Urgent Debates — Drinking-water Contamination—Havelock North

I have received a letter from the Hon Annette King seeking to debate, under Standing Order 389, the drinking-water contamination in Havelock North. This is a particular case of recent occurrence. Local authorities supply most drinking water in New Zealand. However, the Ministry of Health is responsible for legislation on drinking-water standards and will be involved in the inquiry into the situation in Havelock North. There is ministerial responsibility in this matter.

New Zealanders, rightfully, expect to have safe drinking-water available. The situation in Havelock North is a serious one. A debate is required. I call on the Hon Annette King to move that the House take note of an urgent matter of public importance.

I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. I opened the newspaper this morning and read the editorial in the New Zealand Herald, and it started like this: “How could a thousand people fall ill anywhere in New Zealand from drinking tap water?”. How could that happen in a First World country? This is a question for the Hastings District Council. It needs to answer it.

Also, there is an answer that should have been given in this House today, and I am surprised that the Acting Minister of Health, the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga, did not take the opportunity to stand in this House and make a ministerial statement about what is happening for the people of Havelock North. I waited. I thought the Minister would take the issue seriously enough that he would have stood and made a ministerial statement. That would have put into perspective what is happening. He could have set out what the Ministry of Health is doing. He could have set out what the district council and the regional council were undertaking. He could have set out the time lines of what has gone on. There was not a word from the Acting Minister, and I am very disappointed because it showed that this issue was not important enough to this Government for it to take it seriously.

This bug that has been found in the water supply in Havelock North is being felt in schools. Schools have been closed. It has been felt in rest homes, and we have had two of the three rest homes report cases. Two residents have been taken into intensive care and one older person from one of those rest homes has died. How could this happen in a municipal area of New Zealand, where we believe we have First World water supply?

So I think there are a number of questions that need to be asked and answers given. More than 2,000 people are now seriously ill from the gastro bug campylobacter. There must be an inquiry into how this has happened. I am told there is going to be one, but why did the Minister not stand today and say what the inquiry was and what the terms of reference are? There is no leadership on this issue. Two thousand people—when in the history of New Zealand have we had 2,000 New Zealanders go down with campylobacter in one hit? I have never heard of it. This is a large-scale health crisis and it does need urgent investigation by the Government. I have to say that the local member has been missing in action on this issue—missing in action.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: That’s untrue.

It is absolutely true. He is missing in action. He has not said anything. I heard Nick Smith this morning asked, as an afterthought question, on Morning Report—not with the Minister on, talking about what happened, and not with the local member on the radio talking about what was happening in his area.

This particular bug can incubate for up to 10 days, so it is likely that more people will get sick over the forthcoming days. As I said, the schools are closed and 22 people are in hospital—22 people in hospital—and, as I said, two are in intensive care. New Zealanders need to be confident about their drinking water. I think the lack of Government response today, when the outbreak is well under way and the public attention is on an all-time high about this issue, shows just how seriously the Government has taken it—hoping that by ignoring it, it will go away. The Government does not understand that this is not going to go away for days. There are going to be more people ill over the next few days.

The Government has a responsibility in this debate. It has a responsibility in administering drinking-water quality in New Zealand, and it is the responsibility of the Government and the Ministry of Health to make sure that the district health board oversees the quality of water. What has been very disappointing in this whole issue is just how slow the reaction has been by the Government, first of all, to assist the council—to assist the local council in Hawke’s Bay—but also to assist the district health board, which is not equipped and not resourced for dealing with an outbreak of this size.

This is clearly an issue with the way that testing has been conducted. By the time a press release was issued on Friday evening—Friday evening—the outbreak was already spreading. So it took until Friday evening for a press release to be released. I am informed that this outbreak was known about much earlier than that, but the public were not advised. If the local member knew and the Minister knew, where was their leadership on this issue? Where were they when it came to this issue? Only today is an outreach programme going door to door, knocking on people’s doors—only today, 4 days after the positive test result, it is being implemented for vulnerable elderly citizens. So now officials have decided to go door to door, days after the event, when many people have been affected—filling up their glasses, having a drink of water, not knowing they were drinking contaminated water. The Red Cross and civil defence are being involved only now, Minister Smith, Minister for the Environment. They are being involved only now. Why have we waited so long? Why has this Government ignored—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Not true.

The Minister has a habit, I have to say, of saying: “Not true.” He spent the entire day saying “Not true.”, on every question that was asked of him. I can tell him that this is true. The Red Cross and civil defence are being involved only now. That is correct. Water tankers arrived only yesterday—dispute that, Minister. Water tankers arrived yesterday, when a boil-water notice was issued on Friday evening. This shows a real dereliction of duty.

💬 Andrew Little: Cavalier.

It is very cavalier, in terms of the approach towards the health of vulnerable New Zealanders, because this particular bug affects older people. Our old grannies and grandads, our older parents—they are the ones who are affected, and that is why you have the elderly from rest homes affected. One has died and others are in intensive care. This is a disgrace—this Government’s reaction to a serious issue.

But I have to say that this Government has taken a completely hands-off approach when it comes to the quality of drinking water around New Zealand. Last year the Government cut the drinking-water subsidy. In fact, in many of our small towns, where many of our water supplies are not up to standard, the Government cut the money that was going to them—money that we put in in Government under Helen Clark, which helped many small communities upgrade their water supply so that they had a decent water standard. This Government is so lacking in interest in the quality of water, a No. 1 public health issue—is there one product in the world that keeps us alive? It is water. And having quality water must be a gold standard for any First World country.

