Building (Pools) Amendment Bill

Thank you for this opportunity to speak on the Building (Pools) Amendment Bill. This legislation was designed to reduce the compliance burden currently imposed on pool owners and territorial authorities in relation to residential pools, while maintaining child safety. We are surrounded by water here in Aotearoa New Zealand. However, unfortunately, our rate of drowning is one of the highest in the developed world.

One of the things that we try to do as parents is teach our young children to be able to learn how to swim. For many of us in this House who are parents, we can afford swimming lessons, but many other parents, especially those who are from lower-income families, cannot afford swimming lessons. Many of their children attend schools that no longer have swimming pools at the schools. We now have NGOs that donate swimming togs because many of our kids do not even have swimming togs. It is no wonder, when parents cannot afford to pay for swimming lessons and when their children cannot learn how to swim at schools, that we have so many of our children in Aotearoa New Zealand who cannot swim.

It is crucial, I believe, that we, as members of this House, do as much as possible to protect our children from the dangers of drowning. When this bill had its first reading, we on this side of the House found it somewhat disappointing to see that the Government made some of its proposals to amend the relevant law focus largely on cost savings, rather than on the prevention of harm and injury for our kids.

At the first reading Labour actually supported this bill’s referral to a select committee in good faith, because when we read the regulatory impact statement, we were told that the bill would save more lives than the current pool fencing legislation. However, having read some of the submissions that were given to the Local Government and Environment Committee, we know now that, for instance, the Paediatric Society of New Zealand, which submitted, said that the only thing that would improve our record on pool drownings would be compliance—actual compliance with the pool fencing statute. Water Safety New Zealand supported the society in its submission. The vast majority of the 19 or so preschool children who, unfortunately, died in home pools in the last 10 years passed away because of non-compliant fencing, gates, or doors. The number of children suffering serious or permanent injury due to near-death drownings in non-compliant pools is, unfortunately, so much higher.

One of the biggest changes, however, that was made to this bill at the select committee was a recommendation—which the Labour Party had argued for strongly, and can I say that we really appreciate that this is actually now part of the current legislation—that councils be required to inspect on a 3-yearly cycle instead of on a 5-yearly cycle. We had pushed hard for this, and we are glad to see it supported in the current bill.

Our parliamentary process has been robust, and it has enabled the general public to have some impact on this current bill. For instance, changes made after the select committee stage include that the purpose of the bill is now more broad. It included the prevention of drowning before, but it now includes the prevention of injury. Second, it provides that information should be provided to buyers regarding spa pools and other small pools. Third, it also includes that information be provided to councils about spa pools. Last, it includes rules for distinguishing between 760-millimetre walls and locked lids.

However, one of the main reasons why we do not support the current bill is the fact that it is proposing that alarms are adequate, instead of having a door or a fence to ensure that our kids do not drown. The Fencing and Swimming Pools Act of 1987 was designed for the safety of our young children, and we believe that having a fence or physical door is the right way to go. Labour does not support this bill. Thank you very much.

As the deputy chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee, I am very pleased to be taking this call in the third reading of the Building (Pools) Amendment Bill. Of course, this is a bill to maintain the protections to prevent drowning and injuries of young people when around swimming pools and the like.

Of course, this bill looks to repeal the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act and to simplify or codify the rules surrounding the fencing of pools into the Building Act. The reason for doing that is to make it more simple for people to understand the regulations and to make sure that they comply. I think that that is one element that is so pleasing about this bill. As the mother of two small children, I am well aware that you need to keep an eagle eye on children around water.

One of the good things that will come out of this bill is the regime in respect of inspections. Currently there is no regulation on inspections of fencing around swimming pools. Some councils are doing it relatively regularly; others are not doing it at all. This bill means that inspections will need to occur on a 3-yearly basis. Not only that, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment will appoint independent inspectors to make sure that inspections occur.

That task will be delegated to local authorities, but independent, suitably qualified people such as tradespeople can be employed to undertake those inspections. That can occur as a matter of simple maintenance around the property. I think that is a good thing.

It is a good thing to make sure that people are educated about the regulations surrounding the fencing of swimming pools to make sure that they are compliant and to make sure that they are maintaining a safe environment to prevent young people from accessing pools, ultimately injuring themselves or, unfortunately, drowning. Along with that, there is a stepped framework for regulation, so if people are found not to be complying, the council can use warnings, infringement notices, or, ultimately, can go ahead and prosecute in the judiciary.

