{"id":79422,"date":"2026-10-08T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/?p=79422"},"modified":"2026-10-09T09:55:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T20:55:16","slug":"luxon-s-three-years-of-war-on-freshwater-2023-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/story\/luxon-s-three-years-of-war-on-freshwater-2023-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Luxon \u2019s Three Years of War on Freshwater 2023-2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When the Luxon-led coalition took office nearly three years ago, its war on freshwater started within days. In the next three years the government made a bewildering number of changes leading to environmental harm. Greenpeace Aotearoa Executive Director Russel Norman has undertaken the gargantuan task of tracking them all.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

It has been nearly three years since the formation of the Christopher Luxon led Government, a coalition between the National, Act and NZ First parties.<\/p>\n\n

It has been three years of a veritable war on freshwater, largely driven by Fonterra and agribusiness, but supported by the government as a whole. <\/p>\n\n

There have been so many freshwater pollution initiatives, across so many government agencies, through so many law and regulation changes, across a raft of budgets, it is exhausting to keep track of them all. <\/p>\n\n

The aim of this article is to create a comprehensive timeline of them, to be a witness, to honestly see what we can see, as the starting point to do something about it. <\/p>\n\n

I\u2019ve gone through every week of the last nearly three years of the Luxon Government to pull out their freshwater policies and laid them out below. This article focuses on freshwater, but I have drawn the information from my longer War on Nature<\/a> article.<\/p>\n\n

I\u2019m afraid this is really more of a reference document than an easy-to-read narrative, and it is unpleasant reading at the best of times. So here goes.<\/p>\n\n

The War on Freshwater, week by week<\/p>\n\n

Voting in the New Zealand general election finished on October 14, 2023<\/strong> and the Luxon Coalition Government was sworn in on November 27, 2023.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Federated Farmers Vice President Colin Hurst was in touch <\/a>with new Associate Minister of Agriculture Andrew Hoggard on December 3 2023<\/strong> claiming that freshwater was not in decline but rather \u2018is broadly maintaining current state\u2019. He misrepresented the views of scientists to claim that intensive land use was not the driver of pollution (in spite of evidence <\/a>to the contrary). He thought the real problem lay with the independent state of the environment reports <\/a>being produced by Statistics NZ and the Ministry for the Environment, not with the actual state of the environment.<\/p>\n\n

On December 4, 2023<\/strong> the new Associate Minister of Agriculture Andrew Hoggard met <\/a>with the agribusiness lobby group Federated Farmers, his former colleagues. <\/p>\n\n

Government Ministers met <\/a>with agribusiness lobby group Dairy NZ somewhere between December 11 and 13 2023<\/strong>. Dairy NZ\u2019s demands for gutting freshwater protections and climate policy fell on fertile ground as we shall see.<\/p>\n\n

On December 14 2023<\/strong>, to the joy of agribusiness, the Luxon Government announced <\/a>the beginning of the process to remove the clean water rules –  the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management 2020, a regulation under the Resource Management Act that was one of the most important policies to cut climate and water pollution. Without the clean water rules (and\/or a price on dairy emissions) dairy herds are growing<\/a> again resulting in more climate and freshwater pollution. Dairy is the country\u2019s most climate polluting industry and Fonterra is by far the single biggest climate polluting company. Agribusiness opposed the clean water rules and, with the former head of Federated Farmers, Andrew Hoggard as Associate Agriculture Minister, they were well placed to remove them.<\/p>\n\n

On December 20<\/strong>, 2023 <\/strong>they repealed <\/a>the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act which was the result of years of work by government, industry and environment NGOs to update and replace the Resource Management Act (RMA). Luxon would soon move to a fast track RMA approval process, while removing environmental guardrails.<\/p>\n\n

2024<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

On February 14 2024<\/strong> they repealed <\/a>the Three Waters process for supporting councils to improve their water supply and waste water treatment plants. The repeal will ultimately result <\/a>in more water pollution and higher costs to councils, rural councils in particular. It resulted <\/a>in the hospitalization of six kids in Hamner from poisoned water.<\/p>\n\n

On March 7 2024<\/strong>, former tobacco lobbyist and current Minister for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, rejected <\/a>officials\u2019 advice to include \u2018sustainable management\u2019 in the purposes clause of the fast track law. The absence of environmental guardrails in the purposes clause of the bill meant the fast track law could, and would, be used for projects causing immense environmental harm and climate pollution, such as irrigation expansion for more dairy cows.<\/p>\n\n

