By Bernard Hickey
With 79 days left until the September 20 election, here's my daily round-up of the political and governmental news from in and around Wellington on July 3.
After a day of recriminations and apologies over the bungled Malaysian diplomatic immunity waiver, Malaysia may have helped take some of the political heat out of the issue.
Late last night it decided to send Muhammad Rizalman bin Ismail back to New Zealand to face charges here. McCully welcomed the news in this late night statement.
"This is now a matter for the Police and the Courts and I will not be commenting further," McCully said at the end of his worst day as Foreign Minister.
The sigh of relief was almost audible between the lines.
Poll result
Meanwhile, the monthly Roy Morgan poll taken from June 16-29 found support for National fell 1.5% to 48%, while support for Labour and Green was unchanged at 28% and 12% respectively.
Internet-Mana was also unchanged at 2.5%, New Zealand First rose 1.5% to 5.5% and Conservative fell 0.5% to 1%. The election result would be on a knife-edge if these support levels were replicated at the polling booths.
Building materials
Elsewhere, and somewhat surprisingly, Labour and New Zealand First both criticised the Government's decision to remove import tariffs on building materials.
Raymond Huo said New Zealand consumers should be protected from sub-standard foreign building materials. Asenati Lole-Taylor said New Zealand suppliers may lose out.
Water standards debate flares
Elsewhere, Environment Minister Amy Adams and Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy announced national water quality standards.
Here is the full National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management via the Ministry for the Environment.
Guy said the changes balanced economic growth with environmental sustainability.
“It’s not an either-or situation – we need both. Primary industries contribute more than 76 per cent of our merchandise exports and largely depend on freshwater, while tourism also relies on the beauty of New Zealand’s water bodies," Guy said.
“We all want sustainable and profitable primary industries. That will mean changes to some of our farming practices, but I know farmers are up for the challenge," he said.
The NPS directs regional councils to do the following:
- safeguard fresh water’s life supporting capacity, ecosystem processes, and indigenous species including their associated ecosystems
- manage freshwater bodies so people’s health is safeguarded when wading or boating (a minimum requirement)
- maintain or improve the overall quality of fresh water within a region
- protect the significant values of wetlands and outstanding freshwater bodies
- require more efficient use of fresh water by end users
- avoid the over allocation of water takes and inputs of contaminants, and to phase out existing over allocation
- implement the national objectives framework by:
- setting freshwater objectives according to a specified process (ie, the national objectives framework) and to meet community and tāngata whenua values which include the compulsory values of ecosystem health and human health for recreation
- using a specified set of water quality measures (attributes) to set the freshwater objectives (an objective can only be set below national bottom lines in specified circumstances)
- set limits which allow freshwater objectives to be met (eg, a total catchment contaminant-load or a total rate of water take)
- put in place measures to better account for water takes and sources of contaminants, and measure achievement towards meeting objectives
The Green Party said the standards created a "license to pollute" and had given up on making rivers safe for swimming.
The Government has pulled the plug on cleaning up our dirty rivers so they are safe for swimming, the Green Party said today. The standards only specify that water must be safe for wading or boating.
“New Zealander’s want clean rivers that they can swim in. Around 90 percent of public submissions called for this. Yet the Government’s weak bottom lines have ignored public views and will allow our rivers to become more polluted,” said Green Party water spokeswoman Eugenie Sage.
"While water quality must be maintained or improved across a region, the minimal acceptable state for rivers is to meet a standard of secondary contact recreation. This means making our rivers and lakes safe for paddling and wading rather than the primary contact recreation standard,which means safe for swimming," she said.
“This means that while some rivers in a region are improving, councils can let others degrade to a condition that is too polluted for swimming."
Labour Water spokeswoman Meka Whaitiri said the national standards were an election gimmick that would do nothing to clean up New Zealand's waterways.
“The Government’s strategy will fail because it has set incomplete and weak minimum water standards. Kiwis are sick of seeing their rivers contaminated and spoiled by National lax approach to resource management," Whaitiri said.
“Labour understands that clean, swimmable water is a priority for New Zealanders. A Labour Government will clean up our dirty rivers over a generation. We will control the increasing intensity of land use. We will also demand improvements to farm practices to offset the additional environmental burden caused by more livestock, fertiliser and effluent," she said.
Irrigation NZ said it generally welcomed the standards.
“There are many examples around the country which show how habitat restoration alongside stock exclusion and phosphate management have created thriving rivers – despite relatively high nitrate levels – such as the Wakakahi stream in south Canterbury,” said Irrigation NZ CEO Andrew Curtis.
