The Luxon Government’s War on Nature

Greenpeace really packing it in here. The video is edited down, but here is five minutes of Russel Norman on fire, laying out the problems with the government’s slash and burn economy, one after the other.

Here's @RusselNorman on why we'll march against the Fast Track Bill and the reckless coal mining plans revealed by Shane Jones yesterday.

Sat 8 June, Aotea Square, 1pm

Put it in your diary!https://t.co/4VtrlGmip3#nzpol #WarOnNature pic.twitter.com/Lsd0nWLKWM

— Greenpeace Aotearoa (@GreenpeaceNZ) May 24, 2024

The Coalition Against the Fast Track are organising the march. It’s centred in Auckland, and they are running a series of volunteer training days. For people not in Auckland or can’t march in the 8th of June, please consider joining or donating to one of the NGOs and community groups doing the mahi, they can use our support.

Russel Norman has also written an epic post listing and explaining all the governments’ anti-nature policies: Luxon’s War on Nature explained

UPDATE: We have now found out that the politician chairing the select committee considering the fast track bill, David MacLeod, has illegally failed to declare $180,000 in donations. Moreover, some of those donations come from a major shareholder in the seabed mining company TTR. TTR is planning to use the fast track legislation to circumvent the Supreme Court decision blocking its seabed mining plans. In fact one of the decision-making Ministers under the Fast Track law, Chris Bishop, wrote to TTR inviting them to apply to use the fast track. So a major shareholder of TTR gave campaign money to the National Party MP who chaired the select committee on the fast track bill while the National Party Minister invited TTR to apply for a fast track. 

Worried yet? The New Zealand government’s war on nature has been ramping up. A raft of policies attacking environmental protection are being released by the new Luxon/Peters/Seymour Government.

We’ve been describing it as a war on nature. But it can be challenging to keep up with this many environmental attacks, coming from different Ministers and in different stages of development. To make it clearer, I have tried to list all the anti-nature policies below, provide some background, and give an indication of their stage in the policy process. 

When you list them all like this, it really is entirely fair to describe it as a ‘war on nature’.

The following is the headers and snip paragraphs from Norman’s post. Please read the whole post for full examples and explanations.

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1. Fast track approvals bill is a fast track to destruction

The premier vehicle for the government’s anti-environmental war on nature is the Fast Track Approvals Bill, currently before Parliament’s Environment Select Committee. This Bill has been well traversed elsewhere but it is worth noting here a few things.

Three Cowboys

Firstly, this bill gives three individual ministers with no particular knowledge or expertise the ability to green light pretty much any project they like with almost zero environmental constraints.

No public input

They can approve an industrial incinerator next door and you don’t even have the right to make a submission on it. It’s a pretty wild level of disregard for the general public, but of course those who have connections to the government will have plenty of chances to lobby ministers at fundraising dinners and suchlike. 

Court decisions overturned

Thirdly, this process can overturn court decisions in which projects have already been declined due to environmental impacts.

Blocking renewable energy projects

One of the impacts of this kind of Government-by-Ministerial-Fiat is that that rational and evidence based decision making is put to one side in favour of individual favours.

Corruption

Finally, this is a process which is wide open to corruption, as corporations pushing projects that cause environmental harm seek to be placed on the fast track list, with a virtual guarantee of approval.

Ministers could be corruptly influenced by bribes in cash or in kind, by jobs for their families, by jobs for themselves post-politics, or by campaign donations. Advisers who provide access to Ministers and determine which corporations get onto the list will be equally incentivised to act corruptly.

2. Dismantling freshwater protections

One of the truly remarkable things about Aotearoa is the scale of ground and surface water pollution and its impact on biodiversity and human health. This government’s war on nature is set to make it worse.

Things are pretty bad already

The Ministry for the Environment concluded that ‘Most of our indigenous freshwater fish and freshwater bird species… are either threatened with extinction or at risk of becoming threatened’. Intensive industrial dairy has poisoned the well across much of the South Island – Canterbury, Otago and Southland have poisoned rivers and groundwater. 

Delaying regional freshwater plans

The purpose of the delay is to weaken or remove the national regulations before the regional councils develop their new regional freshwater plans which must be consistent with the national regulations. 

Replacing the National Policy Statement

[Andrew Hoggard, the former head of agribusiness lobby group Federated Farmers and now Associate Agriculture Minister] also announced that they would start the process of systematically weakening the national regulations by replacing the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management (NPSFM) with a weaker version.

Removing rules on intensive winter grazing

This was followed up in April 2024 with the announcement of an amendment to the RMA which will remove the rules controlling intensive winter grazing.

Intensive winter grazing is a widespread practice in Otago and Southland in which feed crops are grazed intensively through winter. This results in cows, often pregnant, living in mud sometimes up to their bellies with massive sediment flows into rivers and lakes. The sediment smothers freshwater ecosystems.

Ensuring Te Mana o Te Wai doesn’t apply to consents

Also included in this amendment to the RMA is a direction to regional councils that a national regulatory instrument called Te Mana o Te Wai must not be applied to the assessment of individual resource consent applications. Te Mana o Te Wai states that, when making decisions on the allocation of freshwater, the needs of ecosystems come first, the needs of human health second, and other uses such as irrigation third. 

Freshwater Farm plans to be weakened or abolished

Alongside this Freshwater Farm Plans, which were a requirement for agribusiness managers to plan to reduce their water pollution, will be weakened if not abolished altogether.

