Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Health Committee for consideration, and that the committee present its final report on or before 20 December 2006. I also request that the Health Committee give particular consideration to the issue of whether schools and other community purpose buildings, such as hospitals and public halls, that have their own self-supply of water should be required by the bill to be on the drinking-water register or whether they should have discretion to be on it.

This bill introduces a flexible, risk management - based and outcome-focused legislative framework for reticulated and tankered drinking water in New Zealand. In doing so, it will update inadequate and limited legislative provisions that are more than 50 years old. This measure will see New Zealand move into line with almost every other developed nation in having a regulatory regime to promote the quality and safety of drinking water, rather than relying almost entirely on voluntary mechanisms to regulate the drinking-water sector, which is a sector estimated to have assets in excess of $5.5 billion. Colleagues who follow me in this debate will elaborate on the current organisation of New Zealand’s drinking-water sector.

The need for this legislation arises from the existing provisions that govern New Zealand’s drinking-water supplies, to safeguard communities. Firstly, and contrary to public perception, this bill affects public health because New Zealand has relatively high rates of largely preventable enteric or gastrointestinal disease compared with other developed nations. For example, the rate of those diseases in New Zealand is twice that of Britain and three times those of Australia and Canada. Secondly, the current state of New Zealand’s drinking-water legislation gives little effective protection or deterrence against a major outbreak of disease due to the accidental or deliberate contamination of urban drinking-water supplies. Such events have occurred in overseas jurisdictions. For example, in Walkerton, a town with a population of 4,000 people in Canada, there were seven deaths and 2,321 reported cases, including 65 hospitalisations, resulting from E. coli in the water supply in May 2000. Thirty of those 65 hospitalisations will be on kidney dialysis for the rest of their lives. Another example is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where between 70 and 100 deaths occurred and over 400,000 people became sick in 1993.

The bill is based on a number of premises and assumptions about drinking water that I think should be relatively uncontroversial. The main premise of the bill is that safe drinking water is a basic requirement for a healthy population. Although water can never be made completely safe, it is clear that the standard of water in many parts of New Zealand puts too many people at risk of illness. We do not know how many outbreaks of illness go unrecognised. We have high rates of preventable gastrointestinal illness, by world standards. Without adequate drinking water, the daily health and well-being of a community is compromised.

The bill assumes that access to safe drinking water is the right of all New Zealanders, no matter where in New Zealand they reside. Although almost all people in urban areas have access to adequately safe drinking water, many people in smaller towns of up to 5,000 inhabitants sometimes do not. They often do not have sufficient protection against the risk of a major disease outbreak of the sort seen overseas, and which could occur here unless we institute more proactive management of water. Rural people, meanwhile, are worse off still, in that they often do not have the day-to-day access to adequate safe water that urban people largely take for granted, and they have poor protection against a major outbreak of disease. We see the results of that in the higher burden of disease evident within many rural communities.

Further, the bill assumes that safe drinking water is an essential component of New Zealand’s economic health. That was recognised in the Ministry of Economic Development’s infrastructure stocktake, which noted poor drinking-water quality in some areas as an infrastructure concern. Furthermore, inadequate drinking water poses a very obvious threat to tourism. Many of our important tourism areas are served by the very rural supplies that pose the highest risk of disease. In addition, the risk of harm to tourists—as opposed to locals—is greater, because tourists are not acclimatised to the water. The damage that cases of individual tourist illness causes to tourism is mild in comparison with the damage and adverse publicity that would result in the event of a major disease outbreak.

Why is regulation needed at all? Why can a voluntary system not produce the gains that we need? To date, the Government’s drinking-water strategy has encouraged voluntary compliance with the New Zealand drinking-water standards and a range of other measures. We have seen a steady improvement in water safety since 1992, when elements of the current voluntary system were first put in place. However, the improvement had plateaued by the year 2000 and there has been no overall improvement since then. That means that although 71 percent of the New Zealand population is currently served by water supplies that comply with the standards, the remaining 29 percent is served by supplies that are either not compliant or not known to be compliant, and with no prospect of improvement. In terms of the voluntary registration of water supplies, by June last year the voluntary register recorded 1,953 suppliers out of an estimated 2,900. Again, that is a good result for a voluntary system, but it is not adequate if New Zealand’s drinking-water supplies are to be raised to acceptable levels. One can neither investigate a failure in drinking-water quality nor monitor the standard of New Zealand’s drinking water if the suppliers are not known.

Lessons learned in overseas jurisdictions tell us that effective water management needs to involve multiple interventions at many levels, so that if one part of the system fails, the others are ready to compensate for the failure and provide back-up. However, a universal proactive management system is unlikely to occur from within a voluntary system.

If enacted in its present form, the bill will bring in a regulatory regime that would continue the elements of the current Ministry of Health drinking-water strategy that are currently voluntary, but will make them compulsory. For example, it would become compulsory for suppliers to take all practicable steps to comply with the currently voluntary drinking-water standards. Suppliers will also be required to introduce and implement public health risk management plans for water supplies that serve more than 500 people. Suppliers will also be required to apply to be included on the register of community drinking-water suppliers.

In a final note, we acknowledge that the cost of implementing this legislation will not be insignificant. However, it is worth it and the Government has measures to mitigate the cost. The Government’s drinking-water assistance programme allocates $136.9 million, excluding GST, for capital and technical assistance to water suppliers, and the bill itself contains a number of mechanisms to address and minimise compliance costs to suppliers.

The Ministry of Health has consulted widely in developing the policy for this bill. In order to remain responsive to the needs of the drinking-water sector, the Government has established a technical advisory group that will report back to Cabinet on any issues with regard to the implementation of the new legislation.

In summary, the Government has done much within the current voluntary system to assist suppliers—particularly small suppliers—to improve the quality of their water. However, that is now not enough on its own. We now know that the level of improvement we require can be achieved only through a combination of measures, including a major overhaul of the legislative framework. I commend the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill to the House.

This bill, the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill, is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It is a heavy-handed, overkill approach to address concerns about water quality in New Zealand. It is an approach that does not properly target those who might pose the greatest risk. To those who already comply it gives the shortest time frame for compliance, and to those who may be the problem it gives the longest period for compliance. We in the National Party want to tell the House the reasons why we oppose this legislation—not the least of which is the huge burden and risk it will put on to local government, which is something the Government failed to discuss in the Minister of Health’s introductory speech.

The latest survey of drinking-water supplies conducted by the Institute of Environmental and Scientific Research in 2004 showed that about 70 percent of New Zealanders receive water that is compliant with drinking standard quality. It further went on to estimate that about 15 percent of New Zealanders receive water that does not meet the current drinking-water standards. Most of those supplies are, in fact, from very small systems that supply fewer than 500 people. The regime proposed by this bill will impose costs on the majority of complying drinking-water systems in an attempt to improve the quality of the drinking water provided by a very few, small suppliers.

We think the approach of setting up a whole new industry of assessors and compliers is complete overkill for what is required here. We in the National Party would have thought that the Government would come up with a bill that was more focused on targeting those systems it sees as the greatest risk, providing more information and encouragement for those suppliers, and involving local authorities, through their asset management plans, to improve the quality of those schemes for which they are responsible. Instead, the bill puts millions of dollars of costs on to local government and ratepayers, the very people who, in 70 percent of the schemes currently under debate, currently comply.

