PRESS RELEASE
NZ OUTDOORS PARTY
16:00, 28 APRIL 2017
EUROPEAN UNION HAS BETTER SWIMMABLE WATER STANDARDS
The NZ Outdoors Party, who formed in 2015 to protect the rights of Kiwis to enjoy our outdoors heritage, today submitted
their response to the Government’s Clean Water proposals. A central theme of the submission was highlighting that Nick
Smith’s swimmable water standards were lower than that of the European Union.
Outdoors Party Co-Leader, David Haynes, said in a statement today that ”The EU is a post-industrial economic powerhouse
with 15 times the land area, 113 times the population, 7.5 times the population density and 4 times the number of dairy
cattle compared to New Zealand. It has been settled by humans for at least 60,000 years longer than Aotearoa and YET
their e.coli limit for swimmable water is better than ours – 500 versus our 540 units per 100ml water.”
Haynes continued “There could be no better indication of how unambitious Smith’s proposed standards are. This Government
continues to subsidise mega-irrigation schemes for supersized intensive corporate farming operations and makes the
public pay to clean up the resultant pollution. Small family farming operations are suffering as is our right to enjoy
swimming, fishing and gathering food from our river. Our heritage is being sacrificed for short-term gain and until this
pollution subsidy is addressed, along with setting environmental limits to economic and population growth, then
swimmable water is just empty rhetoric.
The Outdoors Party policy on our freshwater is Keep freshwater fresh, keep our rivers and lake full, protect the natural
character and life of waterbodies, water is free and belongs to everyone and polluters will pay.
ENDS