Horizons should have stuck with One Plan’s intent

I must put my money where my mouth is. That is, not in your bank account.

Dear Horizons (Manawatuwhanganui) Regional Council: Many thanks for my annual rates invoice which I received last week.

Now, I need to be clear. I’ve thought about this long and hard. And short and soft. Over many a sleep-filled night. Bottom line. I have reached an age and a stage where I simply will not accept an invoice for services I have not received.

You know, if a plumber charges me for work he obviously hasn’t done, I don’t pay.

It has never been a desire of mine to be revolting. But revolt I must. I have received your invoice and, as we both know, you haven’t done the work.

I’m sure you’ve done some work but I know you haven’t done the work you agreed to. In writing. In a plan. Formal and adjudicated. You’ve reneged.

You’re likely good at some things, but I don’t know about those other things.

I do, however, know a bit about water quality. So, and because you helpfully broke the invoice down, you’re not being paid for that part of my rates.

Your One Plan was originally held up as a precedent-setting response to how pollution from farms into waterways was managed.

It was courageous in that it provided a land use capability regulatory regime for the amount of nitrogen applied to land used for dairying, intensive sheep and beef farming, and horticulture.

We all know, of course, that the real problem is intensive dairy farming. Which is why you have blatantly ignored the Environment Court judge’s ruling.

Indeed, you chose to accept the well-oiled spin that actually implementing the One Plan – as was legally agreed to – might see dairy farmers suffer financially.

Perversely, they weren’t suffering financially when you made that decision.

Since then, have you noticed the dairy payout?

When would be a good time to hold dairy farmers accountable for their own pollution? Or is it your view that we’re all on the hook financially for the inevitable cleanup?

Further, it’s now transpired that you’ve been giving farmers 20-year discretionary consents that allow for even more nitrate leaching than was originally set out in the One Plan.

On top of that, you’ve the unmitigated gall to continue to tell the public that water quality is improving in the region. Ask any objective freshwater scientist if that’s true. We both know the answer, except you pretend you don’t.

The Havelock North water contamination debacle should be a wake-up call for your council. I suspect you’re just bloody glad it’s not you. This time. But it’s coming.

The other thing that sticks in my craw is the reality that the implemented One Plan could have been the benchmark that other regional councils would’ve reached for. It may well have changed the freshwater/dairy intensification game entirely.

But, no. You didn’t have the leadership, the vision or the cojones to see it through. The majority of current elected councillors will be remembered for cowardice, avarice, and shortsightedness.

As I write, my mind is cast back to 2012 and the 79-page ruling.

Despite protestations from Federated Farmers, who said it would make dairy farming less profitable or uneconomic, the decision found no evidence to support that argument.

Instead, it said that if farmers cannot meet the required levels, they may have to change their farming category, or intensity, or ‘‘move somewhere else’’.

‘‘Those are the same options that might face the operator of any business in a changing rules regime, and there is nothing that gives farmers a privileged place in the scheme of things.’’

The judge said it was appropriate that Horizons had shown the courage to initiate a regime in a region that the court says had ‘‘urgent water quality issues that require immediate action’’.

‘‘We also know what is causing that decline, and we know how to stop it, and reverse it’’ and to fail to take available steps ‘‘would be inexcusable’’, it says.

Yet, here we are today and you have done the inexcusable.

As I stare at my rates bill I wholeheartedly concur with the judge, and I must put my money where my mouth is. That is, not in your bank account.

I realise my non-payment is but a mere pimple on the arse of your over-inflated sense of political purpose.

Despite that, I simply cannot and will not pay the water quality portion of my rates.

Eventually, you might try and take me to court. Whereupon I might try and take you, dear Horizons.

I’m kind of curious what a nonenvironment Court judge would make of your contempt of the law, and everything it stands for.

Implement your One Plan as it was intended and my cheque, including all the interest you’ll be charging, will be in the mail. Yours in deep disregard, Rachel Stewart