Polluters gain control over freshwater - Rural News

Reports in the 82,000-circulation Rural News newspaper that agricultural polluters gained control of the Government’s Water Programme of Action should be a cause of concern for all other New Zealanders, says Green Party Co-Leader Russel Norman.

“The latest edition says Environment Minister Trevor Mallard’s new freshwater policies were ‘toothless’ and that he was ‘ducking for cover’ after a ‘powerful consortium of agriculture interests’ lobbied him. It says ‘Mallard has been suitably scared into submission’.

“Rural News supports what the Greens have been saying for months – that vested interests have hijacked years of Labour promises to make rivers safe for swimming and hijacked all the work by government departments towards that end. We are left with the ‘toothless’ Proposed National Policy Statement (NPS) for Freshwater Management which the ‘scared’ Mr Mallard released last month,” Dr Norman says.

The newspaper dated August 5 says, “Much maligned for its suppliers’ impact on water quality, Fonterra must be sitting smugly on the back of its lobbying against the Government’s threatened hard line for the dairy sector before the release of the national water policy. The legislative proposal that has emerged is watered down,… fails to follow up any of Environment Minister Trevor Mallard’s warnings, and is unlikely to lead to any immediate change in farming practices… It obviously left Mallard ducking for cover, scared of the co-op’s clout”.

Says Dr Norman, “Rural News describes Mr Mallard’s ‘fighting talk’ earlier this year and his ‘promise that agricultural polluters would be reigned in’. Referring to the NPS, the newspaper says, ‘What he has detailed is a proposal as toothless as his former warnings’.

“If Mr Mallard is scared of Fonterra and other polluters, I wonder if he is also scared to tell the public why his promise of ‘rivers being clean enough to swim in within a generation’ in February 2008 and similar Labour promises during previous election campaigns have not been met in the NPS.”