Well, the Government cut the subsidy, and last year only $10 million was available to councils around New Zealand and they had 40 applications received for over $30 million. That is the level of need around New Zealand in our smaller communities. If you cannot care about your smaller communities when it comes to the quality of water, you are not going to care a damn about the bigger ones. They are on their own. That is what the reaction of this Government has been to Havelock North. It is on its own because the reaction has been so slow.

I want to point out to you the background of what was happening here, and I go back to Tuesday, 9 August. The Havelock supply was tested and found to be clear, but residents report that they were starting to fall ill at that time. On Thursday the 11th the test was taken. The test results were received on Friday the 12th, which indicated a presence. On Friday the 12th, the results of the second test were received at the same time as discussions were beginning with the district health board over the pattern of illness that was starting to emerge. Chlorination had been initiated by late Friday. So we are starting with people beginning to become unwell on Tuesday, and some action starting to happen on Friday evening. That is when the district council, at 5.30 in the evening, issued a boil-water communication. That was the first time it did it, and it was done with a press release.

I have to say, I wonder how many people sitting at home went online to read the press release of the Hastings District Council. How many older people saw on television that they needed to be boiling their water? As I said a moment ago, officials did not start knocking on doors until now. Those days have gone by, and that bug has spread amongst many, many of those people living in Havelock North—unadvised—not knowing that what they were doing was affecting their health. Then, on Saturday, 13 August, the positive presence was confirmed by a more detailed analysis. On Monday, it was revealed that over the past 3 years—the past 3 years—there have been three positive tests for the Brookvale bore No. 3—three positive tests. The aquifer obviously has some sort of problem, and so putting down a bore into the same aquifer is probably going to have the same results.

You would have thought that officials may well have looked at this much earlier. The council said that the level of contamination was very low and it has chlorinated the water, but that has not stopped the spread. The actions it has taken have been insufficient. I wonder whether the council has sought advice from others who supply water, to see whether there are other things that could be done.

I thought that Stuart Nash came up with a very good idea yesterday, when he said that perhaps those who are taking free water to export internationally would now like to provide the bottled water to the people of Havelock North. Why should they be paying for bottled water when, through their rates, they pay for what they think is going to be clean drinking-water? Why should it be a cost on them? They pay their rates to get good, clean drinking-water. So I say to the Government, how about putting your hand up and saying that there will be help for those people who are buying bottled water? I say to the Government, how about showing some leadership?

How about Sam Lotu-Iiga, who is the Acting Minister of Health, who always finds it difficult to give an answer on anything—why does he not take a lead? The Minister of Health might not be able to. He has got other matters that are far more important, but this Minister ought to have taken a lead. I did not know whether he was stopped from taking a lead, or whether he was told: “Keep it below the radar—we don’t want to get involved here.” If that is the case, then the Government has misread the circumstances in Havelock North.

I say to the local member, where is the member’s leadership? Has the member been and visited those communities? Has he gone and knocked on doors himself, asking people whether they are OK? Has he visited the rest homes to see whether the people there are all right? I would say that if the member has not done that, that is not the sign of a good local member. I have to say to that member that drinking water—quality drinking-water—ought to have been a priority for this Government.

I think it is a shame on this Government that we came into this House today, waiting for some indication that it meant something to the Government and to the very good people of Havelock North, but we got no response at all. I think that is a very poor performance, but I am not surprised. I am not at all surprised because I have found that public health has not been a priority for this Government. Whether it is drinking water, whether it is a subsidy for sewerage, or whether it is in terms of putting funding in to try to improve the health of New Zealanders and to lift their health status, it has not been a priority.

💬 Hon Member: They’ve done the opposite.

The Government has done the opposite. It has cut funding to public health in New Zealand. Government members called any action that we took in public health nanny State and PC Government—only to be proven years later that it was wrong—and we now face some major public health issues in this country that they do not want to face. This is the latest example of poor Government decision-making, a lack of accountability, and a lack of leadership.

It is a sad time to stand up here in the House, but it is important to show concern and not play politics like that member opposite, Annette King, who time and time again comes into this House to play politics with the lives of New Zealanders.

We know that there are 12,000 people in Havelock North who are going through some serious health concerns. We know that 2,000 of them have been affected directly by this contamination in the water system. We know that the Hastings District Council is doing its best to address this matter, and that the district health board, as well as the Ministry of Health and other Government agencies, is doing its best to support what is going on in Havelock North today.

But now is not the time for recriminations. Now is not the time to point the finger. Now is the time to say “What can we do to assist those who need help, who need healthcare services, who need assistance with their ailments?”, and that is what is being done in Hawke’s Bay today. We know that this time last week, routine water-monitoring occurred in Havelock North, and that on Thursday of last week, samples were taken by the Hastings District Council from Havelock North and the Flaxmere area, and the results of those showed some contamination in the reticulation. We also know that by Friday the council had confirmed the contamination and made the public health unit in the district health board aware, and that on that day it chlorinated the water and issued notices around boiling water. We know that since then, 2,000 local residents have, sadly, been afflicted, and it is our imperative—this Government—to work alongside the district health board and to work alongside the health authorities in the area to get those people right.