The Minister was not able to give any local examples of where the problem is. He gave a whole lot of international examples of where the problem is, but failed to give any New Zealand examples. We have a list of a few water supplies that have problems, and the House will be interested to know that most of the recent incidents of water-borne diseases have in fact happened on school camps out in the wild. They are not happening in the areas the Minister is trying to suggest to the House. He failed to demonstrate that things were not working and that there are significant failures in the current system. What we wanted from the Minister was for him to define the problem and provide the answer. All we got, though, was a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

And what about the cost? Have any members, other than National Party members, actually gone through the bill and read the compliance statements in it? Did anyone else see that Local Government New Zealand at one stage had estimated that it would cost between $50 million and $200 million to comply with the bill? Did anyone else read the fact that local authorities individually were last consulted on this in the mid-1990s? These are the concerns the National Party has—the devil in the detail—and they indicate why we oppose this bill.

There is quite a lot of confusion within the bill about how various proposals will work. The bill hangs its hat on the fact that it will require local authorities to act in such a way that they do whatever is practicable to improve the quality of their water supply. But further on the bill states that they must do this and they must do that, which is in complete conflict with the principle of their being able to do whatever is practicable to improve their water supply.

We are worried about the overhead, the new industry, that will be created by this bill providing for the Director-General of Health to appoint assessors and officers, who will be responsible for auditing drinking-water suppliers to ensure that they meet the requirements of the bill, the drinking-water standards, and their public health risk management plans. Initially, the assessors will talk to local authorities about how they can improve their water standards, but in the end they have the power to require that local authorities do x, y, and z. That is writing a cheque on the ratepayer, but this Government was not prepared even to admit that in the Minister’s introductory speech. This is the Government that goes on about working with local government. I bet the Prime Minister did not stand up at the local government conference last week and say that, regardless of what local authorities say, a Ministry of Health bureaucrat will be able to decide how ratepayers’ money is spent—whether they want it or not. There was no mention of that. And there was no mention in the Prime Minister’s speech on local government of the risk to ratepayers from private schemes being priced out.

Labour members will not have read the compliance cost. One of them should now yell out: “How much will it cost someone to register?”.

💬 Anne Tolley: How much will it cost?

It will cost at least $130,000, just to begin the process. That is the Minister’s own advice in the explanatory note. If one has a small water scheme supplying a few people in one’s neighbourhood, that is a huge burden. We should remember that most of the schemes that are not meeting the water quality standards at the moment are the small schemes with fewer than 500 people. If we burden those schemes—generally operating at a not-for-profit level—with huge costs, what will happen? The organisers will say it is not for them any more, and they will give it to the council to deal with. And that is the problem. Local authorities will be at significant risk of private and cooperative schemes falling into their responsibility because of the burden of costs associated with this legislation.

So what is the answer? The problem is that some smaller water schemes need to improve their drinking-water standards to meet the standards the Government wants. A small group of schemes, usually supplying fewer than 500 people—a discrete group—could be targeted for improvement, but what has the Government done? It has proposed a scheme that will apply to all local authorities and to all suppliers—even tanker operators—and that will put a huge burden on that sector, and the Minister did not even talk about it in his introductory speech. The National Party says that the answer is to target the problem, and to use the resources that are required to address the concern.

The Government thinks it will get an easy ride on this bill. I tell members that local authorities all around New Zealand are marshalling their resources to oppose this legislation. The reason is that it not only imposes significant costs on those who are already complying but also imposes a significant risk to local authorities, particularly rural councils, that they will end up having to take over the private and cooperative water schemes that are operating out there at the moment.

Why did we not hear from the Government the actual definition of the problem in New Zealand today? The Minister provided no New Zealand examples—all the examples were international ones—and there was no explanation of the costs. The Minister’s own statements, in the explanatory note, include an estimate from Local Government New Zealand that compliance will cost between $50 million and $200 million. That is a huge burden. Even though the Government proposes a 4 or 5 year phase-in, that is insufficient. This measure does not target where the issues may be, and this Government will find strong opposition, not only within Parliament from members who are informed but, in particular, from local authorities, which know that it will put a significant burden on them in costs. Members opposite might shake their heads in disbelief, but they should ring their local councils tonight and find out the significant burden that this bill proposes for them. It is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

That was an interesting speech from the National Party spokesperson on health, in the sense that it once again illustrates the strangeness of the National Party’s position. If this Government was not dealing with the issue and it was costing the health system lots and lots of money, that member would be the first to be up on his feet to whinge about why the Government had not acted when it had the opportunity to do so.

Mr Ryall may like to know that in 1984, 3,500 people in Queenstown were affected by sickness as a result of drinking contaminated water. That is probably at the extreme end of things, because we are very fortunate in New Zealand that, to date, the voluntary system we operate has seen only relatively small examples of such sicknesses. Mr Ryall says such illnesses do not matter, because they happen only on school camps. He says it does not matter about the kids who are on school camps. There were 61 cases of campylobacteriosis at a school camp near Christchurch in 1997, and there were 67 cases at Wainui—and one would expect that, because there was a National Government at the time. But we will plead guilty that in the year 2001, 187 cases at a local college were reported to the medical officer of health.

There were 69 cases of viral gastroenteritis at a major ski-field in 1996. Those people were probably only tourists, so the National Party would not worry about that. It would ask why we should worry about the biggest income earner for this nation, which is tourism. National would say: “Let’s poison off a few tourists here and there.”—that does not really matter to the National Party. That is why the National members are over there in Opposition, and that is why the Minister Mr Hodgson is sitting here on the Government benches. He will get on and do the job, whereas Mr Ryall will just whinge and moan about the wastage that goes on in our health system.

Mr Ryall does not care about the 49 cases of illness at a school camp in the Waikato in 2003, because once again that was just a bunch of kids. Maybe he has forgotten that one of his National Party colleagues represents a town called Masterton. Of course, we can recall that in July and August of 2003 there was a significant contamination of the town’s water supply by cryptosporidiosis again. Whatever that is, it was there.

💬 Hon Pete Hodgson: It’s bad.

The Minister of Health says it is bad. But cryptosporidiosis is not seen as bad by the National Party members. They would leave it alone. They will oppose this bill and would do nothing about that.

Of course, Mr Ryall, who is terribly upset about the cost of this legislation to the public by way of local government, forgot to listen to the Minister’s speech where he outlined the $154 million contribution that this Labour-led Government will be making to small communities. They are not small communities such as the one we come from in Auckland; we are talking about communities of fewer than 5,000 people. The National Party used to pride itself on representing those areas of New Zealand. As far as the National members are concerned, they say we should let people in those communities drink dirty water and keep on getting sick, because National says that we should not meet the cost of providing good drinking water in this country. That is why the National members are the Opposition and we are the Government. We care about people, and they do not.

I support this bill for that reason.

I would just like to reiterate the Hon Tony Ryall’s comments about this being a sledgehammer to crack a walnut type situation. When one looks at this bill one can see that it really addresses a totally non-existent problem. New Zealand is known for having the best standard of drinking water in the world. There is just no question about that. We do not have typhoid in this country; we do not have cholera; we do not have elective surgery. The Government should be focusing on the issues that really matter to the health of New Zealanders. I can tell members that water-borne diseases are not a major public health problem in this country. But I can tell members that this legislation will cost an awful lot to ratepayers the length and breadth of New Zealand.

💬 Darren Hughes: How many people have to die before the National Party will support this?

I tell the marginal member for Otaki that rather than worrying about water standards he should be getting back to his electorate to address the problems with the lack of doctors and the lack of elective surgery, and try to get himself back on the front page of the Horowhenua-Kapiti Chronicle, rather than letting the real MP for Otaki service the people of that electorate.

