whose side are you on ministry for the environment?

This is hard to believe.

"Groundwater quality has "no significant relationship" with land use, a Ministry for the Environment report says"

That's right - the Ministry for the Environment are saying that land use has no 'significant' relationship to water quality.
This is the ministry for the environment here - this is not only nonsense but it plays right into the hands of those that would do anything they want on the land and not have to worry about the water they pollute.
Too true russ - you are on to it and thank goodness for that, because if you weren't we probably wouldn't even have heard of this. Why aren't other political parties interested in these issues - they affect us all.

minister smith said;

"The report said nitrate and E. coli levels breached health standards at 5 per cent and 23 per cent, respectively, of 973 monitoring sites, including 279 in Canterbury.

Quality was rapidly changing at a third of the sites, with "patterns that suggest human influence". But the report said there was "no systematic or significant relationships" between groundwater quality and land use or land cover."

"Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said the claim was absurd and "propaganda".

He said the uncertainty in the report suited the Government's political agenda "to downplay the environmental impacts of agricultural intensification"."

"he was "a little surprised" at the conclusion because the popular notion was that land-use intensification led to water-quality problems.

Smith said he would defer to the specialists who prepared the report rather than favour popular opinion."

It does seem to be quite a contrarian position - i wonder why the ministry have taken it.