In a Facebook post this week, party leader Judith Collins and the party’s agriculture spokesperson David Bennett described the just-released freshwater regulations as draconian, unworkable and created by the central Government with no regard to regional differences.
Both Collins and Bennett said the new rules will be “gone by lunchtime.”
This approach was softened somewhat in a later statement by Bennett and Environment spokesperson Scott Simpson which identifies nine rules and regulations included in the freshwater package that will be reviewed or repealed.
Bennett says they will work with farmers and interest groups to devise new legislation that is practical, science-based and achievable.
“We all want improved freshwater outcomes but we have to back farmers to farm their way to better outcomes as they have been doing,” he said.
“Farmers must see a pathway to improve while being profitable. Our rural communities and economic wealth as a country depends on it.”
Blanket legislation ignores regional differences, stymies innovation and adds costs.
NZ First has welcomed the Government’s decision to amend winter grazing rules, which limits pugging around gateways and permanent water troughs.
The party’s agriculture spokesperson Mark Patterson says as they were written, those rules were unworkable.
“While New Zealand First supports the overall intent of the previous drafting, we had concerns about some of the details which were going to be unworkable in the practical sense,” he said.
Winter grazing of crops is an important part of farm systems, and farmers need pragmatic rules to follow that address both the environment and animal welfare.
The nine regulations a National Government will review or repeal are:
•Standards for intensive grazing.
•Mandatory freshwater farm plans.
•Requiring resource consent for stock holding areas.
•Stricter stock exclusion and fencing of waterways.
•Removal of stock from natural wetlands.
•Nitrate toxicity levels.
•Farm intensification.
•Synthetic nitrogen fertiliser cap.
•Electronic measuring and reporting on water use.