“New Zealanders need to understand maintaining and improving water quality is complex and can be achieved in many different ways – sticking a number on it and regulating everyone to this does not achieve outcomes,” he said.
Fonterra also welcomed the standards.
I'll continue to update this through the day.
(Updated with more details on water quality standards, reaction from Greens, Irrigation NZ)
6 Comments
"Labour and New Zealand First both criticised the Government's decision to remove import tariffs on building materials."
In other words, and one can smell a glorious headline building (sorry) up here,
Labour and New Zealand First wish to:
- preserve the existing duopoly (Fletchers, Carters)
- maintain high prices for common materials
- increase build costs for FHB's cf alternative material supplies
- decrease housing affordability
- increase existing barriers to entry for new suppliers
- increase revenue streams to lenders, as the interest flows from the higher mortgages thus necessary
- lock in existing house prices and (to the extent that these are residences, not investments) unrealised capital gains for existing homeowners.
I hadn't realised Lab and NZF were capable of coming up with such a comprehensive and wide-ranging set of policy effects.....
On building materials
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9249532/3D_printer_constructs_10…
Fonterra likes what the Govt has said about water, the Greens don't;
FONTERRA WELCOMES FRAMEWORK ON WATER MANAGEMENT
Fonterra says the Government’s announcement on changes to the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management lays the groundwork for consistent and robust decisions about the management of New Zealand’s freshwater.
Fonterra Acting Group Director Cooperative Affairs, Sarah Paterson, says, “Today’s announcement is an important step towards a nationally consistent approach to managing freshwater. At the same time, it gives communities the tools they need to make decisions about their waterways.”
Ms Paterson says regions across the country have been grappling with the challenge of setting workable environmental limits. Setting national standards for freshwater will provide greater clarity on the science that needs to underpin environmental limits.
“Fonterra and our farmers have been taking part in a collaborative community approach to develop environmental limits. We want these discussions to be based on sound science and economic analysis, and we believe these national standards will help achieve this.”
“We are absolutely committed to lifting environmental performance and improving water quality in New Zealand. Fonterra’s farmers have mapped every waterway and fenced over 23,500km of waterways. Nutrient data has been collected from nearly 4,000 farms to provide information on mitigating the impact of nutrients,” says Ms Paterson.
“We recognise the huge amount of work that has so far gone into preparing these national standards, and we welcome the continuing efforts being made to complete the task.”
And here's Eugenie Sage from the Greens;
The Government has pulled the plug on cleaning up our dirty rivers so they are safe for swimming, the Green Party said today.
The Green Party was commenting on the Government’s national bottom lines for water quality released today by Environment Minister Amy Adams. They amend the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management to set a national bottom line for human health of secondary contact recreation. This
means that rivers only have to be clean enough for wading or boating but don’t have to be clean enough to swim in.
“New Zealander’s want clean rivers that they can swim in. Around 90 percent of public submissions called for this. Yet the Government’s weak bottom lines have ignored public views and will allow our rivers to become more polluted,” said Green Party water spokesperson Eugenie Sage.
While water quality must be maintained or improved across a region, the minimal acceptable state for rivers is to meet a standard of secondary contact recreation. This means making our rivers and lakes safe for paddling and wading rather than the primary contact recreation standard which means safe for swimming.
“This means that while some rivers in a region are improving, councils can let others degrade to a condition that is too polluted for swimming
“National’s bottom lines for water quality have big gaps and amount to a licence to pollute.
“We have a freshwater crisis on our hands with more than 60 percent of monitored river swimming sites unfit for swimming. The Government’s national bottom lines won’t fix it and instead allow irrigation and intensive agriculture to expand.
“We desperately need effective regulation that prevents further degradation and improves the quality of our rivers and lakes. The Government’s changes to the National Policy Statement won’t achieve this.
“We can have strong national objectives and bottom lines that ensure our rivers are clean enough to safely swim in,” said Ms Sage.
... I guess that Jolly Kid has the upper hand now , having backed Murray McCully all the way in the Malaysian diplomat / MFAT fiasco .... and can tell him to step aside from the East Coast Bay seat , and allow the Conservative's crazy Colin to have a free pass ...
Given Brash's dice with the enclosed brethern (or what ever the religious nut jobs were called) and how badly that looked, I wonder if steping aside for "crazy colin" will go down well with voters nationwide and even in the electorate itself. Especially when looking at the trend over this year it looks like Labour is slipping away and National improving. It would certainly be "funny" if labour dropped to <25% this election. Well not really but wow they just dont seem to be connecting what so ever.
regards
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