I find it interesting that the member opposite, Annette King, comes in here and plays politics with this. If she really thought that it was important, why did she not ask a question during question time today? Why not? Why did members opposite not raise a question in question time today that outlined their concerns about this matter? Why have they not issued a press statement around this? Why have they not asked a question?

It is about providing support, and I have been in several conversations with the Mayor of Hastings informing me and informing the Government of progress in the area. I have also had conversations with the local member—that is, the Hon Craig Foss—who is working hard in the area, listening to constituents and doing the best that he can locally in terms of providing the services that they need. Over the weekend, public information was released by the Hastings District Council, and, as the member opposite has said, there is doorknocking going on in order to find those members of the community who need health services. Only today have the latest tests been released in terms of the contamination, and the district health board is overseeing the resources in the area. I understand that district health nurses have been brought in from other areas. Schools have been closed as a precaution, and kids are at home. We know that there is much to be done in the days ahead in terms of what the local district council and the district health board need to do in terms of the chlorination, as well as the treatment, of the local water plant.

Mention has been made of an inquiry. Certainly, the Hasting District Council has indicated that an independent inquiry will be done and that, potentially, a retired High Court judge may be seconded in to oversee that inquiry. Firstly, the Ministry of Health has assured me that it will work alongside the district council in order to ask the right questions—to probe into what went wrong, how it went wrong, when it went wrong, and what can be done to fix the issue that is at hand. Secondly, I think it is important to give trust and confidence in the water system in the area and that we analyse what can be done in the future in order for this thing to not happen again.

I understand that the district health board has activated an incident-based management team, and that happened on Friday. The Ministry of Health has sent expertise up to Hastings—it has sent communications people and an engineer, as well as other staff who may provide assistance and support where and when it is required.

We know the figures—that 22 people have been hospitalised. We know that 2,000 people have been affected, and we want to lend our support, our thoughts, and our prayers to those people who have been affected. We hope that the health authorities are able to deal with these matters in due course. We know that aged-care residential facilities—the rest homes—have been inspected. We have health officials in there—medical practitioners—to ensure that the elderly can be looked after in the appropriate way. We have been informed by the district health board that it is managing, with good bed availability across all of the respective services in Hawke’s Bay, and we also know that it has engaged with a neighbouring district health board in order to identify ways in which staffing support can be put in place in order for the proper services and the appropriate services to meet the needs of our local people. Other organisations—like, for example, St John Ambulance—have responded to calls, and we also know that they are supporting, in a way, with rostered additional staff who are on duty in the area in order to cater for the growing demands of local residents. Healthline has taken extra calls regarding these gastro issues, and we know that these calls are being fielded and that health advice and health information is being communicated across the telephone lines.

But we know that much more needs to be done, and that is why our Government is assisting in whatever way it can with the district council—which, by the way, has taken full responsibility for this. It has made a public apology and it is working alongside the district health board to ensure the health needs of local people are being met. No one likes to see this situation occur—particularly in our country, where our fellow citizens are experiencing these very terrible health ailments—but we know that once it has happened we need to do something about it. That is why the district health board is working on and is committed to dealing with these health needs as they arise.

Our Government stands alongside those people in Hawke’s Bay. We know that there is much to do. We know that an inquiry will follow, but right now the most important thing that needs to be done is to deal with the health issues of those who present to GP clinics and of those who present to hospitals, and in terms of the online help that is being given. We know that we will continue to work alongside the district council and the health board to meet those needs.

I would like to begin by thanking you, Mr Speaker, for accepting this call for an urgent debate. It is hard to imagine a situation more serious than that that is unfolding in Havelock North currently, and one more deserving of an urgent debate in this House.

The Green Party’s sympathies and support, naturally, are extended to those people in Havelock North and the surrounding area who have been affected by this campylobacter outbreak. The numbers themselves are sobering reading. Already more than 2,000 people are ill from what actually is a very serious illness, more than 20 are hospitalised, two people are currently critically ill, and one person is possibly already dead from the disease. It is a grave situation.

It is entirely appropriate that at this point the focus of those on the ground in the Hawke’s Bay and in the Ministry of Health should be on ensuring appropriate and speedy treatment for those who have been affected by the outbreak, on ensuring that the water supply is safe, and on ensuring that people have access to reliable information and the kind of practical support that they need when they need it. That is appropriate to be the initial focus.

I have been impressed in the last day or so by the leadership that I have seen from Lawrence Yule, as the Mayor of Hastings District, and Dr Nick Jones, the medical officer of health for the Hawke’s Bay—a reliable man. I have not been so impressed by the silence that I have heard from the Minister of Health. This is an issue that, although it is unfolding at a local level, has national repercussions. I believe that New Zealanders around the country, many of whom rely on water supplies similar to that in Havelock North, needed to have heard from the Minister before now. I appreciate the comments that Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga has just made in the House. Perhaps the silence has resulted from the Minister himself, the Hon Jonathan Coleman, being away from his post and Sam Lotu-Iiga stepping in to cover the role. That may well be the case.

