The Government's refusal to look at clean water legislation, is being seen as a misguided attempt to protect farmer profits.

Opposition parties want our rivers and lakes to be swimmable as a minimum standard, but National says it's not possible.

Labour's environment spokesperson David Parker said there are many farmers who've shown it's possible to clean up waterways, without going broke.

"We shouldn't have to pay them to stop polluting, indeed some of them will be better off as they won't be wasting as much fertiliser which is washing off our land and into our rivers."

Mr Parker said National keeps citing natural pollutants that would make the system impossible, while knowing that's not the issue.

"There are the very occasional stream where they are quite acidic because they come out of volcanic areas, those aren't what we are talking about, we are talking about human interventions that make rivers dirtier."