The other thing that I am quite pleased about is acknowledging that a locked cover in the use of a spa or a hot tub is adequate protection rather than fencing. That means that if people are going to buy a spa pool or a hot tub they can be educated about the requirements of fencing, through a retailer. Obviously, the simplest thing to do to keep young people out of hot tubs and spa pools when they are not being used is to use that lockable cover—and most people do that. Not a lot of councils know when a spa pool is being purchased by a property owner and therefore, with the retailers on the case, they can advise spa pool owners of what compliance is required.

So look, I think that this is a good balanced bill. Again, it looks to maintain the protections to prevent injury and drowning of young people in swimming pools. It also looks to codify and simplify regulations so that people who own swimming pools or spa pools understand what the regulations are and can comply. Thank you.

The Green Party opposes the Building (Pools) Amendment Bill. The Minister for Building and Housing in his speech at the start of the third reading claimed that the main deficiency in the law around swimming pools was compliance, and he claimed that this bill would fix that by the requirement to inspect every 3 years. That is more mythmaking by Nick Smith. It is not law changes that promote compliance, but resources that agencies put into actually undertaking the compliance, and then following up when they find that the law has not been complied with.

The fact that 30 of some 67 councils have no periodic inspections was probably down to limited resources that those councils had, rather than a defect in the law. It was spin by the Minister to disguise the fact that the bill is removing the clear focus that the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act, the existing Act, has and has had for the last 30 years on protecting children from drowning and near drowning. It was spin because we know that the motivation behind this bill, which repeals the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act, has been to save money and to reduce compliance costs for pool owners, rather than to reduce the risk of harm and injury to children when they are around swimming pools.

But I guess it is not surprising that we have that as the Government’s ambition because, of course, this is the Government that will not even have a target for reducing child poverty, which rejected the suggestions of the Children’s Commissioner about setting a target, and which seems to ignore the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals where there is a target to eliminate poverty in all its forms. So if we have a Government that is quite happy to have a target for getting rid of predators but not one for reducing child poverty, it is hardly surprising that in this bill the emphasis is on reducing compliance cost rather than protecting children from drowning.

The Minister also claimed that the bill was about ensuring that regulations around pool fencing were incorporated into the Building Act. But if you read the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act—the existing Act—you already have good linkages with the Building Act. Pool safety requirements were included in the new building code back in 1992, and there is a standard around this from 2006. So that justification fails as well. The best testament to the fact that the existing law—the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act—is working has been the major reduction in child drownings since the Act was passed in 1987. We had here in New Zealand a truly awful record—in terms of child drownings—during the 1970s and 1980s. As the number of home swimming pools increased, we had, in the worst year—1981—17 children drowning in home pools, and that, of course, led to the campaign that resulted in the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act. Now, as a result of that Act—30 years later—we have had the number of drownings for the under-fives dropping from an average of 10 a year to 3. If it is not broken, why meddle with it?

Many of the submitters—and they were highly respected submitters from paediatric health, Starship, Water Safety New Zealand, Plunket—highlighted the success of the existing law. As the trauma coordinator at Starship in Auckland said, it is one of the most effective child safety laws ever, so why tamper with it? The Auckland Regional Public Health Service suggested that the lives of over 200 children have been saved by the current law and at least as many children have avoided permanent serious brain injury from a near-drowning. So we in the Green Party are opposing this bill. Yes, there have been changes through select committee that have made some improvements—but they have also complicated the legislation as well.

The major concern that the Green Party has is that by repealing the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act and leaving it to the Building Act and the performance-based system under the Building Act—which, of course, led to leaky buildings—we have got much less certainty around what constitutes a fence and an adequate barrier around swimming pools to protect them from young children. Certainly there is a schedule in this bill, which sets out a standard for swimming pool fencing, and it does include some specific design details. But what it also allows in the bill is for pool owners to apply to local authorities for a waiver to set in place there, and for local authorities to grant those waivers—they can grant them if there are no significant risks to children.

We think that that provides far too much uncertainty, and far too much flexibility for councils to not have robust fencing around pools. It will lead to a lot of debate about what constitutes an adequate “barrier” between pool owners wanting to put in place fancy landscaping and the local council. So we are losing that clear focus that we have in the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act and the very clear prescription around how fences should be constructed, what height they should be, and the clearance between the ground and the fence that ensures that everyone is certain that children do not get access to pools.

