Funding has been axed for Predator Free 2050 which targeted species such as stoats, rats and possum. Photo: 123rf
Environment Minister Penny Simmonds has defended deep cuts to environment funding at a sometimes scrappy scrutiny hearing, which also saw opposition MPs challenging the government over weakening freshwater rules, bottom trawling near Auckland, and axing funding for Predator Free 2050.
Green MP Lan Pham asked Simmonds what risks she saw from about $650 million in cuts to funding for the Ministry for the Environment across the previous two Budgets.
"When you compare that to an annual budget of $528m in total, you san see that it's significant," Pham said.
"Minister, you've been overseeing those cuts and some of the most damaging legislative changes we've seen in decades."
Simmonds said budgets for the ministry were decreasing anyway under previous government.
"We are doing things like using the much greater waste levy to go across a range of environmental issues," she said.
"It's about getting value for money."
"This country could not afford to keep spending the way it had been," Simmonds said.
Labour MP Rachel Brooking said none of the government's strategic priorities for reforming environment laws talked about improving the environment and asked if a better environment was Simmonds' goal.
"Your strategic priority document talks about improving the RMA (Resource Management Act) to be more efficient and effective but... there is nothing here about improving the environment."
Brooking said waste management policies had been weakened.
"You're consulting on removing the national bottom lines for freshwater," Brooking said.
"These are all things that seem to go in the opposite direction from improving the environment."
Simmonds said she did want a better environment but was focused on action.
"The question highlights very clearly the difference between ideological statements and commentary and getting things done, and that's what this government is about, getting things done, getting product stewardship schemes in place, getting waste funding used to improve the environment," she said.
The government reallocated much of the money from waste levies from purely funding waste-cutting schemes towards paying for broader environmental work in the Budget.
"You're quite right, we haven't indulged in ideological rhetoric of the previous government but we are getting on with doing the things [that will help]."
Simmonds was asked by Pham for the evidence behind her statements that the balance had swung too far in favour of the environment.
"We are managing risk, risk if there is not economic growth, risk if there is not sufficient housing... there is risk of not having development and there is risk of any development that we do on the environment," Simmonds said.
In a scrappy exchange over conservation, Minister Tama Potaka was asked about the decision to axe funding for Predator Free 2050 as well as changes to the protection of the Hauraki Gulf from bottom trawling.
Green MP Celia Wade Brown said axing funding for Predator Free would only shift the work to an "overstretched" Department of Conservation and asked how volunteers were expected to keep investing their time in culling pests when the government was pulling funding out of conservation.
Labour's Priyanca Radhakrishan asked Potaka how he squared the decision to disestablish funding for the Predator Free 2050 company with his statements a few months earlier about its crucial role in eradicating pests.
Potaka said the Department of Conservation had had to go through a process of cost savings just as "nearly all portfolios have had to give up something".
"One of those choices was to remove the funding for Predator Free 2050 Limited and disestablish that company."
He said there had been some duplication between the company and the department, and "a lot of the mahi" could be undertaken by the department.
"I think it is important to delineate between opinions and facts," Potaka said.
"There is a strong opinion that we are not committed to Predator Free 2050 (the goal) and that is entirely inaccurate, we are consulting right now on a predator free strategy and... we have allocated a significant amount of money."
He said 14 jobs would be lost from the closure of the company but some might be redeployed.
Potaka accused Brooking of being "out of control" during a heated conversation about wildfire protection rules sparked by a herd of Wapiti deer, a type of elk, which the government recently decided to protect in Fiordland National park.
Brooking asked Potaka if Wapiti ate the undergrowth of native forests in National Parks.
"Yes, they do eat undergrowth but they also contribute significantly to tourism and getting the economy moving again and we're really thrilled to have partnered with the [Fiordland] Wapiti Foundation... and others," Potaka said.
Potaka said he was carrying out conservation reforms because of some "archaic arrangements".
Brooking asked, "Is the New Zealand Conservation Authority an archaic arrangement?" and noted it was included in the proposed reforms.
"I've never said that, and you imputing that I did I think is out of control," Potaka said.
Brooking could be heard saying "settle" during Potaka's answer.
Potaka also defended changes to bottom trawling in the Hauraki Gulf under questioning from Green co-leader Marama Davidson, which became another heated discussion.
Davidson asked if the minister had sought advice from officials "about the impact of continuing to allow for disruptive trawling and how that will impact on his purview of protection of ecosystems and indigenous species, and what further extra cost or work it might take to fix up that destruction?".
"I'm not aware of any extensive advice that has been proffered to me on trawl corridors in the Hauraki Gulf but what I am aware of is extensive advice that's very celebratory of our tripling of the protection [area] in the Hauraki Gulf, which we are going to follow through," Potaka said.
On freshwater, Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard said he knew of a vegetable grower producing a quarter of the country's leafy greens who was operating illegally because the council couldn't give him a consent.
He defended the proposal to get rid of national bottom lines for water quality.
"I'm aware of catchments where water is coming out of nature at quality worse than bottom lines."
"We can't just live with no jobs, no economy in an idyllic little paradise."
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