💬 Darren Hughes: I live on that front page!

Not for long. But, as I say, this is a problem that does not need fixing, and it brings with it absolutely excessive compliance costs. Reading through this bill one can see that it will cost ratepayers $100 to $250 million over the next 6 years.

Of course, it is the rural areas that will be hit. But Labour does not care about the rural areas. It will not be in Labour’s strongholds out in South Auckland, or out in the cities. If one looks at the map one will see that New Zealand basically looks blue. The issue with this bill is that it will hit people in towns with fewer than 5,000 people—people in electorates such as Otaki. If I were that member I would be very concerned. I am sure he would have been debating this pretty hard in caucus. I am sure he would not have been too keen on this legislation, but he is having to come and defend it now. It does not matter to people in electorates such as that of the Minister of Health. Because, of course, they already comply with the drinking-water standards. It will hit the people of rural New Zealand.

But it is pretty clear that Labour has given up on those seats. They have lost Aoraki. They have lost big chunks of the East Coast of the North Island—in fact, all of the East Coast of the North Island. They have a new MP there as well. But it will be the people in electorates such as Mrs Tolley’s who will really miss out with this bill. But, of course, Labour does not care. In the Western Bay of Plenty, very close to an area that the next Minister of Health, Tony Ryall, represents, there will be a 60 percent increase in water rates over the next 10 years, but Labour does not care because it has given up on that seat. In Rotorua Labour knows that Mrs Chadwick will also be going out at the next election. So, really, if there are more compliance costs for the people of Rotorua that will not really matter because Labour has given up there anyway.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: What a typical doctor.

A typical doctor!

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: A typical GP—doesn’t care about public health.

Well, actually that is not true. This is not an issue for public health in New Zealand. We have heard a huge litany of examples given here by the Labour members. If they looked a bit more closely at the detail in the cases they have described, most of them have absolutely nothing to do with water-borne disease. We listened to the Minister before talking about campylobacter. Well, I know that he is a veterinarian but I would expect him to know that campylobacter is actually a disease of poor food handling and it comes from chicken, in the main. It is not actually a bacteria that one finds particularly often in water. Viral gastroenteritis is cited by the Ministry of Health as a reason for bringing in this bill. Well, that is not generally water borne either—49 cases at a school camp in the Waikato in 2003. Well, that says nothing about disease being water-borne either. So really there is nothing in this bill—it addresses a problem that does not exist.

When one looks at the management of drinking water it is broken into three parts: the environment; the supply of water; and the storage and distribution. Those members were not listening closely to that boring speech that we had from the Minister of Health before. They were just doing their paperwork, but they have certainly woken up now because they know that they are under pressure—

💬 Darren Hughes: I predict one term for you.

That will be interesting. I predict that I will be here longer than him. Anyway, back to water-borne disease. The issue here is that we currently have a perfectly adequate voluntary regime that is not really needing any modification. All this will bring is a whole lot of compliance costs.

I can tell members what the Ministry of Health says it will do. The Government is instituting a drinking-water assistance programme that will have two parts: the technical assistance programme, and the capital assistance programme. It will be spending $140 million plus GST on that. I remind Government members that that amount of money would almost twice over pay the district health board deficit for the whole country over the past year.

This is just another example of this Government not knowing where it should be focusing its attention and resources. There is nothing wrong with the drinking water. We are being asked once again to submit to an increased regime of compliance. We see that 71 percent of the country’s water suppliers are actually fully compliant, and 29 percent are served by suppliers who are not compliant or not known to be compliant. I say to members again, and as Tony Ryall made the point in his speech, we should be identifying those areas where the water is a problem and working with providers rather than imposing massive compliance costs, and the potential costs will be highest in the rural areas—there is no question about that.

The bill also asks for greater coverage on the drinking-water register. So once again Labour is wanting to count the problem. What good will it really do for the public health of the people of New Zealand just to count the number of water providers? The bill also asks for proactive management of water supplies through public health risk management plans. Once more, we will have more plans, more compliance, and more costs for the ratepayer. The answer is not to engage in this costly compliance regime whereby, at the end of the day, it will be ordinary, overtaxed New Zealanders who will see increases in their water charges. The answer is to have a common sense approach to identify where there really is a problem.

I tell members once again that there is not a public health problem with water in New Zealand. We have the best drinking-water in the world. Examples were cited before from the USA and goodness knows where, but there was not one example from New Zealand. That shows the flaws in this legislation. It shows that Labour’s thinking on health is flawed, full stop. With the problems we have in this country with providing elective surgery and getting people access to basic medical care, why are we spending parliamentary time and taxpayers’ money to try to solve a problem that does not really exist? Can the member for Otaki answer that question? He does not have an answer. Why would we bother to do that? What is more, it will cost $130,000 for providers to register for this regime. To me, that is just imposing another ridiculous cost that once again will be borne by the ratepayer.

In summary, National thinks this is an excessive answer to a problem that, frankly, does not exist. We think the Government should be concentrating on common-sense solutions to real problems, not imposing more compliance costs on councils and, ultimately, on ratepayers.

On behalf of New Zealand First, I rise to support the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill. It is an absolutely essential role of any Government to ensure there are safe and adequate drinking-water supplies for all New Zealanders. It is a public health issue. In fact, it is a requirement for any First World country, and here in New Zealand we like to think of ourselves as a First World country rather than as a Third World country. We believe that many New Zealanders believe that legislation is already in existence to ensure that all of our drinking water meets a required standard.

It is an unfortunate fact that here in New Zealand we have relatively high rates of largely preventable gastrointestinal disease compared with other countries. Although we are realistic and we realise that it is not all due to drinking water, a percentage can be attributed to contaminated drinking-water, and this occurs particularly in rural areas. Earlier we heard that school camps are a very good example of this. The current drinking-water legislation gives little effective protection or deterrence against a major outbreak of disease, particularly if the drinking water is contaminated. So New Zealand is faced with the need to review our strategy and improve it in this area.

We were surprised to find that at this point in time a largely voluntary regime governs the procurement of water from the environment, the actual storage of water, the assessment and treatment of water, and the distribution of that very same water to the consumer via pipes and tankers. Earlier speakers have already brought out the statistics. The voluntary scheme has resulted in 71 percent of the New Zealand population being served by water suppliers that comply with the E. coli criteria. A further 29 percent is served drinking water that is either not compliant or not known to be compliant. That, when we consider it, is almost a third. It affects rural communities, particularly those communities that National proclaims to be its constituency. We are very pleased to see that the bill requires drinking-water suppliers to take all the practicable steps they can to ensure we have an adequate supply of drinking water that complies with some standards.

Like many other New Zealanders, I live and holiday in a rural area where all of the community is dependent on tank water. Of course, in dry summers it is inevitable that the tanks run dry. We need water, so we have to purchase a tanker load of water. The taste, clarity, and smell of the water vary greatly from one load to another, and from one house to another house. Obviously, we are very dependent on the source and supplies available at the time to the tanker driver. We all wonder about the quality of the water we are purchasing, and, of course, as residents there is nothing we can do about the water if we do not like the taste or the smell, apart from hope that the rains are coming and that that will give the water an improved smell and taste that makes it far more pleasant to drink. One of the positive aspects of this bill is that there is a requirement for water carriers to be involved in developing guidelines, which will at some later date form part of these very water standards. In our area we cannot be sure of the cleaning processes or the cleaning products actually used by the various suppliers to clean the tankers that are delivering the drinking water to us. We believe that standardisation and compliance with a standard are essential. Perhaps we could then be sure about the quality of the drinking water we receive.

