Water tax inequitable, nonsensical

That is how North Otago Irrigation Company (NOIC) chief executive Robyn Wells describes the Labour Party’s proposed water royalty or irrigation tax.

“On the face of it, it’s inequitable and nonsensical to apply a royalty to water as if it’s a finite resource such as coal or gold,” said Wells.

“We all know that when we take water and irrigate, some of it goes back into groundwater flows and some of it goes into growing of grasses and plants,” she told Rural News.

“From those plants there’s evapo-transpiration, so it goes back into the atmosphere and it comes back into the cycle. That’s basic science – a water cycle.”

Wells says if the purpose was to tax water take, then everybody should be taxed.

“If the purpose was to tax pollution coming from the use of water, then the polluters should pay.”

Wells pointed out that no-one now pays for water; they pay for the capital and operation of the infrastructure.

“Even in Auckland, people are paying for the infrastructure -- the pipes and the operation of the pipes to bring the water to the door. We already charge our farmers for that at NOIC.”

She says NOIC also spent substantially on environmental management and enhancement.

Wells noted that the Waitaki River is a good quality river in an area where a lot of good environmental work is done.

She says the farmers of North Otago would be paying a royalty which would probably have to go somewhere else in NZ.