Federated Farmers Hawkes Bay advocates on members’ behalf to Hawkes bay Regional Council, Hastings District Council, and Central Hawkes Bay District Council, on all matters that will affect farmers. Every year we submit on council rates income and spending plans, and also on any Resource Management Act proposals.
A current job on the books include the Hawkes Bay Regional Council’s Plan Change 7, in which the Council identifies 38 waterbodies as meeting their criteria as being “outstanding” and a suite of objectives and policies to protect them. Federated Farmers disagreed because the large number of waterbodies, the massive size of some of them (the Heretaunga aquifer) and all five of the major Hawkes Bay Rivers being classified, suggests to us that the threshold for “outstandingness” is too low. It is also Federated Farmers expectation that the Regional Council consults directly with landowners, which did not happen.