3. Removal of requirement to identify important areas of biodiversity

A large part of New Zealand’s remaining biodiversity is on private land with very little legal protection, which is leading to dramatic losses. This happens through wetland drainage, agricultural intensification, subdivisions etc.

Even as recently as 2009 Landcare Research reported that ‘Agricultural intensification over the past 10 years has led to the highest rate of native vegetation loss since European colonisation.’ Landcare Research was deeply unpopular with the government and agribusiness after making this finding.

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As part of the RMA amendment bill announced in April 2024, the Luxon Government plans to remove the requirement that councils identify ‘’Significant Natural Areas’’, and hence biodiversity on private land will not even be identified let alone protected so its destruction can continue unabated. 

4. Transport – more motorways, fewer cycleways and less public transport

Land transport is New Zealand’s second biggest climate polluter after agribusiness and yet this government has embarked on a radical policy agenda to increase pollution. The war on nature can be illustrated just by listing some of the initiatives:

Cuts to public transport

They have cut funding to public transport, walking and cycling and increased funding to motorways as part of the draft Government Policy Statement on land transport. Auckland Council pointed out that entire suburbs would be left without access to public transport as a result of the cuts and that fares would increase.

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As part of the draft policy statement they removed climate as a requirement for consideration in transport decision making.

Impact on young people

They have removed the subsidies for young people to use public transport at discounted rates, not only making the cost of living crisis harder for them and their families but pushing them towards car transport.

Interisland ferry funding removal

They cut the funding for the interisland ferry terminals and cancelled the new ferries which have lower emissions. The ferries connect the train network as well as the roading network.

Ending subsidies for low-emissions vehicles

They ended the subsidies for low emissions vehicles resulting in a collapse in EV and small car sales and once again Ford Rangers at the top of the list (guzzling gas and killing pedestrians and cyclists).

Removing council’s transport plans

The Government has moved to end Wellington’s transport plan with its focus on public transport walking and cycling and move towards more cars. There remains uncertainty as to the future solution but clearly they want more cars.

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There’s even more but you get the sense of it. Their transport policy is plainly designed to increase climate pollution as part of their war on nature. 

5. The war on dolphins, seals and marine life

The government’s war on nature is not only being fought on land. It extends to the oceans too. 

Marine biodiversity

The majority of Aotearoa’s biodiversity is to be found in the oceans around us and the main driver of biodiversity destruction in the oceans is the fishing industry.

South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation 

There is an obscure inter-governmental organisation called the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO) that is meant to regulate fisheries in the international waters of the South Pacific.

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The new government has changed its position, opposing protection of vulnerable coral habitats from trawling, and does not support any kind of restrictions on bottom trawling. 

Cameras on boats

But Shane Jones, Minister of Fishing and recipient of seafood industry campaign donations, doesn’t like them and wants to review them. Another option the government is canvassing is to hand them over to Fishserv, the fishing industry owned company that oversees the Quota Management System.

Increasing catch limits

In spite of the collapse of numerous fisheries, the Minister of Fisheries decided to increase catch limits.

6. Increased climate pollution

Aside from the long list of policies above that will increase climate pollution (e.g. transport), the government has introduced other policies to increase emissions. The impacts from these policies mean the government’s war on nature will be felt internationally.

Restarting offshore oil and gas exploration

The global battle against fossil fuels has both a supply and demand side.

On the demand side are the battles around fossil fuel electricity generation and internal combustion engines vehicles.

But the supply side is also critical because, as the International Energy Agency found back in 2021, we can’t afford to bring more fossil fuel supply online if we are to avoid catastrophic warming.

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The announcement by the Luxon Government that it will restart the issuance of offshore oil and gas exploration permits is a global leap backwards.

Changing the way methane warming is measured

The global livestock lobby has a policy agenda to change the way that the climate warming of methane is measured. This is to make it look like methane causes less warming than it really does.

More cash for magic bullets

The New Zealand Government has given hundreds of millions of dollars to look for magic bullets to reduce methane emissions from dairy cattle and other livestock. So far no magic bullets have been discovered but the new Government has thrown another $18m at this greenwashing.

The purpose of all this is to avoid having to cut emissions by doing things that actually work like reducing fertiliser use and stocking rates.

Zero Carbon Act – greenwashing law retained

It is noteworthy that a Government conducting a war on climate and biodiversity policy has kept the Zero Carbon Act (ZCA) in place. But there is a good reason for that – the ZCA was largely a greenwashing exercise as was revealed once it was tested in court. 

He Waka Eke Noa – its job is one

One final piece of the puzzle is pricing agribusiness emissions. This was delayed throughout the course of the last government by the He Waka Eke Noa process. This will now be either quietly euthanised or kept as another greenwashing figleaf, but we can be sure there will be no price on agricultural emissions – they will be subsidised by the rest of us.

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Greenpeace are calling for us to take to the streets.

We will need to mobilise people power to challenge the government’s agenda and to challenge any corporation that tries to use the new fast track process. It is a bit bleak after six years of a Government that claimed to take climate and biodiversity seriously but delivered so very little. 

But the truth is that real gains only ever come out of a mobilised civil society and achieving a mobilised civil society is exactly what we have to do.

Join the March for Nature Saturday, 8 June, Aotea Square on Queen St from 1pm.

Dr Russel Norman is the Executive Director of Greenpeace Aotearoa. Follow him on twitter.