On March 20, 2024<\/strong> Andrew Hoggard hosted <\/a>a private dinner for the Dairy NZ board in the Beehive.<\/p>\n\n

April 6th 2024<\/strong> saw them announce <\/a>a hand-picked review of the country\u2019s methane reduction targets, based on the \u2018no additional warming\u2019 metric being promoted <\/a>by the global and domestic livestock industry. This metric is at odds with the metric used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and opposed by the Climate Commission and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. Federated Farmers, the lobby group for agribusiness, applauded, and the review was chaired <\/a>by a former director of Fonterra. Methane has so far contributed <\/a>30% to global heating and levels are increasing rapidly. <\/p>\n\n

But April 9th 2024<\/strong> saw new money <\/a>to subsidise agribusiness research into magic methane reduction technology- the same research that has failed for two decades to produce any meaningful results. Fonterra\u2019s Annual Report had to acknowledge <\/a>that these novel technologies may never emerge. The real purpose of the research is to maintain the fantasy that New Zealand can cut emissions without reducing dairy cow numbers. <\/p>\n\n

On April 10th 2024 <\/strong>the Government returned their attention to freshwater rules by announcing <\/a>that Freshwater Farm Plans would be changed. Previously these plans were mandatory audited plans linked to achieving the actual in-stream water quality outcomes required by the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management. Under the new industry-approved freshwater farm plans all that was required was to show industry \u2018best practice\u2019 regardless of whether that actually led to cleaner rivers. This announcement created regulatory confusion as regional councils in Waikato, Southland, the West Coast, Otago, and Manawat\u016b-Whanganui had already started implementing the real freshwater farm plans.<\/p>\n\n

May 23 2024<\/strong> was a red letter day with the first Resource Management Act Amendment Bill being introduced<\/a>. It removed Te Mana o Te Wai<\/em>, the hierarchy embedded in the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management, that directed decision makers to prioritise ecosystem health and human health, when making resource consent decisions such as freshwater allocation. Te Mana o te Wai<\/em> was at the centre of a decision <\/a>to decline agribusiness applications to take millions of litres from Hawkes Bay\u2019s already overallocated aquifers. The consent panel in that case prioritised ecosystem health ahead of agribusiness. The Amendment Bill aimed to change this, so that commercial applications were given the same priority as ecosystems and human health in freshwater allocation. <\/p>\n\n

The Bill also removed the rules keeping cows out of mud i.e. intensive winter grazing. And it removed the RMA blockage to new coal mines. This all means more cows and dirty rivers and coal mines and climate and water pollution.<\/p>\n\n

And then we get to June 11th 2024<\/strong> and agribusiness biological emissions, half of all New Zealand\u2019s emissions. Under lobbying from agribusiness, the government announced <\/a>that it will change the law so that agriculture and fertiliser companies will not face a price on emissions in 2025. This means there will be no financial incentive to cut emissions, unlike other sectors of the economy. Treasury and MfE said <\/a>the government\u2019s approach would not work in cutting emissions (surprise). And it went in the face of the Climate Commission, which supported <\/a>pricing agricultural emissions as an essential tool to cut emissions. Fonterra\u2019s claim that New Zealand is a low emissions dairy producer was debunked <\/a>by their own reports, and Nestle remained <\/a>skeptical of New Zealand\u2019s claim to be a low emission producer of dairy. The Government also removed the reporting requirements on large meat and dairy processors so they don\u2019t even need to disclose their pollution.<\/p>\n\n

On July 17 2024<\/strong>, the Government published <\/a>its draft Emissions Reduction Plan. However, the Plan was not serious as it was premised on magic – magic technology to cut methane emissions and magic Carbon Capture and Storage. Neither of which has any likelihood of appearing in the real world after 20+ years of government funded research. It made it seem like New Zealand is doing something about climate change. Still, the Plan showed New Zealand missing <\/a>its targets in spite of a biblical commitment to planting pine trees.<\/p>\n\n

On August 9 2024<\/strong>, the Government said <\/a>it would overturn court decisions on sections 70 and 107 of the RMA, court decisions which restricted water pollution. The Minister for Agriculture, Todd McClay, said they would legislate over these decisions because the \u201cthe court decisions could result in more discharges needing consents, more consent applications being declined, and consent conditions becoming more restrictive, reducing the ability to improve freshwater quality over time.\u201d So less <\/em>pollution would make it harder to improve freshwater quality. Truly Orwellian.<\/p>\n\n

