We urgently need to talk about freshwater.

We should all be concerned about the Government’s approach to environmental law and the influence of commercial interests over the coalition parties. As we see, with stark clarity, the influence of the tobacco industry over the Government’s smoking policies, so too we can see the strong influence of agricultural (and other) industries over the Government’s approach to environmental policies.

The new Government has begun a process of undoing many years, even decades, of environmental protections brought in by successive governments. This includes intending to replace the Resource Management Act with new environmental law that has “enjoyment of property rights as the guiding principle”.

And so, we urgently need to talk about freshwater.

It’s an issue of obvious national importance, fundamental to every part of our lives and communities’ health. It is impossible to care for on the basis of the “enjoyment of property rights”.

On Wednesday, Minister for Resource Management Christopher Bishop sent a letter to stakeholders, including councils and iwi, outlining the Government’s programme to reverse the country’s progress on protection for water. Notably, the Government did not produce a press release to accompany the letter, suggesting that they may not want a public debate on their plans.

What do we stand to lose should the coalition Government go ahead with its freshwater plans?

First, the letter outlines the Government’s intention to introduce a new “fast-track” consenting bill which, based on language familiar to those who follow freshwater issues, is clearly designed to facilitate more large-scale storage and irrigation schemes. The letter refers to “Locally, regionally and nationally significant infrastructure and development projects”, the language long used to promote large-scale irrigation. Such irrigation projects have had extreme impacts on the health of waterways, including the safety of communities’ drinking water.

Second, the Government intends to replace the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 (NPS-FM, which came into effect in 2020). The NPS-FM 2020 was borne out of years of rising public concern and high-profile human and environmental disasters. It finally and meaningfully prioritised the health of waterways and the safety of communities’ drinking water over commercial interests. Its Te Mana o te Wai decision-making framework gives legal weight to the public interest, with a ‘hierarchy of obligations’ requiring councils to prioritise the health of waterways and people’s access to clean drinking water before commercial interests can be considered.

And it had been working.

Last year, commissioners declined a Hawke’s Bay consent application to take 8.44 billion litres of water a year for irrigation. They noted in their decision that, in previous versions of the NPS-FM, “no strong weighting was given to the protection of freshwater values versus its use and development.”

Freshwater had been vulnerable and easily exploited in the absence of a clear legal requirement to prioritise its health. Polluted waterways, including contaminated drinking water sources, around the country provide ample evidence of this. There has been a clear imbalance that favoured well-resourced private interests over the public interest in clean and ample freshwater and healthy waterbodies. The Te Mana o te Wai ‘hierarchy of obligations’ was brought in to address this.

However, the Government has made clear they intend to undermine the strength of Te Mana o te Wai by “rebalancing [it] to better reflect the interests of all water users”; a clear signal that private interests will be allowed to prevail over public interest once again to the detriment of communities’ health and well-being.

The Government intends to make these changes at speed, as with other major changes to health, equity, and climate policies. The letter states, “Details of the fast-track consenting regime and NPS-FM changes will be worked through over the coming weeks.”

The agricultural industry’s influence over their approach is evident throughout the coalition Government’s policy documents. The National Party’s pre-election agricultural policy cited industry lobbying material from Beef + Lamb and DairyNZ as justification for its approach.

 Both ACT and National have described environmental protections brought in under Labour as a “war on farmers” and promoted the idea of “unworkable regulation” (the catch cry of Groundswell, a farming lobby group supported by the Taxpayers’ Union). IrrigationNZ announced in December last year that it had already put to the Government the projects it wants included on a list of fast-tracked consents. Additionally, the new Associate Minister for the Environment has stepped directly out of the role of president of Federated Farmers, long time opposers of environmental regulation that would protect freshwater, and into power over freshwater policy.

And so, we urgently need to talk about freshwater.

Marnie Prickett is a Research Fellow in the Department of Public Health at Otago University, Wellington.