The announcement by Labour leader Jacinda Adern put National increasingly in the shade over past inaction on water pricing and controversial water standards announced in February.
It also aligned Labour even closer to a potential Green-NZ First coalition, should it have to form a government with those parties.
Both the Greens and NZ First had already proposed water charging as part of their policy statements on the resource.
In releasing its election policy on freshwater Labour leader Jacinda Adern laid down the water charges as a key plank, labelling them a “royalty” on the commercial consumption of water that would assist with the cost of keeping it clean.
Still light on detail until after the election when Adern proposed a water summit, the royalty charge would be flexible in value to reflect the scarcity or abundance in different regions, its quality and its ultimate use.
“I will not set a rate until I have met with those who will be affected. This is an issue that we must tackle together,” she said.
No decision on how much horticulturalists and pastoral farmers would pay would be made until she had sat down and discussed the issue.
The amount would vary depending not only on the catchment but whether the water was to be bottled for export or used for food production.
However, Labour’s water spokesman David Parker indicated irrigators might face charges of about 1c a cubic metre and the charge could cost $500 million.
Labour’s freshwater plans also included goals to lift freshwater quality within five years, claiming to reverse the damage done to freshwater within a generation.
Riparian protection and fencing schemes would be manned through the party’s Ready for Work policy, employing young people on the dole. The riparian planting areas would also become eligible for carbon credits under the Emissions Trading Scheme.
Recognising the implications for water charges and Maori claims to the money, Adern said Labour intended to work with iwi to resolve Treaty of Waitangi water claims.
In defining swimmability of waterways Labour had also lifted the standards and parameters National was accused of lowering earlier this year when it released its freshwater policy.
Those standards effectively doubled E coli limits.
Nitrate levels were set at almost 10 times the levels defined as a maximum by the Australia-NZ guidelines for fresh and marine water quality.
Despite Environment Minister Nick Smith claiming the standards made rivers more swimmable, a NIWA report in May proved the standards were less stringent than the ones they replaced.
Labour’s decision to scrap the Crown Irrigation Fund followed through on a promise made three years ago when it described the fund as “privatisation of freshwater by stealth”.
“This is also a fund that has been under-utilised because the economics of the proposed schemes simply do not stack up. In the future such schemes will have to stand on their own feet,” Parker said.
Choose Freshwater campaign leader and agricultural scientist Marnie Prickett said she was encouraged by Labour’s new standards that not only focused on E coli and nitrogen levels but also encompassed a broader range of parameters when defining swimmable.