It is inevitable that people in Hawke’s Bay are going to have some deep and important questions. How did the contamination occur? How was the contamination allowed to occur? In other words, why and how did the systems designed to keep drinking water safe fail? Could the warning have been sounded earlier? We have heard, appropriately, from the Hon Annette King that there was at least a day’s delay between a positive sample being found and anyone being told. Did we need to have that day? If we had not had that day, could infections have been prevented?

At this stage I want to be very careful not to jump to conclusions about the answers to any of those questions. Some speculation is inevitable, and I am reading about it in the news media, but the Green Party does not want to go there. But when we do come to investigate those questions, the Green Party will be looking to ensure that the investigation that occurs is as robust and independent as it possibly can be. Rather than an investigation that is commissioned by the Hastings District Council with some support from the Ministry of Health, we will want to see that investigation being led nationally and being properly independent. We will want to see the involvement of appropriate experts, such as Professor Michael Baker and such as Professor Nigel French. And we want to ensure—and this is one of the reasons why we would want such an investigation to be national in its focus and scope—that whatever is learnt about what has gone wrong and about improving water safety in Havelock North is applied not only in Hawke’s Bay but around the country.

The Hon Annette King has drawn attention to the Sanitary Works Subsidy Scheme having its funding cut by this Government. That is an issue that I know has affected many, many rural communities around the country. We do not say that that has played a role in this particular disaster, but it is an issue that we would want to see canvassed in such an inquiry.

We note that with climate change and its growing impacts we are likely to be seeing an increase in the frequency of heavy rain events and an increase in the frequency of severe flooding events, and with those we are likely to see an increase in outbreaks of water-borne illness around the country. It is essential, therefore, that as a Parliament and as a nation we do what we can to ensure that the systems that are designed to keep our drinking water safe are robust and reliable and up to that challenge.

The name John Snow is one that different groups of people will probably recognise for different reasons. Some will think immediately of Game of Thrones; others will think of the prestigious newscaster. In my interests in life I immediately think, of course, of John Snow, the fantastic England fast bowler of the 1960s. But epidemiologists, and all of those who have studied public health, will think back to their very first lecture in epidemiology, because in 1854, John Snow, a physician in London, mapped an outbreak of cholera, and by doing so was able to trace the source of that outbreak to a public water pump in Broad Street, in what is now Soho in London. What happened next is somewhat apocryphal. Having traced the outbreak to that water pump, and receiving no response from the proper authorities to his having done so, Dr Snow went and removed the handle from the Broad Street pump, thereby preventing the further spread of cholera in Soho and London.

Drinking water is so ubiquitous in our lives that we have perhaps become blasé about its importance, about its preciousness, and about the impact it has on our communities when things go wrong. But following the inquiry into what has gone wrong in Havelock North, I expect this Government to take the action that is equivalent to John Snow and the handle of the Broad Street pump, and to act decisively to ensure that this kind of outbreak cannot happen again in New Zealand. Thank you.

I am pleased to take a call on behalf of New Zealand First in this urgent debate. This is a very serious situation that the people of Havelock North find themselves in. In fact, it is actually a disgrace. We rely on drinking water. We rely on the water to be pure and to not make people sick, and it is devastating for all of those people affected in the Hawke’s Bay. So our sympathies and our support go to those many people who are affected. We know that there are about 2,000 people who are ill, 125 confirmed and unconfirmed cases of campylobacter, and 22 people hospitalised. Two elderly people have been admitted to intensive care, and there is talk that one person has already died due to this very issue.

It is such a shame that the response was so slow for a disaster such as this, which usually never ever happens in New Zealand. If we were a Third World country, we would accept this, but in New Zealand—no, it is totally unacceptable. We know that schools have closed, day cares have been forced to close, and many people are away from work, so the cost to the people of the Hawke’s Bay is huge—absolutely huge. The fact that doorknocking started only today really makes one wonder how good the emergency response teams are. We wonder whether or not they should have started as soon as the outbreak was confirmed.

Why has the Government not taken the initiative and led the response with the mayor? I thought it was absolutely chronic when I heard the Hon Sam Lotu-Iiga say this issue is not about politics and that the Opposition should have asked questions today in question time. But it was quite noticeable that the Government should have asked the questions too. Why did it not take a lead on the issue?

When we look at this aquifer that is contaminated, which is 20 metres below the surface, one wonders how this has ever been allowed to occur, because there have been three positive tests for the aquifer that is currently contaminated. I would have thought that that was a big enough signal to the council and to the Ministry of Health that here was an aquifer that needed regular testing and testing on a regular basis, not just to be ignored until the next outbreak occurred. There have been problems, so why is this particular testing not being carried out and why is regular monitoring not actually being carried out?

This reaction is far too slow. The ministry has been daydreaming its way through this particular issue. The district health board knew on Thursday that a tanker-load of water from one of the bores supplying the town had actually tested positive for faecal matter. The community should have been warned right at that time. It is unfortunate and devastating for the community that it was not warned about this gastro outbreak until Friday evening, yet the district health board had known since last Thursday. And what do we hear? The district health board hoped to have a household survey in place only by this evening to get some idea of how many households are affected. I would have thought that even if one household had been affected or one street had been affected, the ministry would get straight into gear and do its duty to the people of Havelock North.