One of the other reasons the Green Party is opposing the bill is because it uses the term “physical barrier” rather than “fence”, and that, again, creates more uncertainty and flexibility in terms of councils. We are really disappointed that in the Committee stage the Government rejected Jacinda Ardern’s Supplementary Order Paper 208 around alarming, which would have seen a strengthening of the bill, by making sure that there were much more robust provisions there; and that the Government rejected Metiria Turei’s Supplementary Order Paper 213, which drew on Australian research about the importance of four-sided fencing that isolates children from the pool; and that the bill potentially permits dwellings that have openings to poolside and does not require enough rigour around those doors that can open to a poolside. We should be following the Australian example and ensuring that we have four-sided fencing.

A lot of the organisations that made submissions were very compelling in advocating the benefits of the current law and the problems that this bill will create. We do not want to be in the position of saying “We told you so.” We do want the Government to look at this legislation very, very carefully. If there is a single increase in the drowning figures, the Act should come back to Parliament. This Parliament should not be in the business of passing legislation that harms people, and this bill, by repealing the current law, which has been such a success in protecting young children from drowning, is at very real risk of doing that. That is why the Green Party is opposing the bill.

New Zealand First will continue to support this bill because we think it does put child safety first. It does that in a way that we believe is practical and sensible, to ensure that as far as is reasonably possible the child safety objective will be fulfilled. For example, the provision for effective physical barriers other than fences, which will now include, for example, cliffs, will continue to be acceptable. I have to disagree somewhat with what the last speaker, Eugenie Sage, said about that, because I believe that there are certainly good examples of perfectly adequate physical barriers other than fences that would serve just as well as a means of protecting children. Similarly, water bodies not used for swimming, such as garden ornamental pools, which were caught in many cases under the current law, will not now be caught under this bill. So we think this bill does make some fairly sensible changes and does not actually compromise the child safety objective at all.

The key changes that are made concerning child-resistant covers are also quite welcome. These were deemed to be inadequate as a means of restricting access to spa pools and hot tubs, in the current legislation, but, as we all know, the design of these pool covers, which we are now going to call small heated-pool covers, have improved and have improved a great deal in terms of providing a perfectly secure means of providing protection and safety for children, provided they are locked.

So the pools with covers that comply with the Building Act, as they will be required to do, will also not need to be fenced as well as have a safe and effective locked cover—that is quite sensible—nor will a building consent be required. The reality that we learnt is that 96 percent of such pools are not actually fenced now, so when they are not in use, and have effective covers, it is perfectly clear to us that there is no need for the bill to treat them in the same way as swimming pools. Those covers should be perfectly adequate, provided they are locked when not in use.

We in New Zealand First particularly like the fact that retailers and manufacturers are now going to be required to inform buyers in writing about their obligations under the Act when they buy pool products designed for swimming, wading, paddling, or bathing. We like it that they will be required to provide the purchaser with specified information as to how to maintain and keep the pool secure, so they will become not just a purchaser but also a minder of the pool that they have purchased. They are going to be required to accept responsibility in these ways for keeping the pool safe and keeping children away from any accident that might occur.

We think that is a good way to assist in the vital need to inform and educate pool owners. I cannot emphasise enough that if we are really serious about ensuring safety for children, as far as pools and the like are concerned, then you cannot do better than see that people who have those pools and operate them are well educated and realise what their responsibilities are.

We also approve of the new provision to make the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment responsible to enforce this, because we do not think it would be practicable at all to ask local councils to do so, but of course they will still have to enforce pool barrier requirements. I would have to say about that that I do think that councils need to lift their game somewhat in that area. Some are very, very good at carrying out those responsibilities, but it is quite clear to us that some could do a lot better. I hope that those who have not put the effort in that they should will now take another look at this and lift their game, as I have said.

New section 67A, inserted by clause 6C, is also very welcome. It allows for waivers and modifications to pool barrier requirements where circumstances relating to a particular pool make it acceptable, and provided that there will be no danger to children. For those reasons, I would again have to disagree with the Greens’ position on that, because provided that that is the case, that the councils concerned ensure that there will not be any danger to children arising from a consent or modification, then I do not see why there should be a problem. I do not see that there would be any uncertainty or that such pools with such modifications should be any less safe than any other.

