"Nearly one in five Canterbury farmers have failed to comply with their consents to take river and ground water."

[Radio NZ, 18 March 2016]

"“Despite at least 2.3 billion litres of water being illegally taken, and nearly 400 irrigation related serious non-compliances, ECan continues to downplay the issue saying it is only a few farmers, a relatively small amount of water and that when told to comply, farmers do.

“While ECan has indicated that they are likely to take some prosecutions in the future, they have also been at pains to state that they don’t believe there is massive water crime in Canterbury,” says Mr Hackwell.

“ECan’s data tells the true story - hundreds of farmers are seriously breaching their consents including illegally taking billions of litres of Canterbury’s precious water."

[Royal Forest & Bird Protection Society website, 24 June 2016]

Anyone know if a government minister has commented on this breach? (Highly unlikely, I know, as the standard approach from those who live on Planet Key is to bat away inconvenient facts with a flippant remark  or ignore them altogether).