Climate variation has and always will happen, ACT believed.
“Regardless of the political machinations and ‘gullible policies’ of today, however, it is important the primary sector adapts to weather variance and builds resilience. Water storage is a vital element of this.”
ACT would reduce the Emissions Trading Scheme to irrelevance and rebuff any attempt to introduce a carbon tax. It believed communities should not consider new bottom-line water-quality standards before they had long-term objective measurement data. Benefits and costs should be presented before new rules or standards were adopted. Measures imposed to improve water quality must be accurately predictable, not modelled projections.
Costs resulting from the imposition of requirements to meet new water quality standards should be borne by the community that sets the standards, and the issue of compensation for adversely affected landowners or occupiers should be addressed.
UnitedFuture had not released its formal policy on freshwater, but leader Peter Dunne said it believed the amenity value of freshwater was fundamental to the Kiwi way of life.
UnitedFuture regarded climate change as a global challenge that could be managed to mitigate the risks through international and domestic co-operation. The party supported CO2 emissions trading mechanisms to provide economic incentives to reduce greenhouse gases and boost carbon capture. It opposed the introduction of a carbon tax.
Te Mana o Te Wai was a key over-arching objective of the Maori Party’s freshwater management policies. The aim was to help communities to restore their local freshwater bodies through initiatives such as planting, riparian buffers, the use of nitrate inhibitors, and establishing artificial or constructed wetlands
The party aimed to ensure tangata whenua were not disproportionally impacted by climate change and Government responses to it. Particularly, it wanted real reductions in the use of fossil fuels and their replacement, rather than supplementation.
The Mana Party said the health and happiness of the country’s people was inextricably linked to the wellbeing of Papatuanuku (Mother Earth). It wanted Maori practices of kaitiakitanga to play a key role in adopting environmental, economic, and social practices consistent with this view.
Mana rejected market solutions to climate change and environmental degradation.
It wanted Treaty of Waitangi obligations to be met in all environmental legislation and hapu and iwi given decision-making powers equal to central and local government in developing environmental policies relating to biodiversity, prospecting, the management of coastal areas, and Resource Management Act plans so they could properly exercise kaitiakitanga over lands, coastal areas, and waterways.
Mana would regulate farming practices to reduce environmental damage, improve the quality of waterways, and increase localised food self-sufficiency while reducing dependence on imported foods.
Water supplies would be retained as a public good, managed locally. All wastewater would be treated to food-gathering standard, then discharged through land, unless the soil was unsuitable, rather than directly into streams, rivers, or the sea.
Growing and experimentation with genetically engineered crops would be banned. Mana would promote and resource organic food production, and extend current funding for the establishment of maara kai (a community garden project).
Internet Party leader Laila Harre said the party would work with and support like-minded parties to develop common policies and approaches that protected NZ’s environment without impacting unfairly on the sustainable growth of primary industries such as dairying. It supported the Greens’ climate protection plan.
Government, local government, and private measures now being taken on water-quality issues should be subject to a public review conducted by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment with the objective being to produce a national 10-year Water Quality Plan by 2016. A key aim would be the resolution of water environment issues linked to agriculture and industry by 2025.
