The group is made up of four representatives from regional councils (two chairs and two chief executives), DairyNZ, Beef + Lamb NZ and Horticulture NZ chief executives Tim Mackle, Sam McIvor and Mike Chapman, and representatives from the Maori Freshwater Forum Kahui Wai Maori.
It also includes representatives from environmental NGOs, the Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry for Primary Industries.
The group’s co-chair, Taranaki Regional Council chair David MacLeod, says its meeting schedule is yet to be finalised as the group’s secretariat is at present determining the priority of work that needs to be undertaken.
However, everyone involved understands the importance of getting up and running as soon as possible.
MacLeod, a former Fonterra director and current management committee member of Taranaki’s largest farming business, Parininihi ki Waitotara, says the group’s terms of reference specifically state that it is not to consider policy changes to the Government’s Essential Freshwater package.
Instead, it is tasked with ensuring the new rules can be consistently implemented across the country, although MacLeod says there will clearly be local aspects to regional plan developments.
Councils are the bodies that will have to enforce the new rules, which he says will come at a “significant” cost to them, as it’s highly likely additional staff will be needed to carry that role out.
Many of those councils are currently in the process of preparing long-term plans to cover the next three years and MacLeod says their role enforcing the regulations will affect the budgets contained in those plans.
He says the governance group has a big and important job ahead of it to ensure there is a clear vision as to how the regulations will be implemented.
The group wants to be proactive in communicating clearly to farmers how this will be done and it plans to use a number of ways to achieve that, including utilising media channels like Farmers Weekly.