It is unrealistic to believe that totally accurate information would be available to estimate the likely costs of compliance around the various regions in New Zealand affected by the bill, as that depends to a large extent on the size of the operation as well as what it currently does. One would believe and hope that many of these businesses would already ensure that their water services and their water meet various quality standards, so the cost to those people may very well be minimal. After all, we are a First World country and we believe that safe, clean drinking-water is essential.

New Zealand First will be very keen to hear the views of various submitters on this bill, as clean drinking-water that we can all be totally confident about is a very important issue. I was very interested to read on the Ministry of Health website that water-borne disease is estimated to cost the New Zealand economy about $15 million per annum at present. New Zealand First has some concerns that this bill applies another role for local bodies to deal with, and that it will establish some expenditure priorities for them that they had not planned for at this point in time. Of course, at the end of the day it is ultimately the ratepayers who will be paying this cost. I have spoken to some ratepayers who are very satisfied that under this bill their drinking water will comply with water standards, and many of them are very keen to say this. As with other products that we eat, it is a reasonable expectation that we can have the records and the documentation that relate to compliance.

💬 Anne Tolley: Did you tell them how much their rates will go up?

I suggest that the National member who is continually calling out should look around her own electorate and find out some of the challenges that many of the rural areas have with water. Most of the non-compliant communities are very small. They are mostly communities of under 5,000 people that are rural and socio-economically disadvantaged already. A significant proportion of the people in these communities are Māori, and, as we said, these communities are widely distributed throughout New Zealand.

I am very aware too that a large number of rural schools will be affected by this legislation. The Ministry of Education will need to ensure that compliance occurs in these areas. Children need clean drinking-water, particularly if we are to encourage the message that water is the beverage of choice. If there is to be any action on the obesity challenges we face in New Zealand, then provision of a drink that is safe and wholesome is surely the very first step, and we should encourage children to drink water rather than the fizzy alternatives, which we all agree are not the most healthy.

We are very pleased to see that there is to be a staggered process for the implementation of the new standard. That will assist those communities greatly. The timetable is laid out very clearly in the bill, and will provide a very good guide for all of those communities affected. We note too that a drinking-water assistance programme is to run parallel to this legislation. That will assist these communities. We are very aware that clean drinking-water is an absolute requirement, and a strategy to ensure that it occurs is essential. We know that our drinking-water law is virtually unchanged from the UK public legislation of the 1870s, when water was untreated and sourced directly from unprotected streams and wells. All legislation needs to be updated to reflect the changing times we live in. The health and safety of people are paramount and we all need clean, safe, and wholesome drinking-water, so New Zealand First supports this bill.

The Green Party supports the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill, but we will listen very closely to submitters from around the country. Our basic position is that water is fundamental to our health and well-being and, as such, making water quality standards legally enforceable seems to be important. We think we do need more than a voluntary scheme to enforce water-quality standards, when they are fundamental to our health and well-being. We note that the bill, although not creating a strict liability offence for breaching standards, at least introduces a duty to take reasonable steps to supply water that meets the minimum standards.

One of the objectives of the bill is to ensure that all drinking-water suppliers have public health risk management plans. That seems to us to be perfectly reasonable and not too onerous. The aim is to ensure that drinking-water suppliers take all practicable steps to comply with the minimum drinking-water standards. That does not seem to us to be too onerous, either. We note that Local Government New Zealand generally supports a minimum standard for drinking-water quality, but is concerned that suppliers in small and rural communities could have difficulty in complying with the bill. That organisation basically says that the requirement that water suppliers take all practicable steps provides flexibility for small and rural suppliers, because a failure to comply with the drinking-water standards does not necessarily mean there is a failure to comply with the legislation. As Barbara Stewart mentioned, there is a timetable—it is a phased-in approach, there is an agreed process for remedying deficiencies, and so on and so forth. I think that all of those provisions seem perfectly reasonable.

Another thing we are particularly pleased about in this legislation is that it establishes a duty on suppliers to provide an adequate supply of drinking water. We think that is very important. It is a provision that has never existed before, and, as I have said, water is fundamental to our health and well-being. Of course, as we continue to pollute and exploit our natural resources, and as we face potential threats to water security—such as climate change—it is important that all New Zealanders have enough safe water to drink, wash with, and prepare food with, and that that right be protected. So we are particularly pleased that it is being enshrined in legislation, and we think that is absolutely fundamental.

We will be interested to hear more about the suggestion that a reasonable step that a council could take may be to make submissions under the Resource Management Act or the Local Government Act 2002, or to contribute to the protection of a source of water by planting trees. We wonder what will happen if, having made those submissions and planted all those trees, the water is still substandard, or becomes substandard. Will it mean that some New Zealanders will be left without clean, safe water, because councils will be able to have the loophole of just making submissions and planting trees? We have some concerns about issues like those, and we will listen carefully to submitters on the bill.

We have another concern, which is about the ability of the Minister to use new section 69O of the principal Act to require fluoridation as a new water-quality standard. Under new section 69O, “Minister may issue, adopt, amend, or revoke drinking-water standards’’, which is inserted by clause 7, any matters relating to drinking water that may affect health may be specified. Until now, the decision on whether to fluoridate or mass-medicate our drinking-water supplies has been made by local government under provisions set out in Part 7 of the Local Government Act 2002. We have concerns that the provision in this bill could be used as a back-door national standard—as a way to override the decisions of local communities as to whether they want to fluoridate their water.

Barbara Stewart talked about fizzy drinks and the importance of trying to encourage people to drink water instead of such drinks. We think the way to tackle dental health in this country is through dental hygiene, through getting fizzy drinks out of schools, and by reducing the amount of sugar in people’s diets, not by fluoridating the water. Increasingly controversial and contradictory evidence is coming through about whether fluoridation actually works. Most of Europe does not have it. Are Europeans’ teeth worse than New Zealanders’? No, they are not. The Swiss did a major investigation of studies on fluoridation, and concluded there was no conclusive evidence that it works. So let us not rush into water fluoridation. Let us save the money from the water assistance fund and put it towards helping to improve the quality of our water, not towards mass-medicating us with fluoride.

The other issue we have talked about is how many people in New Zealand are being made ill by water. We have had a few little examples of that here and there. Someone said that $15 million a year is spent on water-quality diseases. Well, we are actually spending an estimated $70 million to $90 million on campylobacter, which is a serious epidemic in this country and makes 100,000 New Zealanders sick every year. What are we doing about that? Virtually nothing that I can see. Scientists estimate that at least 50,000 New Zealanders are becoming sick because of the chicken that they eat. What are we doing to clean up the slaughterhouses, to reduce the amount of contaminated chicken? Virtually nothing, as far as we can see.

We have known about the campylobacter problem for years, and we are doing virtually nothing about it. In fact, we are ignoring the Food Act, which states that we cannot sell contaminated food. We are selling contaminated chickens every single day—millions of them—and doing absolutely nothing about it. So I agree with some members who have said that maybe the priority is being given to water-borne diseases, when they pale into insignificance in comparison with other diseases such as campylobacter, which is a genuine epidemic—and a preventable epidemic—that we could do something about. We hope the Government will do something about it.

