A last-minute change to the Resource Management Amendment Bill would make it easier for companies to dump pollution into rivers and lakes without a resource consent – as long as the waterway is already polluted.
Greenpeace spokesperson Will Appelbe says “This is a policy written for polluting industries and their lobbyists, putting corporate profits ahead of the health of people and the environment. We’re calling for this change to be thrown out entirely.”
The Government’s original bill proposed changing section 70 of the RMA so that councils could allow businesses to discharge contaminants to water without resource consent, even if it harmed aquatic life, so long as aquatic life was already being harmed.
The new amendment, introduced without public consultation, goes even further. It would also allow businesses to pollute water without resource consent even if it makes the water unsafe for livestock to drink or causes a noticeable change in its colour or clarity – provided those problems already exist in the waterway.
“This entire Resource Management amendment bill is bad enough, but this latest proposal is next level,” said Appelbe. “If a river is already sick, the answer is to clean it up – not give polluters a free pass to dump more crap in it.”
“This is the legislative equivalent of saying, ‘the patient’s already dying, so we might as well keep poisoning them.’
The change is being introduced in the final stages of the Resource Management Amendment Bill, after the select committee process, meaning there will be no public consultation and no select committee scrutiny. DairyNZ and Federated Farmers both submitted in favour of weakening freshwater protections in section 70.
”The government is planning to make it legal for companies to pollute waterways to the point where even livestock can’t drink from them. That is not progress, that is a giant leap backwards into the dark ages,” said Appelbe.
“New Zealand’s rivers, lakes and drinking water are already severely polluted – this Government is about to make that a whole lot worse, simply because dairy industry lobbyists asked them to,” said Appelbe.
Further sweeping changes are also being introduced without public consultation, including stopping councils from writing or updating plans and policy statements until 2027 and giving the Minister power to change or delete parts of regional and district plans. A move being condemned across environmental groups.
Greenpeace is calling on the Government to scrap the Resource Management Amendment bill altogether and abandon their plans to weaken freshwater protections.