When we look at it, the Government is basically failing in its duty to protect the waterways of New Zealand. The national bottom-line for water quality has not changed but remains at “water suitable for wading or boating”. Obviously, this is not a high enough standard when this is the result. I was interested to hear Prime Minister Key say on Monday that it was highly likely that the Ministry of Health would hold an inquiry into the outbreak. I would have thought, with the number of people who have been affected, that it is absolutely essential that there is some inquiry into the outbreak. There needs to be a thorough investigation of all aquifers right throughout the country to prevent this happening again. The cost is too high when an outbreak such as this occurs here in New Zealand. So when is the water testing actually going to be monitored on a regular basis? The standards are not high enough, testing needs to be regular, and we will be waiting to see this actually happening. Thank you.

It has been a rough few days in Havelock North and Hawke’s Bay. We have been boiling water, we have been buying water, we have been looking after family, we have been looking after our community, and we have been feeling for friends, neighbours, and members of the community who have had this devastating bug go through them. It has been a tough few days in Havelock North indeed, and it is not good enough in 2016 for people anywhere in this country to not be able to rely on having good, clean, quality drinking-water.

Absolutely right—it is not good enough for the people of Havelock North to be frazzled, to be at the end of their tether, to be frustrated, to be angry, to be upset, and to be absolutely at the end of their tether about an issue that none of us, actually, at this stage know the true cause of. I will come back to that in a moment. It is not acceptable for the people of Havelock North, for the ratepayers of Hawke’s Bay, to now wonder whether they were fully informed at the right time, early enough. It is not appropriate for the local member not to have been informed at the right time, when it should have been appropriate.

It has been a rough few days in Havelock North, but people in Havelock North are getting together, they are working together, they are rallying round, and people are supplying water, tankers are turning up, etc., etc. The community is doing what the community does best. The Hastings District Council has taken responsibility. The Hastings District Council is the body in charge and, as Mayor Yule said, it is responsible for delivering safe, drinking-quality water to the people of Havelock North.

There seem to be some serious gaps in the information to everybody. There seems to be some serious miscommunication across our community. The independent inquiry will probably find some holes in the system, whatever the system is, but right now we need to help get everyone well, look after our family, look after the water, and look after our community, as many of us have been doing over the last few days. Our community deserves to know the facts and deserves to know what happened, how it happened, who knew, when they knew, who was informed, when they were informed, and why or why not—but we can come back to that after the independent review.

The Government will be part of that review. The Government is very interested in the terms of reference of that review, but now is not the time for political grandstanding. People are hurt. Kids are dehydrated. Babies are suffering. Families are suffering. Elderly folk are suffering. Our families are suffering. Now is not the time to get all political about this. Now is the time to deal with it, manage it, help people get better. Now is not the time to grandstand on people’s misery, however close it might be to home. Get together across the House, members. You can come after me later, if you like. You can come after the Government, or, actually—appropriately—you should go after the particular councils and those who are responsible for managing this issue. But right now is not the time. Two thousand people are very, very unwell and 22 people are in hospital. Government agencies have been getting into action here. Their action has been under way since they first became aware.

I actually agree with half of other members’ speeches. I probably agree with half of Annette King’s speech, but not the political stuff. Kevin Hague gave a very good speech up until he got a bit waylaid there somewhere, but he is absolutely right, and I am sure other members agree with me. It is not acceptable what is going on today, but we do not know what caused it. It could have been some kind of accident or it could be something far, far worse—I do not know. We will find out, I hope. The inquiry, the district health board (DHB), the Hastings District Council—whoever—will find out, I am sure. I am very, very hopeful.

But as a local, as a resident, as a neighbour, I am deeply, deeply concerned about the unavailability and uncertainty that this has created, not only for our families but for our business community across Havelock North. Havelock North was empty right through the weekend and yesterday. Things started to empty out on Friday as people started to realise lots of people were starting to get sick, and many were not informed as to what possibly might have been going on. Some member said that before. They are quite right. They are quite right. I was speaking to someone on Friday morning who was telling me about their son. Neither of us did too much about it; we did not think too much about it other than that there were other bugs going around town at that time. Suddenly it ramped up on Friday and over the weekend. It is obviously very, very serious.

I am calling now on the business community across Hawke’s Bay—the suppliers to the businesses of Havelock North that have had a collapse in their revenue and business over the last few days—to be accommodating and reasonable, because come 20 August a whole lot of invoices will be due, and a whole lot of businesses’ cash flows have dried up. I ask them, as a local, as a fair-playing Kiwi, as a fair-playing Hawke’s Bay person, to be accommodating, to offer solutions, to help the cash flow of some of those businesses that are having very, very tough times. Banks, landlords, suppliers—particularly the larger suppliers—be reasonable, be fair, and be accommodating, because the stress that we have all suffered and the stress that many are still suffering right now, we do not need to continue across to the business environment.

