Analysis: It was a sure sign the new Government had stamped its mark on officials.
A Ministry for the Environment leader, Nadeine Dommisse, told an environmental conference the country needed to be “aware of the pitfalls of over-regulation”, the week after 300 job cuts at MfE were announced.
Coming just two days after tens of thousands of people marched in Auckland against what environmental groups have called the Government’s war on nature, it sets up two difficult days for attending Ministers Simon Watts, Tama Potaka, and Shane Jones. Notably, Environment Minister Penny Simmonds is absent from the programme.
Dommisse was the opening act at the Environmental Defence Society’s pre-conference workshop in Ōtautahi/Christchurch on Monday.
The workshop was focused on freshwater, and MfE’s deputy secretary of environmental management and adaptation was charged with providing a national update on Government reforms, including of the Resource Management Act.
There was plenty to discuss, including the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill, the Government’s “ambitious” RMA reforms, and the removal of Te Mana o Te Wai (putting the health of the water first) from the national policy statement on freshwater management.
It was a good time to take stock, Dommisse said. Workshop attendees were probably doing the same, picking over her official messages to get a better sense of the Government’s work agenda.
There was no need to read the tea leaves, as her language often mirrored that of her political masters.
She advocated for an “integrated environmental management” approach: “We need to recognise the interplay between a strong economy, infrastructure resilience, and our biodiversity and freshwater assets.”
RMA reforms would make it easier to “get things done”, she said, by, among other things, “unlocking development capacity for housing and business growth” and “enabling primary sector growth”.
“At a national level, we need to be aware of the pitfalls of over-regulation,” Dommisse said. “Importantly, as a country, we need to value tools that sit outside of the planning system: the market drivers and incentives and the other tools that can help make changes on the ground that all add up to improve water quality.”
Later, picking up on the over-regulation claim, former Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage asked the workshop panel about the potential consequences of environmental reforms, including the Fast-track Approvals Bill. Rasmus Gabrielsson, chief executive of North Canterbury Fish & Game, said they were a “disaster in the making”.
The most vociferous response to Dommisse came from Raewyn Bennett – of Te Arawa Ki Tai, a Bay of Plenty trust dedicated to water issues – who spoke of the Government’s “onslaught of anti-Māori legislation”.
She was perplexed by the Government’s intention to remove Te Mana o Te Wai from the hierarchy of priorities for freshwater decisions.
“Are people who don’t want to prioritise the needs of water, the water body, ignorant or just plain dumb? Or don’t they realise that life depends on water? Is it their ignorance, greed or racism … that binds them?”
Federated Farmers president Wayne Langford, a dairy farmer from Golden Bay, at the top of the South Island, asked the workshop audience: “What happened?”
He accused the previous government of going too hard and too fast on environmental regulations – of trying to take a “quantum step”.
“As a farmer, as an environmentalist, I needed this room to support us on the farm, and we didn’t get that support during the last few years,” Langford said.
He harked back to the “dirty dairying” campaign, started by statutory advocacy organisation Fish & Game in the early 2000s. Initially, farmers shut their gates, he said, but tensions had eased in recent years.
“I’m concerned with some of what’s going on now that we could potentially fall back into that.”
“It is very, very close to that bubbling over again.”
Rasmus Gabrielsson, North Canterbury Fish & Game
The flickering flames of division weren’t exactly doused.
Maree Baker-Galloway, a former president of the Resource Management Law Association, warned the fast-track bill could nullify protections afforded by water conservation orders (WCO).
This theme was picked up by Gabrielsson, of North Canterbury Fish & Game – which, with Environmental Defence Society, has taken Canterbury’s regional council, ECan, (Dommisse’s old employer), to court to try and force the regional council to take responsibility for aspects of the Rakaia WCO.
Dismantling such protections would erode confidence, Gabrielsson said, risking a return to 20 years ago “with the angry advocacy”.
“There was a time and a place for it, but from my perspective as a spokesperson for an advocacy organisation, I think we will get further with different methods. But it is very, very close to that bubbling over again.”
Bennett, of Te Arawa Ki Tai, added accelerant of her own, by accusing the Government of accepting 100 percent of Federated Farmers’ “action plan” released during the election campaign.
“Democracy has a lot to answer for when it puts at risk the health and well-being of future generations for a few more votes, and panders to greed and racists.”
In her opening address, Dommisse walked a tightrope.
MfE’s 2023 report into freshwater painted a sobering picture, with many waterways degraded, she said.
“However, sometimes we forget that if farmers and other landholders hadn’t started changing farm practices in response to good science and catchment initiatives over many years, that our lakes and our rivers and our waterways would be in a much worse state.”
She praised the Jobs for Nature programme – the budget for which was cut in last month’s Budget – for showing “we can both employ people into jobs, seriously contribute to catchment work and have an overall positive economic impact”.
The key tool for managing risks to water bodies would be freshwater farm plans, Dommisse said. MfE and the Ministry for Primary Industries had been directed to review the farm plan system, to ensure it’s “practical and pragmatic”.
Farmers should be provided with “greater flexibility to find the right freshwater management solutions for their farm and catchment area”, she said.
At the Te Pae conference centre in central Christchurch, you could almost hear the pendulum swinging from the previous government’s agenda to the current one.
Baker-Galloway, the veteran resource management specialist, said: “As a lawyer, it’s better to have clear direction than no direction.”
And Andrew Parrish, ECan’s regional planning manager, said his job was made more difficult when one government wanted indigenous biodiversity identified and protected, and the next one was scrapping it.
“I need that national direction, Nadeine – please keep it coming. I need it to do my job. But what I can’t deal with is a community that doesn’t know which way to turn, and we need consistency in our regulatory framework.”
Ultimately, it was asked, how can the hard-fought environmental gains of this past decade be sustained, and more improvements to freshwater be won? EDS chief executive Gary Taylor worried, openly, about a “horrendous lurch” backwards.
Alastair Bisley, former chair of the Land & Water Forum, said some of his group’s recommendations had been adopted, while others were not, and should be revisited.
Langford, of Federated Farmers, mused about self-regulation – like the Clean Streams Accord – driven by the agricultural sector, rather than the Government or environmental groups.
Asked if his farming lobby supported putting the health of the water first, Langford answered with a question: what did that mean? “The principle and the idea is great, but the practicality of doing that, and how we’re going to achieve that, is not quite there.”
Bisley bristled. “How long? This conversation has been going on for a very long time, Wayne.”
Langford answered again with a question, to Māori. What does Te Mana o Te Wai mean, and what would be the economic impact?
Bennett, of Te Arawa Ki Tai, said it was simple to put the mauri (life force) of the water first by not contaminating it.
Earlier, during her address, an emotional Bennett recalled attending the tangi (funeral) of an 8-year-old girl who had been swimming in a nearby estuary, which was polluted with cow mimi (urine). She developed an ear infection, and died.
“So what does this regime mean when it refers to reforms that better reflect the interest of all water users? What about these kids?”
