Southland farmers breathe a sigh of relief

"This is a pragmatic, commonsense decision that will be well received by local farmers," says Federated Farmers Southland president Jason Herrick.

"We’ve been asking Environment Southland to put the brakes on new freshwater rules for some time."

The council had agreed it would wait for the Government’s new National Policy Statement - Freshwater Management (NPS-FM) before notifying Plan Change Tuatahi but would push on to introduce other changes next year.

This week, the Government announced they will be amending the Resource Management Act (RMA) to give councils and communities more certainty when it comes to freshwater.

This change will restrict councils’ ability to notify new freshwater rules until the new NPS-FM is in place.

Herrick says it never made any sense for the council to be trying to introduce new water quality rules when they knew the Government was changing the national direction.

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"That’s a waste of council resources, and ratepayers’ money."

Herrick says changes to NPS-FM signalled by the Government made it very clear to regional councils that they need to down tools and wait for further clarification on the national direction.

"This clarity will prevent needless duplication of effort, the wasting of council staff time, and possible confusion for farmers with constantly changing rules."

With the RMA amendment, council won’t be able to bring in freshwater aspects of any plan change until 31 December 2025 - unless the Government settles its new freshwater policy earlier.

Herrick says reality is that there has been already massive change to land use and management practices to better mitigate environmental effects in Southland.

"That won't stop because of this pause, and in fact it may give some breathing space to allow focus on practical, on-the-ground efforts that will make a difference for the environment, rather than getting bogged down in costly bureaucratic planning processes."

Herrick says farmers need rules that are fair and practical, but also an element of certainty so that they can make business decisions and get on with farming.

"Council should do it once and do it right, guided by national direction.

"We don’t need constant flip-flopping or shifting of the goal posts that undermines farmers’ confidence to invest in their businesses."

"What taking a little more time is likely to mean in practice is that we end up with much clearer and more consistent water quality rules that everyone in our community can support.

"From my perspective, that can only be a good thing."