The issue will come right eventually. I hope it has peaked; I do not know. The DHB thinks it has peaked. We will not know until probably today or tomorrow, but we do not know. We will get through it. We need to get through it. We always get through. Yes, there will be an inquiry later on to see whether there are any gaps in the systems—most importantly, the communications and information systems. But right now, I repeat, it is not the time to have a go or to be political. There will be time for that later, I am sure. Right now, please, members, join me in trying to do anything that you can—I can, we can, our communities can—to help Havelock North through this disaster, crisis, emergency, or whatever you call it. Please help us to help ourselves to get through this. Put the politics aside, at least until we get on top of this issue and it has absolutely and truly peaked and we know that it has ended. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. E ngā mema o Te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. Firstly, I want to thank a very learned colleague of ours, the Hon Annette King, for writing to the Speaker, and, of course, yourself, Mr Assistant Speaker, to accept this as an urgent debate. I want to acknowledge the member who just sat down, Craig Foss the member for the electorate of Tukituki, or what some people in my electorate are calling “Tikotiko”, which is the Māori word for diarrhoea. All kidding aside, I want to say to that member that bringing this important issue to the House so that you on that side—the Government—can say what you are doing about it is not grandstanding. It is not grandstanding. It is actually saying in this House that the biggest water-borne disease outbreak known to any place in New Zealand has happened in Havelock North. It is the largest water-borne outbreak that we are talking about here.

So it is not something that we need to hide away from, or not—we are in a political House. The issue is that the people of Havelock North have been left high and dry. That is the assertion here: they have been left high and dry. This is a serious matter. The people of Havelock North—13,000 people. This outbreak has affected about 2,000 people whom we know of—2,000. By my calculation that is about 15 percent of the population of Havelock North. If this was an earthquake, if this was a flood, if this was a fire, would we still be sitting on our hands days after we knew there was an outbreak? I would say no. We needed a Government of action, not platitudes. They needed action in Hawke’s Bay and Havelock North at the time that they most needed it. They absolutely needed leadership, and they never got it.

I live but 7 minutes from the village of Havelock North. I do not consider myself a local, but I know the area really well. It is a very, very good area, Havelock North. I am also told that on Friday, while we were going through whether or not it was contaminated, we also saw the holding of the primary schools cross-country competition in Havelock North. Maybe not thousands, but definitely hundreds of young people participated in the cross-country event in Havelock North. You can just imagine, hundreds of young people running around Havelock North, and of course they are going to drink because they are in Havelock North and they have just finished an event, but they did not know to boil their water until 5.30 that afternoon—5.30 that afternoon. So it is a serious matter, and I am yet to hear from that side of the House as to what practical steps those members are going to take.

I want to commend the local leadership of the Hastings District Council, Mayor Lawrence Yule, who actually took it on the chin and took responsibility for the situation. But there was a point in time when I believe that we should have had intervention. I heard the member say that a communications breakdown did happen. I take from that, that he was not informed until too late. I do want to say that the actions of the local Hawke’s Bay District Council and the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board could have been aided if the Government had come to the party early enough. It makes me ask the question: how well is our civil emergency system operating in New Zealand? How is it that the supply was tested on Tuesday last week—how is it that on Tuesday, 9 August it was tested and the results were not made known until Friday, 12 August? So, Tuesday to Friday, you are talking of about 4 days—4 days. We have heard the statistics. We have heard that 2,000 people were affected. We have heard that there are 22 who, at this moment, are in hospital. We have heard of the impact that it has had on the elderly in the rest homes, and also on the vulnerable families whom we have in Havelock North, and yet we did not hear anything from this Government.

Like I said, this is the biggest, the largest, water-borne outbreak that we have seen in this country, and the Government has been found wanting. Yes, there is going to be an inquiry, and I want to say to the member for Tukituki that I would put my hand up to be part of setting out the terms of reference for that inquiry, as a person who lives in that area and because of the importance of water not only to the people of Havelock North but to all the people of Hawke’s Bay. We are lucky in Hawke’s Bay to be on an aquifer. The local iwi calls it te haukū nui—the giver of life—not only to the people who live in Hawke’s Bay but also because it is the heart of the surrounding horticultural and wider agricultural sector.

So we do need to urgently take this matter seriously. We do need to take urgent steps to make sure that the inquiry does ask those questions: how did this happen—how did we get animal contamination deep down in an aquifer? I share with many people from Hawke’s Bay—we are all stunned that the aquifer can be contaminated. Nobody knows why, and that is why the inquiry needs to ask those questions about how it occurred. But, more importantly, from my perspective, we have to learn from this outbreak, so that it does not ever occur again.

This is the interesting thing about Hawke’s Bay. We have had this major contamination in the suburb of Havelock North, and yet just down the road we have two major water-bottling plants. I want to commend the water-bottling plant that has come to the party to offer free water for the elderly, but I do believe that free water should be available for all communities in the community of Havelock North. This is because it is our gold—in Hawke’s Bay, our aquifer water is our gold. Every household in the Havelock North area and in the wider Hawke’s Bay area deserves to have clean drinking-water.

I join all members on this side to ensure and hold the Government to account, which is our job, to make sure that outbreaks like this are not only actioned through real, practical suggestions—I have had reports that the local medical centres in Havelock North were just overwhelmed. Why did we not think about putting in some doctors or some emergency medical centre in Havelock North to alleviate the pressures that local doctors were experiencing? And some of the cases that were presented that were not specifically related to this outbreak were asked to defer. Why did we not do that? Why could we not do that? What stopped us from doing that?

I touched on the free water. And then there is also who was getting around to knock on doors, particularly of the elderly but also of our vulnerable families within Havelock North, to make sure that people were OK. That is happening now—and I commend those who are doing it—but why did it not happen on Friday when we first found out that the water was contaminated? Why was there not a plan of action on Saturday and Sunday? Why did a water tanker turn up only yesterday and not on the weekend? These are really important questions, and I hold the Government to account because we knew on Friday that the water was contaminated. Late on Friday, at 5.30 p.m., the message went out to boil your water, and then everybody was left to their own devices on Saturday and Sunday. We were seeing a bit of action on Monday, and now here we are in the House debating it.

