Simon Davies: Former President of Otago Federated Farmers on the lack of transparency in the new freshwater rules

Concerns are rising in Otago over a lack of transparency from the regional council about new freshwater rules.  

Federated Farmers Otago has written to councillors, district mayors, and ministers, demanding the latest draft of the council's Land and Water Plan be made public. 

The rules are scheduled to come into force in October and will have immediate legal effect. 

Former President of Otago Federated Farmers Simon Davies told Mike Hosking there are too many unknowns.  

He says they had great concerns with the last plan they saw, but since then it's gone away and changes have been made, but they're not aware of the details. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
A little bit of angst and otago over water fed
farmers think information around new freshwater rules isn't that transparent.
They're also fears it's going to end up costing rate
payers a lot of money. The former president of Ittiga
Federated Farmer, Simon Davies, is with us on the Simon Morning.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Very well, you're the one who raised the alarm.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
I guess you could say that a little while ago here.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
So what's at play here? What they're trying to do
is the problem or you just don't know what they're
trying to do.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Two parts to it. One, we don't really know what
they're trying to do. The last version of the plan
we saw worried us greatly, but it has gone away
and there's been that we believe some moderations, but we
don't actually know what. And it's due to be released
for notification, which means it becomes law in October. And

(00:53):
we are really concerned that the general community has no
idea of the costs implications of this proposed plan.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Where's the consultation.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
There was consultation six months ago and since then there
haven't been any and that is one of our concerns
that they're probably a major concern, And look, what we
really want to do is we want to see the
costs of this implementation laid out to bear for all
rate payers, and I mean putting out using the district councils,

(01:30):
putting it across the local newspapers, so all ratepayers know
exactly what implications or what costs they are facing.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
So this is going to come out a lot where
they're going to publish this and go, here's the bill,
here's what we're doing, and everyone's going to go, what
what happened there?

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, what I suspect is it's not going to be published.
The rules are going to be in place, and it's
going to be this is what you're paying.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
So you're claiming one hundred and ten million for a
couple of small towns. That's more than fifty thousand dollars
a ratepayer. There's no way they're going to do that.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
It would be nice to say that, but from what
we understand, that's what the implications mean. That those numbers
we got were from one of the district councils in Otago,
and you would expect that they would have done some
numbers and have some ideas, but Joe Publics doesn't know this,
and that's one of the points I challenged the district

(02:24):
councils and the regional councils to get together and put
this stuff out into the public domain for people to
be able to make informed discussions and have informed and
make informed assume.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
When when you say councils you use the plural, are
there too many councils involved?

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Well, it's Otago has five district councils and one regional council.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
That it's about a councilor wouldn't it.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Oh, that's a that's a separate discussion that I practiced,
shouldn't be getting into at this point in time.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Let's not wind ourselves up on a Friday, Simon, I
wish you the best. Listen. We'll see where this one goes.
But at fifty thousand dollars per rate payer, there's none
that's one thousand dollars a week. No one's doing that.
Simon Davis, former president of Attago Federated Farmers. For more
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(03:17):
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