Guest column – Vanessa Winning

A necessary change

By Vanessa Winning

The IrrigationNZ chief executive outlines where the organisation stands on water legislation and policy reviews.

There is a plethora of legislative and policy review under way this year and it’s daunting having so much change all going on at once – the projected speed of some of the change is also daunting and, in some cases, unachievable.

Having to make submissions while doing day jobs and in the middle of the busiest time of the year is also confronting. And it’s not just farming and the primary industry impacted, we also have a complete overhaul of the education and health sectors at the same time – right now I would suggest no industry is not under some kind of change.

Two huge ones that impact on farmers are the RMA reform, essentially the largest regulatory change in the past 30 years, and the Three Waters approach – including the Water Services Bill, which directly impacts the rural suppliers and smaller communities.

The RMA reform creates three new proposed bills, the first of which is the Natural and Built Environments Act, which was up for submissions in early August. The change largely follows the Randerson Report about the unworkable components of the original RMA and its limitations due to the ongoing litigation and consenting processes.

The brief is available to review, but was light on detail. We believe this was so they could get information from the impacted sectors and have more information to prepare the act itself. IrrigationNZ submitted with the support of Anderson Lloyd lawyers, the Irrigation Schemes and our wider membership. We take the approach of getting membership engagement in our submissions, as they tend to be more practical and provide insight we don’t always have.

Essentially the RMA has to change, it is unworkable and a significant barrier to infrastructure development, but the brief as we have seen it still focuses mainly on urban development and does not adequately consider, in our opinion, the wider economic and community aspects, so we have suggested definitions to improve this.

With water services, under the wider Three Waters Proposal, we submitted to reducing the cap on those included (we asked for five or less dwellings to be excluded) and we are asking for time, practical solutions, less regulation and utilising existing frameworks.

Essentially we are welcoming the changes for the second reading to the Health Select Committee from the review process because while we didn’t get the definition change, and all suppliers are still included, we are very pleased that the proposal has allowed for the rural water suppliers to have three years from the enactment of the Bill to conduct assessment and put in place mitigation measures to ensure safe drinking water. Prior to this change, the timeframe was immediate like other suppliers – this time is essential to getting this right and supporting change

We wholeheartedly agree with the intent of the Water Services Bill and want to ensure rural communities have access to safe drinking water and prevent what happened in Havelock North from occurring again. We did, however, want to make sure this happened in a way that meant our smaller rural suppliers weren’t unnecessarily hit with unworkable compliance expectations that would be near impossible to implement.

The response to our submission, and other irrigation companies’ submissions, was very positive. The Health Select Committee was impressed by the work that has been done with mitigation ideas and in their report back they have acknowledged the need for a more workable approach for our rural suppliers.

Once the Bill is enacted, Taumata Arowai have committed to working with us over the next three years to ensure a suitable process for implementation and we look forward to engaging in this.

We have asked for a ‘healthy homes’ type approach, where councils and regulatory bodies incentivise adoption of acceptable solutions such as UV filters or backflow preventers.

We’d also like to see existing frameworks such as the integrated farm plan or farm environment plan used as an approach for water registering and mitigation, meaning certified farm consultants would be authorised to sign this off after appropriate training, reducing the cost and time burden of additional compliance mechanisms and meaning a holistic approach on farm.

Everyone wants safe drinking water and our smaller suppliers and rural communities are most vulnerable to being exposed to unsafe water supply. Again, once enacted we will be working with Taumata Arowai to ensure a clear and practical pathway for implementation and keeping our communities healthy and well.

Change is scary. Having time and support is key to achieving the right outcomes and it’s refreshing that this has been the approach. We would like to see more of this with other legislative changes and, most especially, the RMA changes – time will tell, but we will continue to advocate for practical solutions, support for change and time to implement. n

IrrigationNZ chief executive Vanessa Winning says the large number of changes being proposed could lead to some being unachievable.