I have another little issue about water tanks. Will we find, as a result of these standards, that people cannot have water tanks, because they may not meet a particular standard? As water becomes more scarce, particularly in certain parts of New Zealand, I think we will need to encourage people to have water tanks. I would be concerned if the provisions of this bill effectively meant that people could not have water tanks in New Zealand.

So we do have quite a lot of concerns about this bill, particularly about the fluoridation issue and about some of the compliance issues that have been raised. But, overall, I think that nobody could sensibly argue that drinking-water standards should be voluntary. Surely, they are so fundamental to our health and well-being that we need to have basic minimum standards that we all have to comply with. It is not fair that some people in some parts of New Zealand have complying water supplies and others do not. We will be supporting the bill and will listen very, very carefully to any suggestions—in particular, from local government—with a very open mind. In general, we think there really is no alternative to regulation. We cannot have something as important as our water-quality standards be entirely reliant on a voluntary scheme.

Kia ora. Ko te katoa o taku kōrero i te reo Māori.

[Greetings to you. I shall give the whole of my speech in the Māori language.]

Tērā tētahi kōrero kua tukua mai mō Kapumanawawhiti o Ngāti Raukawa rāua ko Tuhourangi o Te Arawa, e pā ana ki te tino kai o te Māori, arā, ko te huahua. Mutu ana te hākari, arā, te huahua, te tuna, te ika, te kai moana, ka matewai a Tuhourangi, nā reira, ka whakaaetia. Hākoa te reka nui o te huahua, ka ora kē te tangata i te wai.

E te rangatira, me whai wai māori te tangata ka tika! Mai rā anō ka riro mā te tangata whenua ō tātou awa, ō tātou hōpua wai, ō tātou puna wai katoa hei tiaki. Nō reira, e tautoko kaha ana te Pāti Māori i wētahi huarahi kia māori ai te wai inu mō te tangata.

Kua kītea, he mea nui te wai māori, te wai inu, i roto i ngā kōrero, mai i te taenga mai o tauiwi. I mua atu i ngā tahae whenua, i noho ngā iwi i ō rātou pā. He pai ngā manga tuku atu i ngā waimate, me ngā waikura.

Ka tahae atu te whenua, ka heke te iwi ki ngā mānia, ki ngā wāhi kāhore e pai ana te manga tuku. Ka pāngia te tangata ki ngā momo māuiui.

Mai i tērā rautau ka toroa ngā kāinga Māori e Tā Māui Pōmare hei mātai i te wai inu, i te tuku para, i te paratūtae. Kāhore te iwi i aro atu ki āna kōrero. Nā tona mokopuna a Mīria, te kōrero mō te akiaki o tana kaumātua, kia āta mātai te iwi i wā rātou wai inu. Nā te titirohanga ki tona karu whakarahi i ohorere pai ai rātou, i te nui o ngā ngāngara i roto i te wai. Kātahi rātou ka aro ki āna kupu, e pā ana ki te koropupūtanga o te wai.

Nā reira, kua roa te kitea o te paru, i roto i te wai inu o Aotearoa. Ko te tūmanako, mā tēnei pire, e ngaro katoa ai wēnei āhuatanga.

I ngā tau kua pahure ake nei, he nui anō ngā momo paru e uru mai ana ki roto i te wai inu, pera i te manga tuku i ngā pāmu kararehe, ngā mōnehunehu i ngā māra kai nui, ngā mōnehunehu whakamate ngāngara, ngā wheketere puta noa, ngā ara waipuke e honohono ana i te wai māori me te wai paru, ngā ngongo kua hangā ki te matā, te whakaparu a ngā paihamu, me ngā manu i te wai tuanui.

Heoi ano, i te marama kua pahure nei, kua rongo anō te iwi o tō mātou rangatira, a Tariana, i te kino o te waipuke, i pā atu ki a Whangaehu rāua ko Waitōtara. Ka raruraru anō te wai inu o tōna iwi nā te mahi whakawatea whenua, kua horo te whenua me ngā puketai. Ko te mōrearea, ka uru atu te pungatara, te paratūtae me te paru ki roto i ngā puna wai. Ka whakatau te marae o Whangaehu kia hoko wai inu kia kore ai rātau e mate i te wai paru.

E hoa mā! Ehara i te mea ko te tangohanga o te wai, ko te rerenga rānei o te para ki roto i ngā awa i te take taiao noa iho, hākoa tōna whakahirahira. He take kaitiaki mō te tāngata whenua, he take oranga mō te iwi. E mea ana te pepeha: “E kore a Parawhenua e haere, ki te kore a Rakahore.” Me kī, he kupu whakarite a Parawhenua mō te wai, a Rakahore mō te kōhatu. Ko tōna wai ora, ko te whanaungatanga i roto i ngā mea katoa. Ko te whakapapa o te taiao, arā, ko ngā kararehe, ko ngā tupu, ko ngā maunga, ngā awa, ngā moana, ko te hau, ko ngā takutai he mea hono ki te tangata whenua. Nā reira ka tukuna iho e wā mātou tupuna te kaitiakitanga o ēnei taonga. Ā tōna wā ka riro mā ngā uri whakatupu.

I roto i te kerēme e pā ana ki te awa o Whanganui, ka whakatauritea te awa ki te rerenga toto matua o *Te Āti Haunui-ā-Pāpārangi, he mauri o ngā mea katoa e hono ana ki te awa. Kāhore tō mātou mātauranga i whakaae ki te whakawehetanga o ngā awa ki ngā papa awa, ngā ara wai, ngā puketai, ngā wāhi kia ngaua e te tai, me ngā wāhi horekau he tai.

Ko te whakatau a te Taraipiunara o Waitangi, he taonga tuku iho te awa. He whanaungatanga tōna ki tōna iwi. Koia rā ko tōna ōranga, tōna mauri, tōna whatumanawa hoki. E mea ana te pūrongo a te taraipiunara mō te awa o Mōhaka, he taonga anō te awa nō Ngāti Pāhauwera i te wā o te hainatanga o te Tiriti, ā, haere tonu nei. Ka pērā tonu te whakatau a te Taraipiunara o Waitangi mō Pouākani. He taonga te awa o Waikato nō te waka o Tainui, me Ngāti Tūwharetoa. No reira, he take anō mō te pire wai inu nei, i tua atu i te ārai i ngā mōrearea hauora nei, arā, ko te manaaki, te tiaki, te atawhai i tēnei taonga tuku iho.

He take whitawhita tēnei. I te tau 2003, tata atu i te tahi miriona ngā tāngata i whakawhiwhia ki te wai inu, kāhore i eke ki ngā taumata e tika ana. Tini ana ngā wā, kāhore ngā kaiwhakarato i whai i ngā tikanga tiaki i te wai, kāhore hoki rātou, i āta aro matawai anō hoki. He whatinga tikanga kino atu tēnei, hei whai ake. I te tau 2002, i mea atu Te Kaunihera ā-Rohe o Te Taitokerau nā te mahi hanga i te whare herehere i Ngāwhā, i piki ai ngā taumata o te konuoi—ara, ko te mercury tērā—ka kitea i roto i te awa o Ngāwhā. Ka rere atu tēnei wai ki te awa o Waiāruhe, ki Waitangi rā anō. Koia rā te wāhi ka tīkina atu te wai inu mō ngā tāngata o Paihia me Waitangi. E mea ana te rīpoata, kua eke nui atu ngā taumata konuoi ki te taumata tika. Mai anō i te marama o Pipiri he nui te ua, ā, ka piki haere te wai i runga i te papa. Mā tēnā, ka nui atu te rerenga o te wai me te konuoi mai i ngā wāhi hanga, ā, he nui atu te paruparu. Koianei te pūtake o ngā ohotata hauora e pā ana ki te wai inu e kōrerohia nei i roto i te pire nei.

