Environment Canterbury needs to slow down and spend more time listening to ratepayers instead of rushing through new environmental regulations.
That’s the message Federated Farmers have delivered loud and clear in a letter to the regional council this week.
“We’re incredibly concerned the council is needlessly charging ahead with new rules,” Federated Farmers South Canterbury president Greg Anderson says.
“The Regional Policy Statement (RPS) sets the framework for how resources are managed in the region and will have a significant impact on local farmers.
“Councillors need to stop barging ahead with the process and give the community, including some very concerned farmers, a chance to give further feedback on the plan.
“Instead, they seem to be pushing ahead with total disregard for what the local community, or central Government, are saying,” Anderson says.
The letter to Environment Canterbury (ECan) has been co-signed by Anderson, Federated Farmers North Canterbury president Karl Dean, and Mid-Canterbury president David Acland.
Dean says it makes no sense for councils to be forging ahead with new planning documents until a new national direction for freshwater management is set.
“The Government has made it very clear it’ll be repealing and replacing the poorly thought-through rules brought in by the previous Labour Government.
“Councils have also had their deadlines for putting new local rules in place extended by a further three years, so there are no time pressures to hide behind.
“ECan knows this full well but is choosing to keep going anyway, wasting ratepayers’ money and creating huge uncertainty for the community,” Dean says.
The three leaders are concerned that the council plans to pass the new RPS by early 2025 and bring in a plan change to the Land and Water Regional Plan. The council sought feedback from key stakeholders in a draft earlier this year.
Acland says many local farmers are already struggling to make ends meet and the last thing they want to see is more ratepayer money being wasted by the council.
“Farmers are facing huge rates rises from ECan this year, so to see the council wasting money by pushing ahead with these processes when we know there will be changes is just salt in an open wound.
“The council seems totally hell-bent on ignoring any signals from the new Government. It’s like councillors are completely unaware there was an election last year.”
Acland says there’s a risk ECan will follow a similar path to Otago Regional Council (ORC), which has recently faced backlash for its approach.
“In Otago, the council has taken quite a lot of flak for charging ahead trying to meet the timelines and standards put in place by the previous Government.
“That’s going to lead to duplication and unnecessary cost for ratepayers and could see the rules go much further than they need to.
“I think those exact same concerns are applicable here in Canterbury. The council needs to slow down and read the room,” Acland says.
The letter raises concerns that hastily pursuing changes to the RPS could breach the financial management requirements of the Local Government Act.
“The council has a moral obligation to spend ratepayers’ money wisely, but it also has a legal obligation for prudent financial management,” Dean says.
“A review of the RPS will require a significant investment of resources from the council, but also from the community stakeholders who engage in the process, and the draft we saw misses the mark.
‘It would be a complete and utter waste of time and money to move ahead with it as is.”
Federated Farmers are also concerned the plan changes could see Canterbury implement national bottom lines for freshwater that are no longer ‘national’.
“Those bottom lines could have serious implication for our region,” Anderson says.
“The council used to be able to hide behind the fact that bottom lines were being pushed down on us from Wellington, but that’s not the case anymore.
“It’s now clear they’re being driven by councillors, or council staff, with total disregard for what they’ll mean for farmers, rural communities or ratepayers.
“It’s almost like councillors feel they’ve come so far in the process with consultation and drafting that it would be a shame to have the work go to waste.
“I’m sure farmers will agree with me that there’s no point sending good money after bad. That kind of approach makes no sense.”
Dean, Acland and Anderson say they’ll also be writing to Canterbury’s 10 district and city mayors to express their unease about ECan proceeding at such pace.
Federated Farmers, New Zealand’s leading independent rural advocacy organisation, has established a news and insights partnership with AgriHQ, the country’s leading rural publisher, to give the farmers of New Zealand a more informed, united and stronger voice. Federated Farmers news and commentary appears each week in its own section of the Farmers Weekly print edition and online.
In Focus Podcast | Pine study stuns Federated Farmers
A new report from Our Land and Water that suggests our passion for pines will hobble the sheep and beef sector has Toby Williams from Federated Farmers concerned.
He says the independent research backs up what Feds has been saying for some time and he’s urging for regulatory reform to give high country farmers some assurance.