It is a serious matter. I am pleased that it was brought to this House to debate. I have yet to hear from that side what practical steps those members are going to do to assist with the outbreak now, but more importantly, I am interested in hearing from the Government how it is going to take the lessons from this, to prevent it ever happening again and to ensure that our civil emergency system is fit for purpose. Kia ora tātou.

I would like to echo the thoughts from around the House and commiserate with this community for this very unfortunate outbreak. I would also like to acknowledge the local member for his very clear and authentic concern and thoughts towards the community.

This is a time for all in the community to be steady and to do the simple things that will see this through. It will be seen through—there is no outbreak of C. jejuni that has ever occurred across the world that has not passed, and this one will do the same. The community needs to be steady. If we make our way through the community, those with young children need to keep them rehydrated and they need to keep them warm, and it is a time for bland foods. Again, every offer of advice is prefaced by “And if you are concerned, please see your general practitioner or family doctor.”

Parents need to be vigilant, and not just for themselves. I would ask them to be particularly vigilant with hand-washing and personal hygiene. It is very important to bring this outbreak to a conclusion. Sometimes we need to think about the simple things, and hand-washing is a simple thing. If we look back at medicine though history, the big advances have not actually been X-rays or CT scanners or magnetic resonance imaging. They have been in terms of public health—even antibiotics. There was a decrease in mortality and morbidity long before antibiotics came along. It was hand-washing. It was clean water. It was sanitation. They have been the big improvements, and so I want to reinforce hand-washing and personal hygiene in the middle of this. Let us do that well. For older people it is actually the same advice as for younger people: rehydrate, keep warm, good hand-washing, bland foods, and see your family doctor if you are concerned.

I would like to extend what my colleague was saying to the medical community, and I want to acknowledge them. They are bearing the front-line burden at this point in time. I want to acknowledge general practitioners. They will be working extra hard. I want to acknowledge the nursing teams who work with them. They will be working extra hard. Accident and emergency departments will be working hard, as will the hospital doctors. And then there is the whole logistics chain, because when you need to rehydrate people, it is very likely that you are going to need to bring supplies into the area. So there is there is likely to be an increase in trucking and an increase in logistics to help with this.

To the local government leadership, thank you for owning this problem. Let us figure it out, let us fix it, and then let us share the learnings. I think that is the stage that needs to happen here. Then, once we have done that, let us look back and make good decisions for policies going forward. When we have the facts, I am sure we will be in a better place to do that. It is a time for steady hands and doing the simple things. I think that is the message I would like to share here. Thank you.

One in 10 people lack access to safe water, and, somewhere, a child dies every 90 seconds from a water-related disease. That is 60 children who are going to die of a water-related disease by the time this debate on water quality in Havelock North has concluded. It is estimated that more than 500,000 people die as a result of drinking contaminated water every year. That is around 90 people who will die before this debate concludes. Some 636 million people are estimated to live without clean water, and diseases from dirty water kill more people every year than all those who die from armed conflict. And then we shake our heads, we change the channel, and we watch the rugby, because that is a Third World problem—because people in New Zealand do not get sick from drinking water. We do not go to hospital from drinking water out of our taps. Well, we do. This is a wake-up call that we need to now take the issue of water quality and water security very, very seriously.

Let us deal with the facts when we do not get it right: over 2,000 people are seriously ill. There are 22 people in hospital, and, knowing how stoic Hawke’s Bay people are, I assume it is probably twice that number who should be there at the moment. There are two people critically ill, and, apparently, one person is possibly dead as a result. And this is in New Zealand.

The facts, as I understand them, are that the district council knew conclusively on Friday, but perhaps as early as Thursday, that campylobacter was the cause of this outbreak, but did not notify residents until Friday evening. When people have diarrhoea, when they vomit, they are told to drink water to stay hydrated, and this is what the residents of Havelock North did for at least 8 hours, but perhaps as long as 24 hours—young children, healthy adults, and elderly citizens. A good friend of mine was struck down with this on Tuesday. She drank water for 3 days in order to keep hydrated.

This is the situation we find ourselves in, and of course we need to find solutions. There will absolutely be learnings, but let us crawl out from underneath our veil of smugness and start dealing with the issue of water seriously, with the level of urgency it now deserves and, as Kiwis, we expect. This is not a time to apportion blame or to point fingers, but it should be a time when central government and local government actually come together and work to come up with solutions under urgency to address the issue. I believe this has not happened in the optimal way that perhaps it could have. I suspect that what comes out of any review will, hopefully, be a plan that says: “When this sort of thing happens, this is what we need to do—and under urgency.”

It is not acceptable that it has taken 4 days for the council to start organising doorknocking for a whole lot of elderly residents. Keep in mind—and I have got to say this—Havelock North is not one of these poor suburbs, where people are suffering from diseases of poverty. Havelock North is, in fact, one of the wealthiest suburbs in the country, and certainly in Hawke’s Bay. So this is not about social economics in any way, shape, or form. This is about how we deal with a very, very serious situation in our communities.