Hāunga ana ko ngā āhuātanga kua kōrerohia nei, ka hoki anō ki a au ki Te Tai Tokerau ki tētahi atu tauira e whakaatu mai ana, he ōranga, he rongoā mō tātou. Hākoa te aha, ka para te awa i tōna ara. Pērā anō hoki mō tātou te tangata. Me tirohia e tātou ki tō tātou ake mātauranga kia kitea ai te rongoā mō tēnei raruraru. Ko tētahi mahi rangahau i Hokianga, ka hāngai ki te wai inu pai mō ngā marae me ngā papa kāinga e rua. A muri atu i nga waipuke kino i Hokianga i te tau 1999 ka kākari mai te iwi kia kimihia te wai māori mō ngā papakāinga me ngā marae. Nā ngā waipuke i eke ai te take nei ki tōna wehitanga. Ko te māharahara ko te urutanga o te paru ki ngā marae, kua tū hei wāhi noho mō ngā whānau i whakarere i ō rātou kāinga. Ka hui tahi ngā hapū me te ratonga hauora a Hauora Hokianga ki te whakamātau i tētahi whakahaere e kiia nei ko Ngā Puna Wai o Hokianga.

Kua hua mai he wai inu māori mō te hāpori o Hokianga, ka ahu mai i ngā pūnaha wai. Ka whakatūngia ngā pūnaha nei ka riro mā te hau kāinga anō e whakahaere. Kua whakahekea rawatia, te tūponotanga ka paru te wai inu. Ka riro ki te hau kāinga te kaitiakitanga o te wai inu. Ka mutu, inā tōna whakahirahira, ka whakawhiwhia ki a rātou, te tohu mō te tūranga tuarua o roto i ngā kaitono tata atu ki te 2003 o ngā Tohu Hauora o Aotearoa.

Tautoko kaha ana te Pāti Māori kia whakarite he taumata wai inu hei eke, hei whakapūmau hoki mā ngā ratonga wai e kauparehia atu ai ngā tini wero ki tō tātou wai inu. Kua kitea i te mahi a Ngā Puna Wai o Hokianga, e taea ana ngā taumata te eke, mena e tū ana te tangata whenua hei kaitiaki mō tōna wai. Mā te mahi ngātahi me ngā ratonga o te rohe e puta ai ngā hua. He tohu ora tēnei hei tautoko mā te Pāremata i a tātou, ka rapu i ngā huarahi e pai ai te wai inu, e māori ai te wai inu, ā, haere ake nei.

Nō reira e te Whare, e te rangatira, tēnā koutou, kia ora tātou katoa.

[An interpretation in English was given to the House.]

[In our tribal history, we have a story passed down that recalls a challenge between Kapumanawawhiti of Ngāti Raukawa, and Tuhourangi of Te Arawa. The debate was over whether huahua, preserved birds, were really the greatest delicacy available to Maori. After a hākari of legendary proportions—of huahua, eel, fish, and shellfish, Tuhourangi was allegedly desperate for water, so an agreement was reached: whilst huahua are indeed delectable, it is water that will ensure our survival.

The right to clean, safe water is a fundamental human right. In a tangata whenua context, the strong cultural, traditional, and historic links that we have with our wetlands and island waterways are seen as intrinsic to our responsibilities as tangata tiaki. Therefore, any move to ensure the provision of adequate supplies of safe and wholesome drinking water from drinking-water supplies is strongly commended by the Māori Party.

The importance of wai māori, fresh drinking-water, to be used for everyday purposes, has been a feature of our recent history in Aotearoa, post-settlement. Prior to land confiscation, iwi traditionally lived on hill-placed pā sites. These sites had good drainage, especially in regard to effluent, which meant that waimate, or waikura, water that is stagnant or polluted, flowed away from living areas.

With land alienation, however, our people were forced to live on flat land, in closer proximity and frequently without proper sanitation. Such factors inevitably resulted in their drinking polluted water, which spread disease.

At the turn of last century, as a health officer, Sir Māui Pōmare regularly visited Māori villages, often travelling miles on foot to inspect the water supply, rubbish disposal, and sanitary arrangements. His efforts to convince people not to drink water before boiling it first, or sieving it, did not always make him popular. His grand-daughter, Miria Pōmare, described how at one marae the people made a spectacular discovery, when he urged them to bring a bucket of water, and look through his microscope at its contents. “They were horrified at these little bully-headed bugs that were prevalent in the water they were drinking. He was then able to show them that they had to boil the water—and that turned them around.”, she said.

So the existence of contaminated or polluted drinking-water has a long history in Aotearoa—a history we are hoping this bill will change forever.

More recently, threats to safe, clean drinking-water have come about from a host of new pressures, such as agricultural run-off, horticultural sprays, pest eradication sprays, industry, stormwater mixing with drinking water due to flooding, and lead water pipes, possums, and birds contaminating roof water.

And indeed, just last month, our colleague Tariana Turia can vouch for the impact of flooding, again, at Whangaehu and Waitōtara, in which risks to the provision of adequate drinking-water were again presented. The clearing of the land has led, inevitably, to the erosion of hillsides. The risk of contamination from sulphur, sewage, and mud, all combine to create life-threatening damage to water supply. So Whangaehu Marae has made the decision to purchase water supplies for drinking, rather than to risk well-being.

It is important to note here that the extraction of water, or the introduction of waste into rivers and streams as above, is not just a matter of physical degradation, of ecological compromise—although these are significant enough. For tangata whenua, it is also highly offensive in a cultural sense. There is a pepeha that demonstrates this meaning: “E kore a Parawhenua e haere, ki te kore a Rakahore.” Literally, Parawhenua—the personification of water—would not flow if it were not for Rakahore—the rock. All things are connected. The whakapapa of the natural world—animals, plants, mountains, rivers, lakes, air, coasts—is linked to that of tangata whenua. As such, we have an ancestral obligation to ensure that these taonga are protected and managed when passed on to the next generation.

In the Whanganui River claim, the river is described as the aortic artery, the central bloodline of the one heart of Te Āti Haunui-ā-Pāpārangi, the life source of all things connected to the river. It is incompatible with our knowledge to divide the river into constituent parts of river flats, tributaries, riverbed, banks, and tidal and non-tidal areas.

The Waitangi Tribunal ruled further, that a river is a taonga handed down as an ancestral treasure and a living entity whose relationship with the people had been sanctioned by antiquity and ancestral beings. The tribunal’s report for the Mōhaka River stated that the river was also a taonga of Ngāti Pāhauwera when the Treaty was signed, and still remained so. The ruling by the tribunal for Pouākani was similar. The Waikato River is a treasure as well for the Tainui canoe and for Ngāti Tūwharetoa also. As such, the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill is vital not just to prevent public health risks, but also to protect and preserve the respect for our taonga tūturu.

The urgency for action has never been more apparent. In 2003, about 1.1 million New Zealanders were supplied with drinking water that failed to comply with current standards. Many of these causes for non-compliance rested on a failure by suppliers to take proper action, including monitoring. Some breaches are more perverse. A couple of years ago, in 2002, Northland Regional Council announced that construction work on the prison site at Ngāwhā was increasing the levels of mercury in the Ngāwhā Stream. It runs into the Waiāruhe River, then into the Waitangi River—the place where the people of Paihia and Waitangi get their water. The report states that mercury levels have increased. Since June, heavy rainfall has caused flooding and increased mercury contamination. This is exactly the nature of public health emergencies relating to drinking water that we envisage dealt with in this bill.

