The Issues

Sustainable Land Use

​Our region has everything from fertile plains to highly erodible sand dunes and hill country. Our use of all types of land needs to be sustainable. So what do I mean by that?

I mean that the livelihoods gained from use of the land must not be at the expense of the long term productivity of the land or the health of the waterways that run through it.

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To maintain productivity and restore river health, while enabling economic activity, some things we do now need to be done a little differently. The best farmers are already leading the way, fencing off their streams to keep stock out of them, using stand-off pads when the paddocks are too wet, ensuring they have adequate storage capacity for dairy shed effluent so they don't have to apply it to the land when it's already wet, rebuilding wetlands to help trap sediment and nutrients, planting trees on steep land to reduce erosion, limiting stock numbers so there's less leaching of nitrogen, setting aside areas for native bush regeneration, diversifying their operations so they're not dependent on single income streams....

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Horizons could and should play a role in encouraging these changes. It does a little now but could do a lot more to speed up the shift to these more appropriate ways of using land. With my rural upbringing and training in agriculture,  I can help to make this happen.

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One other important aspect of this issue is ​protecting highly productive land from urban development.  We can't afford to see our high class soils disappear under concrete and asphalt. While on PNCC I helped to get tighter restrictions on what could be done on this sort of land but it needs to have the force of the Regional Council behind it as well.

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Safe, clean transport

Getting from A to B and back should be able to be done safely, whether it's children going to and from school, people driving on the open highway or older people going for walks to stay fit.

But, after several years of improvement, the number of fatal and serious injury crashes has climbed right back up to where it was 10 years ago. Now, central government is determined to permanently and substantially lower the number of these crashes. It's no longer willing to trade off people's lives against economic efficiency. We don't allow it in the workplace and we shouldn't allow it on the road. Horizons needs to step up and play a stronger role than it has been at the regional level.

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For many years I've advocated for safer streets so that people on bikes and walking are able to get about easily and without having to worry about their safety. I convinced my colleagues at PNCC to put in 40km/h speed limits outside schools. I helped develop a new integrated transport strategy for the city that pays more attention to cycling, walking and public transport. I'm an executive member of Living Streets Aotearoa, NZ's pedestrian advocacy organisation, and represent it on the Traffic Institute's executive.

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I've also been a strong supporter of public transport, which is the safest method of all to move around. But public transport needs to be convenient and comfortable too - both around town and between Palmerston North and Wellington. Horizons, as coordinator of the region's public transport services, is key to making this happen. As the city representative on Horizons Passenger Transport Committee, I helped to get improvements to the city's bus system. But more needs to be done.

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Getting more freight moved by rail and coastal ships instead of by long-haul trucks is another step that needs to be taken to make our transport system safer, cleaner and cheaper. With the prospect of Whanganui port being redeveloped it could play an important role in moving non-urgent freight by coastal shipping. I highlighted the potential of Whanganui port to improve our region's transport safety and cleanliness back in 2010 so it's pleasing to see the work going on over there. It will be good for Whanganui and for Palmerston North.

Water

Water is truly the stuff of life. We drink it, cook with it, wash with it and we love to be by it and swim in it. But only if it is clean. Unfortunately, many of our rivers are often not clean enough.

There are three main types of pollution - nutrients leaching from farmland, sediment being washed off farmland and conservation land and nutrients being discharged from urban wastewater treatment plants. So we all have a role to play in cleaning up our act.

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Horizons has a set of rules that is supposed to protect water from pollution and overuse. That Plan is called the One Plan. It's a very good plan even if it isn't perfect. If it were implemented properly it would really help to get our rivers back to the state they should be in, like in the photo.

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We need strong leadership on this issue. And we need leaders who  understand the relevant science.  I have already shown both through my chairing of the Water Protection Society. The Society has submitted on resource consents in which councils and businesses have wanted to pour pollutants into our rivers. In cooperation with others, we've managed to get Horizons decision-makers and the Environment Court to put tighter conditions on the polluters and to only allow them to continue polluting for a short time. As a result, more and more of them are deciding to apply their wastewater to land, which is generally a much better thing to do.

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