from the sidelines.”
ENDS

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