You do have to place some trust and some confidence in local councils and their officials to be able to carry out those kinds of responsibilities effectively and responsibly. We in New Zealand First think they can do that, provided, as I have already said, they do lift their game and take these responsibilities seriously. We think that they can and they will. We similarly approve of the new definition of “pool operator” in clause 5 so that it is perfectly clear who it is that has the responsibility.

Looking at standardisation—standardisation in terms of how the territorial authorities exercise their duties and responsibilities in respect of inspecting and certifying residential pools is of very high importance. This is actually the crux of the whole thing. So having consistent, standardised, regular compliance processes across the country is nothing less than just plain common sense, and that is what the bill does. It achieves this with a nationwide standard residential pool inspection cycle, requiring mandatory 3-year inspections. Currently, for example, under the current Act, an owner of two properties that may be in different districts may well have pools in these two locations with quite different requirements for compliance. That does not make very much sense, and it does not help in achieving the child safety objective. Consistency, as far as these things are concerned, does help that objective because it means less confusion and less uncertainty.

We think the bill goes some distance towards fixing that issue, and the additional cost for that new regime, which will be quite substantial, will be well worth the money if even one child is prevented from drowning as a result. So I do not agree that, really, the bill is aimed just at saving costs. I think it is aimed at improving safety, and we do see that most particularly in the standardisation provisions. The bill also introduces a graduated enforcement regime, with infringement notices as the preferred tool for compliance, and court prosecutions only for serious breaches. I think that is the way to go. We are not trying to make criminals out of people who perhaps need to do better, as far as these requirements are concerned; we just need to make sure that they understand their responsibilities and why they need to take the actions that are required of them.

Infringement notices will achieve that, but, of course, where somebody persistently does not do what they are required to do, then obviously you have to take the further step of a prosecution. But I think that is a good way to go, and in concert with the better provisions for education and notice to purchasers, that is a good way to make sure that people comply with the provisions in the Act.

So, overall, New Zealand First accepts that with all those changes that have been made, which we think are sensible, the bill will provide a balanced approach and one that will provide for safety for children and that will be better than the current legislation provides for, and it will do so in a practical, effective, and common-sense way. So for those reasons, as I have said, New Zealand First is actually quite happy to continue to support this bill. We think it is a bill that needs to be passed.

E Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua, mauri ora. I find myself in the awkward and somewhat extraordinary position of agreeing, largely, with what Denis O’Rourke, the member who has just resumed his seat, has said.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Very sensible.

Ha! He is a member who is often, sadly, mistaken in this House, but on this particular occasion every point that he has made has been, I think, a very sound one and a good one. It is actually somewhat unfortunate that when we heard the speech from the Hon David Parker, who is an assiduous and hard-working member of this House, on the last occasion that we were dealing with this bill, he seemed to agree—as does Mr O’Rourke—with 90 percent of the content of the bill and, for some reason, has allowed the perfect to become the enemy of the very good, which I believe this bill is.

There are a number of very sensible and pragmatic measures that improve upon the current legislation. I do want to agree with what Eugenie Sage said. The current legislation—the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act 1987—is a very good piece of law. It did save the lives of many, many children in New Zealand. This bill goes further and brings in some sensible measures to further enhance that. For instance, it deals with the lack of clarity around interior doors that open into courtyards in which there are fenced pools. Currently, there is a lack of clarity around whether those doors have to be self-closing and self-latching. They will now have to be self-latching or alarmed. We must make use of new technology that is available to us to ensure children’s lives are protected.

It also clarifies that an objective of this bill is to reduce serious injury. We know that brain damage that can ensue from drowning is a real problem. We have heard from submitters that approximately 200 children over the course of the last 30 years have been saved from serious brain injury from drowning because of the previous Act. We want to make sure that we make use of the technology and systems available to us in this modern world to continue that, going forward.

I also think it is very sensible that we have a standardised regime of inspection—3-yearly—given that some councils throughout New Zealand do not inspect at all. There will be a number of councils that do have to lift their game, but allowing it to be outsourced to suitably skilled tradespeople will, hopefully, enable this to be done in a cost-effective way and will create a system that is high in quality and gives consumers choice as well as protecting children’s lives. This is a good bill, and it must pass.