After vigorous lobbying by agribusiness, on September 3rd 2024<\/strong>, the Government announced it was \u2018pausing\u2019 <\/a>the rollout of freshwater farm plans designed to restrict water pollution. Which means more water pollution, more cows, more climate pollution.<\/p>\n\n

It followed this up on September 4 2024<\/strong> with the announcement <\/a>of the second RMA Amendment Bill. This aimed to weaken the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management, weaken drinking water standards, weaken protection for indigenous biodiversity to allow more quarrying and mining, remove local councils ability to set higher standards on forestry slash, stopping the rollout of freshwater farm plans until they were aligned to industry demands. More climate and water pollution. <\/p>\n\n

On October 6th 2024<\/strong>, the Government was forced <\/a>to release the list <\/a>of 149 projects it planned to include in the fast track bill for automatic entry to the fast track process, after the Ombudsman intervened. It included coal mines, seabed mining, incinerators, and irrigation projects, which will increase emissions and biodiversity destruction. The list was released after the select committee process so that the public could not submit on the individual projects. It emerged <\/a>that companies and individuals associated with these 149 fast track projects had given $500,000 to the ruling parties as election donations. <\/p>\n\n

The Luxon Government discovered that some regions were already making progress on proper freshwater farm plans so they announced on October 9th<\/strong> that they would block <\/a>the development of these freshwater farm plans while they worked with agribusiness lobby groups to replace them with weaker industry approved plans.<\/p>\n\n

October 15th 2024<\/strong> saw late rushed amendments <\/a>included in First RMA Amendment Bill, this time amending section 107. This amendment was aimed at overturning a March 2024 court decision<\/a>. The court decision said that Section 107 restricted pollution going into freshwater if it caused significant harm to aquatic life. The Government had previously told public submitters it was not changing section 107, so there was no chance for public input. The change allows councils to grant discharge permits, regardless that these discharges would cause significant adverse effects to aquatic life. The RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop described the changes as \u2018quick and dirty\u2019 and for once it was an accurate characterization.<\/p>\n\n

October 21 2024<\/strong> saw the announcement of another RMA amendment<\/a>, this time to section 70, which would be included in the Second RMA Amendment Bill. The proposed amendment would overturn important court decisions <\/a>by the Environment Court, the High Court and finally, in 2024, the Court of Appeal<\/a>. As summarised by David Williams<\/a>, the court decision found that \u201cbefore a regional council can include a rule in its regional plan permitting farm pollution, it needs to show there won\u2019t be significant adverse effects on aquatic life<\/em>.\u201d Seems a pretty reasonable decision. <\/p>\n\n

Fish and Game and Forest and Bird had won this series of cases against Fonterra, Dairy NZ, Federated Farmers and the Southland Regional Council. It cost them a fortune and was eight years since the Council first proposed the rule allowing the pollution.<\/p>\n\n

Fonterra, flying in the face of decades of science, claimed \u201cno evidence has been presented pointing to diffuse farming discharge(s) either individually or cumulatively causing any of the listed effects in section 70\u201d i.e. significant harm to aquatic life (Fonterra submission 16-8-22). But the Environment Court disagreed with Fonterra and concluded<\/a> that it was \u201chighly likely that the result of the discharges of contaminants\u201d would be significant adverse effects on aquatic life.<\/p>\n\n

The Government believed agribusiness should not <\/em>be required to get a consent to discharge pollution that caused serious adverse impacts on aquatic life, rather it should be permitted <\/em>ie allowed without a resource consent. A pivotal moment.<\/p>\n\n

As you can see removing constraints on agribusiness water pollution was an itch which the Government could not stop scratching.<\/p>\n\n

The Government faced another constraint on water pollution which was that some regional councils planned to proceed with their updated regional freshwater plans, so on October 22 2024<\/strong> the Government announced that they would legislate to retrospectively block regional councils from gazetting the regional freshwater plans, regardless <\/a>of what regional councils may want.<\/p>\n\n

Which meant the next day the Otago Regional Council had to cancel <\/a>its meeting to approve the new Otago regional freshwater plan, due to central government intervention to stop them. The plan had been developed over many years with community input.<\/p>\n\n

The first RMA Amendment Bill passed on October 23, 2024<\/strong> (Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2024). This Act did a number <\/a>of things to remove protections for nature:<\/p>\n\n