Healthy water for drinking, swimming and gathering kai.
The Green Party will put the health of freshwater and communities first.
Our rivers and lakes should be clean and teeming with life. Everyone should be able to turn on their tap knowing their water is safe to drink, swim in their local awa (river) without getting sick and fish or gather kai from waterways. Clean, healthy freshwater is the foundation of the health of our people and our environment.
Aotearoa has lost most of its wetlands, and many of our lakes and rivers are in extremely poor health. Luxon’s coalition Government has accelerated this decline by scrapping many protections for freshwater, stopping council plans to restore waterways and weakening standards for wastewater discharges. Meanwhile, many communities can’t drink what comes out of their tap, face regular boil water notices or can’t swim in their local awa.
These have been deliberate choices to prioritise a wealthy few over the wellbeing of everyone. While polluters profit, communities pay the price through unsafe drinking water, polluted swimming holes and native fish like whitebait and tuna (eels) are threatened with extinction.
The Green Party will reverse the decline in the health of our freshwater with strong controls on pollution, support for more sustainable farming, and action to restore wetlands, lakes, and rivers. We will ensure everyone has access to safe drinking water.
Our plan
- Implement strong, evidence-based national bottom lines for freshwater for both human health and ecosystem health to address pollution including lowering the nitrate limit for drinking water.
- Reinstate Te Mana o Te Wai to prioritise the health of freshwater in decision-making and regulation and to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
- End all subsidies and public funding for big new irrigation and dam projects and review resource consents where water levels have dropped too far to support a healthy river.
- Strengthen environmental performance rules for wastewater discharges to ensure lakes, rivers, beaches and coastal areas remain swimmable.
- Ensure the drinking water regulator is funded and given the mandate for robust and transparent monitoring, reporting and enforcement in the protection of drinking water sources.
- Support greater resilience from floods by increasing funding for adaptation and allowing for a ‘room for rivers’ approach and using natural systems like wetlands to protect communities.
- Phase out synthetic nitrogen fertiliser and take action to reduce stocking rates on a catchment basis to improve the health of rivers and drinking water and reduce climate pollution.