I just think that it could have been done better. In fact, we all know that it could have been done better. Like Mr Foss, I would like to be part of the review, and I think my colleague Meka Whaitiri also should be part of that review, because this comes down to the fact of what our communities are about. They are about us working together, but they are also about meeting expectations when something goes wrong. I just do not think that the expectations of the Havelock North people, the expectations of Hawke’s Bay, or even the expectations of New Zealanders—that when 2,000 people go down ill, it takes this long to get some sort of coordinated response. It could have been better. It should have been better.

Like everyone in this House, I wish the people of Havelock North a very speedy recovery. I hope we find a solution to this. I sincerely hope that this was just an unfortunate glitch in the system that is easy to fix. I hope it was, but I will just reiterate: it should have been done better, it could have been done better, and, next time, it must be done better. Thank you very much.

Access to safe drinking-water is one of the most basic requirements of any society, and the failure that we have seen in Havelock North over the last few days is totally unacceptable. That basic requirement—that Kiwi families can turn on the tap, drink the water, and expect it to be safe and to not get sick—is about as basic a requirement as we have of councils. I want to support the speech made by my colleague Craig Foss, who said, absolutely correctly, that the focus today has to be on ensuring that the people of Havelock North can get access to safe water, ensuring that those people who are sick are getting access to the very best of health services at both secondary and primary levels, and ensuring that the information is distributed as efficiently as possible to his community and they get the support that they need.

There will be a time when an inquiry gets to the bottom of the questions that the people of Havelock North and members of Parliament would want answered. We need to know what was the source of the contamination. We want to know whether the contamination could have been picked up earlier. We want to know whether the testing regime that the Hastings District Council had was appropriate and responded to at the correct time. We should ask the question as to whether there should have been a precautionary approach to the chlorination of that particular water supply. We want to know whether the response from council when it got those test results was appropriate and whether the communications were fast enough. They are the right questions, but I would challenge members to try to answer those at this point.

I think it is important that we note the facts that we do know. The Hastings District Council has said that this water supply had clear results last Tuesday. We know that test samples were taken last Thursday, and that on the Friday, the council advises, it delivered a negative result on the E. coli. We know that that day it informed the district health board. We know that on that day it began chlorination. We know that campylobacter, which is the most likely source of contamination, based on the test results that are being provided today, does have an incubation period of a number of days, so it is not proper for members to automatically conclude that people who are getting sick today would necessarily have been able to pick it up—that is proper for an inquiry.

I want to make plain the response that there has been from Government, which has been conveniently overlooked by members opposite. The fact is that the Ministry of Health convened the National Health Coordination Centre immediately it was notified by the council. We know that the district health board did seek support, and the Ministry of Health immediately provided three of its expert staff—from the point of view of a water engineer, an emergency manager, and a communications adviser. We know that the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management committee has offered every support to the Hastings District Council. We know that the Ministry for Primary Industries has stepped in to check, in terms of the supply of safe food. And we know that the Ministry of Health has been working as closely as possible with the Hastings District Council. So the claims that are being made by members opposite repeatedly in this debate that the Government has done nothing are simply incorrect.

I would also say to members opposite that in claiming that the standards are not appropriate, they say I am misinformed. We have here the National Environmental Standard for Sources of Human Drinking Water standards, which could have been breached only by the incident that has occurred in Havelock North—those national environment standards for which I am responsible. I question members opposite who incorrectly claimed in this debate that somehow members on this side think what has occurred is acceptable. As well as those national environment standards—

💬 Stuart Nash: We did not say that.

The member who interjects clearly did not hear the contribution from New Zealand First.

Then we come to the issue of the standards set by the Ministry of Health on drinking water, which have also clearly been breached. This is a bit like the Canterbury earthquakes, where members opposite will use anything, out of political desperation, to try to make politics out of issues.

Let us just go through a few of the desperate claims from members. Firstly, they criticised Craig Foss. Well, Craig Foss was on the phone with me on Sunday, raising—quite appropriately—the issue. Those members said he had done nothing. These are the same members who continually claim, and have told Sam Lotu-Iiga, that he should not interfere in councils’ water supplies, and when something goes wrong in a council water supply, the first thing they want to do is blame the Government.

If there had been application and support from the Hastings District Council that there was a problem with this water supply, and this Government had not responded with funding, there might be attempts for members opposite—but that is clearly not the case in this situation and is, thus, another case of Opposition members trying to join the dots. What this House should do—and I commend the Green Party—is to say: “This is serious, but before we start pointing the finger, before we start attributing blame, and before we start saying what are the right conclusions to draw, there needs to be a full and proper inquiry.” And the Government has made plain that that will occur, but that will occur secondarily to the immediate priorities for the community of Havelock North, and that is to ensure that there are the proper health services, that there is the proper immediate response occurring today.

I again say that what has occurred in Havelock North is totally unacceptable. Basic access to safe drinking-water is at the core of what councils are required to provide. We have a national environment standard for watercourses that are used, including aquifers for drinking water. That has been breached. We have a Ministry of Health drinking-water standard. That has been breached. We need to get to the bottom of why that has occurred and ensure that we do not see, again, hundreds, or potentially thousands, of New Zealanders becoming unwell because of the sort of contamination that has occurred in the Havelock North water supply.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.