Listen: Simon Bridges 'frustrated' with water plan

National Party leader Simon Bridges. Photo / John Borren

Environment Minister David Parker said yesterday a new national plan would set a maximum limit on the amount of nutrients that could be lost from a farm into a waterway and that farming intensively would also no longer be a "permitted activity."

National Party Leader Simon Bridges spoke to The Country's Jamie Mackay, saying he is worried the Government's environmental policies haven't been thought through.

"What concerns me is the most about it all is the lack of consultation, analysis, forecasting."

Parker confirmed in an interview on TVNZ1's Q+A programme that the economic impact of the Government's water plan hadn't yet been analysed, a fact that Bridges finds troubling.

"Don't get me started - that's not how we should govern in New Zealand."

Bridges says New Zealand dairy farmers are already doing their best to mitigate environmental impact and the Government is adding more unnecessary requirements.

"It frustrates me because we know in dairying, you've got people who really give a damn about these issues, who have done so much in terms of fencing, tree planting and the like, who are under ever stricter controls from regional councils...it's hard to know what David Parker is exactly saying, but in one interpretation of it...he's wanting to come in over the top of that and have yet more stringent requirements...it's very frustrating to see this."

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