32134 (2025). Lan Pham to the Associate Minister for the Environment

32134 (2025). Lan Pham to the Associate Minister for the Environment: What information or advice, if any, did the Minister rely on to justify his statement at Environment Select Committee hearings that "I'm aware of catchments where water is coming out of nature at quality worse than bottom lines"?

Hon Andrew Hoggard: That the national bottom lines may be exceeded even when the catchment is dominated by native bush has been communicated to me by a number of parties as I’ve travelled around talking to people at the coal face. Specifically, I read the report entitled “Technical assessment of the impacts of the NPS-FM 2020 national bottom lines on sheep and beef farms” authored by Torlesse Environmental Ltd. That report references two others: “Nitrogen, phosphorus, sediment and Escherichia coli in New Zealand’s aquatic receiving environments Comparison of current state to national bottom lines”, by LWP and “Water quality state and trends in New Zealand Rivers Analyses of national data ending in 2020” by NIWA.