Against all this reckless risk, and adverse effects, I turn to the north also, for another case that demonstrates there is always hope in terms of solutions that our people are looking at, to ensure our better well-being. For just as the river is always able to force a path through, so, too, tangata whenua have looked to their own resources, to resolve what may seem intangible problems such as water pollution.

The Hokianga project involved safe drinking-water for marae and two communities. Following the floods that devastated the north and south Hokianga communities in 1999, there was an urgent need to ensure safe drinking-water supplies for the small, marae-based communities. The floods brought the issue of the already declining water quality to a head, with particular concern for dangerous contamination by faecal material for marae, which had become the living quarters for families displaced by the landslides. Participating hapū and members from local health provider, Hauora Hokianga, helped to trial the community development model, called Ngā Puna Wai o Hokianga.

The upshot of the project was that the Hokianga communities now have safe water supplies, using non-chemical treatment systems. Once installed, the drinking-water treatment plants are maintained by the communities themselves. The risk from contaminated drinking supplies has been reduced, and the communities took on ownership of how to maintain acceptable levels of water quality. In fact, so successful was the project that it won the “highly commended” award—second out of nearly 200 entrants—at the 2003 New Zealand * Health Innovation Awards.

The Māori Party absolutely agrees that standards are required, and need to be enforced, given the numerous sources of threats to clean drinking-water that we have but touched on today. The experience in the Ngā Puna Wai o Hokianga project exemplifies the solid progress that can be achieved when tangata whenua are able to assume their rightful roles as tangata tiaki of water, and resourced to provide co-management with local authorities. These are positive achievements that we can only hope this Parliament will endorse, in thinking creatively about solutions to ensure a sustainable, safe water supply.

Therefore, to the House, to the Assistant Speaker, greetings, greetings to you all.]

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

I stand to support the first reading of the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill on behalf of United Future. One of the interesting contexts I have found myself in was that shortly after I came to Parliament in 2002 I had an amazing opportunity to go to Viet Nam to represent New Zealand at a parliamentary population and development conference, the subject of which was water. For me it was the first time I had ever really thought about water as a problem. In New Zealand we have always seen ourselves as having water in abundance. We enjoy our clean, green image and think we are kind of all right. When we go into an overseas context we discover the very real problems that millions and millions of people face regarding poor drinking-water quality.

However, when I came back to New Zealand with, I guess, my senses heightened around the subject, I discovered that all was not clean and green in New Zealand and, unless we start to take serious stock of the way we manage our water resources, we may find ourselves with some real problems in the future. One of the very interesting comments made on this matter when I was in Viet Nam was a prediction that, in decades to come, world wars will not be over oil but water. That was quite a scary and sobering thought.

United Future has been concerned for some time about the overall issue of water quality in New Zealand. In fact, as part of our supply and confidence agreement with the Labour-led Government, we have received assurances that we will be looking significantly at ways of improving water quality in New Zealand in every sense. One of the things I discovered, much to my horror, was that we now have very few rivers and lakes where we are encouraged to swim. The pollution levels are such that signs are up on increasing numbers of rivers—even some of the rivers here in the Wellington region—in which people were previously able to swim only a few years ago and in which swimming is not now recommended. We think that is an appalling state for a country that prides itself on its clean, green image. We are not doing as well as we would like to believe. Of course, absolutely basic to this is the water we drink. One cannot have anything more essential as a human need than fresh, clean water to drink and, therefore, we are very keen to see this bill looked at in a select committee.

I remember a briefing we had recently from Ministry of Health officials at a committee I was on, where they explained to us how officials respond to health difficulties as they arise. They simplified it for us by saying that there are three ways we can respond. The first option is we can ignore it—which almost seems to be what the National Party is saying. The second option is we can educate, and historically I think that is what we have done with people who have been serving up water that is not of a high quality. We tell people to boil it and we talk about water purifiers, and that has been our response. But the third thing, of course, is to regulate and start to bring in some realities around what needs to happen.

The National Party is a party that boasts a sizable number of health professionals in its caucus, and I think that should have been a real strength, so I am a little disappointed that those members have taken such an oppositional position from day one on this bill. I think that is sad. I am also concerned that National members kind of accept that it is more of a rural problem, and it is small, isolated communities that have to struggle to maintain or even to have good water quality. Those people are their constituents. They are the people whom they rely on to vote for them. It feels to me as if they are saying to those people: “Please vote for us, but do not forget to boil your drinking water and buy a water filter when you are in town.” I think there is something inconsistent there that those members need to consider in this matter.

This bill has some really interesting provisions, and I pick up on what Sue Kedgley from the Greens said, because I think she made a very good point. She talked about the Greens’ concern about whether the Minister could use some of the powers suggested in this bill to, for instance, roll out across the country fluoridated water. Currently, communities can make that decision for themselves, and that is a good idea. United Future members support the right of communities to vote on that issue for themselves and we would hate to see that right removed from them. So there are some things in this bill that we would like to seek clarity about and we would like to see what comes up, certainly during the submission process at the select committee, but we are very keen to see this bill progress.

The other thing that concerns me about some of the speeches from the Opposition on this bill was that those members talked about the fact that something like 71 percent of the New Zealand population is served by water that complies—right now—with New Zealand drinking water standards. National members have said that so many people are not affected by this matter, and asked why we are worrying about it. They talked about this bill being a heavy implement to correct a small problem. Well, that “small problem” is—as I think the member from New Zealand First has suggested—that nearly one-third of New Zealanders do not currently have access to water that officials can guarantee meets the New Zealand drinking-water standards. It is one-third of New Zealanders who we cannot say with surety will not be prone to some sort of infection or intestinal disease as a result of drinking dirty water.

We also need to understand that although most of us think of the result of drinking dirty water being little tummy upsets and a mild bout of vomiting and diarrhoea, the truth is that—and I think the Minister of Health himself talked about this—there are some very serious health consequences where people actually end up with renal failure and permanent disability as a result of some of the types of diseases that can be picked up from water. And they are not diseases that we hear about from just overseas; they are potential conditions and diseases that people within New Zealand right now have hanging over them. I think it would be irresponsible for any of us not to send this bill to select committee, and we should be looking very seriously at this bill. This is a foundational issue.

The worry that has been expressed about the pressure this legislation will put on local government is, I think, something that we may need to consider in light of some of the other issues that central government has successively dumped on local government, such as zoning for prostitution and all the related local by-laws and compliance that are to be dumped on local government. We took the step of dumping those kinds of issues on to local government authorities when really those authorities are the best people to be managing water quality because they are looking after and overseeing the water resources in their own communities. They are the best people, and it is affordable if we do not continually require local government authorities to do a whole host of other things. They are kind of morphing over time with a huge and hideous list of expectations that central government has devolved down to them—and yes, rates are going up.

But it seems sad to me that we then have to get tetchy about this hugely important local responsibility of drinking water quality, and say that we cannot afford to have local government and local councils take control of this very vital service of water quality because it will cost too much. I think we need to be really disturbed about that kind of thinking, because it is such an essential thing for our health.

United Future is very happy to support the first reading of this bill. We are aware that the Government is prepared to put in substantial amounts—and the amount I have in front of me is $136.9 million that the Government has tagged to implement this policy. It is not a quick process; the Government is talking about a 6-year phase-in period that will hit, first of all, those areas that currently have a very good system of voluntary compliance around the New Zealand water standard. These councils and regions are virtually already there; they are already over the line. For them to comply requires little over a year and they will be up to speed because they are virtually there already. But a much more generous time frame is being put around those communities that we are the most concerned about currently. They will not be expected to come up to spec overnight. There is a 6-year phase-in, which I think is a very sensible thing, and I am really interested in some of the regulations being proposed to come off the back of this bill. We are very happy to support it at this first reading.

I say to my colleagues that I stand to speak against the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill. On the face of it, it seems quite a commendable and laudable bill. By way of legislation, it seeks to ensure that all drinking water is safe and of a high standard, and I certainly agree with previous speakers that water is essential to life. But I stand to oppose this bill and I will explain why. I consider it is unnecessary, it is overly bureaucratic, and it is an example of over-regulation and of this Government’s attempt to try to fix things that are not broken to begin with.

It is an example of micro-management to the nth degree, and of the Government’s fixation with trying to make one-size-fits-all policies.

Why do we need this bill? I have asked myself some questions. Have we had a major outbreak of water-spread diseases? Certainly, the Minister when he spoke to the bill before the dinner break mentioned examples of international outbreaks of gastroenteritis, but as members with some medical background will know, a lot of gastroenteritis is due to food-borne disease, not water-borne disease. The two do need to be differentiated. Has New Zealand had an outbreak of cholera or typhoid that I had not known about? Does evidence exist that what we are doing now is not working? Does any evidence exist that the voluntary standards we have in place should be compulsory?

I have really struggled to find that evidence and therefore to see the need for this legislation. I got information from the Parliamentary Library, and I think the Hon Mark Gosche got the same information. Depending on how one looks at the information the glass is half full or half empty; it depends on how one perceives it. I had to go back over 20 years to find an outbreak of any significance in this country. In 1984 over 3,000 people in Queenstown became sick because of contaminated drinking water. That is over 22 years ago. Otherwise it looks as though the outbreaks have been fairly scattered and infrequent: 61 cases of campylobacter at a school camp in Christchurch in 1997, another 67 cases of campylobacter at Wainui in 1997, some other cases at a college in 2001, viral gastroenteritis cases at a ski field—that usually is food borne, not necessarily water borne—and another lot of cases at a school camp, and so on.

When we look through those cases we see quite clearly that we are not dealing with large urban areas with large populations. These are possibly rural communities and certainly school camps, which are not generally located in large cities with large populations. A person hearing that list of examples of outbreaks in New Zealand would make the assessment, when adding up the number of people who had been affected, that maybe 500 or fewer over the last 10 years—0.01 percent of the population—had somehow been affected by these outbreaks. And these are mainly in small towns and non-urban areas. A person listening to those figures would probably quite rightly infer that the larger the water supplier—and that is usually in urban situations—the better the management and monitoring systems in place.

Therefore the situations that seem more risky are the smaller populations and the rural areas. We have to ask what this bill does about these areas that are at greater risk of possible water-borne disease—the small towns and rural areas. I looked at the bill to see what it does for these small population areas, and it seemed very contradictory and quite confusing. The bill will ensure “that all drinking-water suppliers (other than small and very small drinking-water suppliers and water carriers) introduce and implement public health risk management plans:” I will say it another way. That means that small, and very small, drinking water suppliers do not have to introduce and implement public health risk management plans. That seems quite bizarre when we have evidence to the contrary. It is the small towns that are at risk, but they do not have to implement a public health risk management plan. That is totally bizarre.

The other thing in the bill that seems quite confusing, apart from these suppliers not having to comply with public health management plans, is a huge differentiation in the timetable for compliance. The explanatory note of the bill states: “The timetable for compliance with the Bill is proposed to follow a staggered process whereby … new drinking water suppliers would have to comply from the date of commencement.” That is fair enough. But for pre-existing water suppliers there is huge variation. For instance, the large water suppliers that serve populations of over 10,000 have to comply within a year—these are the big groups. We also know that they are associated with very little risk, but they have to comply quite quickly, within a year. The medium drinking-water suppliers, serving between 5,000 and 10,000 people, would have to comply within 2 years. And the minor suppliers, serving between 500 and 5,000 people, would have 3 years to comply. But I ask my colleagues to listen to this. The small suppliers, serving 100 to 500 people, would have 4 years, and the very small suppliers, serving 25 to 100, would have 5 years to comply. So these little groups, which we know are at the most risk, do not have to comply with a public health management plan and have up to 5 years to comply with the bill. It makes no sense. These are the groups that are at risk.

It is very confusing. If there is a real concern about the safety of New Zealanders’ health from water-borne disease, then rather than use a sledgehammer approach and legislate one-size-fits-all policy it would be much better to take a targeted approach. One would think from this bill that New Zealand’s water standards were in a dreadful state, and that is absolutely incorrect. New Zealand has excellent standards for drinking water. New Zealand has been an active participant at the World Health Organization in developing strategies to deal with the issue of water standards and safety. Indeed, the World Health Organization standards are reflected in New Zealand’s excellent technical drinking-water safety standards. I went to the Ministry of Health website and read a bit of a preamble to, I think, 180 pages on New Zealand’s drinking water safety standards. In that preamble a Dr Michael Taylor, who is a public health senior adviser, is quoted: “Most New Zealanders now have access to safe drinking-water, because the larger suppliers are almost all entirely satisfactory …”. Even he agrees that the majority are entirely satisfactory. He goes on: “However, some communities, particularly small rural ones, do not have access to drinking water of sufficient quality, while others receive drinking water that is either inadequately monitored or not monitored at all.” So here we have an expert stating the obvious: the large suppliers are fine; it is the smaller ones that need to be watched.

That is exactly my point. Surely, a more targeted approach would be much better than this all-encompassing one. And why do we need a legislative answer when targeted education of those suppliers and communities would be far more likely to get the same result, but without the compliance costs and the over-regulation that this bill would bring—not to mention the cost to the taxpayer through local government costs going up?

This bill concerns me because it will create an industry and more compliance costs through that. It requires “drinking-water assessors appointed by the Director-General of Health to engage in compliance verification of drinking-water suppliers and their supplies”—what a mouthful! Also: “(in terms of the Act drinking-water assessors will be accredited to internationally accepted standards for inspection bodies to perform their functions):”. An industry is being created. We will have drinking water assessors, all accredited, running all over New Zealand ensuring that the 2,222 registered drinking water distribution zones are complying. But there is more. Suppliers must take “all practical steps” to comply with the standards. The drinking water assessor will be the final arbiter as to whether all practical steps have been taken, will have no accountability to the community for costs or consequences, and will make judgments on trade-offs between risks, consequences, and costs. So we can see the picture. We will have some bossy, power-hungry accredited water assessors running all over New Zealand checking out the 2,000 water suppliers and making subjective decisions on whether a supplier has taken all the steps possible, and the assessor’s decision will be final.

Many small water suppliers provide almost a community service to local communities. One would not blame them if they pulled out and said that it was not worth it. And what would happen then? The onus would be on the local authorities, with more compliance costs and more business costs, and the taxpayers would suffer. Surely a targeted, more educative approach would result in better responses, better attitudes, and better outcomes. In summary I oppose this bill for those very reasons.