I think we have some agreement on the need for good legislation for swimming pool fencing and protection. We have heard of the statistics from both before and after the 1987 Fencing of Swimming Pools Act came through, when drownings basically dropped from 10 a year down to about three. It was a remarkable piece of legislation in terms of saving lives. We heard from submitters to the Local Government and Environment Committee that for every death that occurs, there are about nine children who are seriously injured by near-drowning, which can cause brain damage and all sorts of other damage—through both the considerable cost to the families but also, obviously, through a financial cost to the State as well.

This bill moved closer to where Labour wanted it to be and to where it felt it could support it, but it never quite got there. It was legislation that was originally looked at by Shane Jones when he was in Government. He was looking at it, though, in terms of how to enhance the safety of children around swimming pools at the same time as looking at compliance costs—but strictly in that order. First of all, he was looking at safety; secondly, he was looking at the reduction of compliance costs. What we had when Nick Smith took over this bill was the primary focus was very much on reducing compliance costs. What I think we have done here is weakened the strength of the 1987 legislation in terms of protecting child safety.

We wanted to see a number of changes in this bill, particularly those in the Supplementary Order Paper that Jacinda Ardern put up, which was Supplementary Order Paper 208. That called for the physical closing of doors between a house and a swimming pool, not just an alarm—an alarm where somebody has gone away somewhere, where there is music on loud, the alarm is faulty, or whatever, and the alarm is not heard—but a physical barrier to stop children from being able to get to a body of water where they might drown. That was, I believe, a very sensible, pragmatic, and lifesaving measure. I disagree with the previous speaker, Paul Foster-Bell, who talked about that being somehow modern technology and about how alarms are just as good. I do not believe that that is true. I do believe that a physical, self-latching door is very important for stopping young children from walking out into, say, a patio area and falling into a swimming pool. An alarm cannot achieve the same aim as that.

I think that for us, probably, one of the most overwhelmingly persuasive points was the range of highly considered and very reputable people who came before the select committee—people from Watersafe Auckland, the Auckland Regional Public Health Service, the Paediatrics Society of New Zealand, Starship Children’s Health—all people who have been working on the front line with child death through drowning or child injury through drowning. All of them said: “Please do not put this legislation through as it stands, because it will weaken what we have at the moment, and as a result of that we will have more drownings.” Unfortunately, the Government has not gone far enough in meeting those needs. It has gone some way, and I will say that we now have a better regulatory regime in place, which is that councils will be obliged to check pools and the fencing of pools every 3 years. It is very interesting to note that when councils looked at the ability of homeowners to comply with the regulations, only about one-third of the people they visited were compliant. It will definitely make a difference—ensuring that homeowners will, in fact, be doing that.

Mr Deputy Speaker, have I got only 5 minutes? Is it a split call?

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: You are on a 5-minute call, so you have got about 3 seconds left.

3 seconds. Ha, ha! For those reasons, we will not be supporting this bill. We appreciate that the bill has moved somewhat, but it is still not adequate as far as protecting the lives of children is concerned.

Jan Logie—a 5-minute call.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Greens are not supporting the Building (Pools) Amendment Bill. I think that this has been presented to the House by way of the Government saying that it is about striking a balance between reduced compliance costs for residential pool owners and territorial local authorities, and maintaining child safety. For the Government, those things are apparently in balance—of equal importance. We know that the legislation that is in place at the moment, I think, has been noted as the most successful child safety legislation ever passed in this country. So this legislation that we are amending, which has been so overwhelmingly successful in saving children’s lives, is now being undermined for the purpose of reducing compliance costs.

We have been told through the select committee process that there were 200 lives saved from fencing swimming pools and several thousand children were prevented from near-drowning as a result of the clear, strong rules that were contained in the 1987 legislation. But this Government looked at that legislation and thought: “Hmm! The costs are too high. We had better bring that to the House and balance that. Those 200 children’s lives that are being saved—well, the compliance costs are too high. Best we balance that.”

We heard, through the select committee process, from the Auckland Regional Public Health Service, we heard from Water Safety New Zealand, and we heard from the New Zealand Society of Paediatric Surgeons—all opposing these changes on the basis that they wanted to put the safety of children first. They saw this legislation as undermining the safety of those children. It was noted by the New Zealand Society of Paediatric Surgeons that the current law had reduced the drowning rate from around 10 children a year to only three, saving seven lives every single year since 2002. That Government has listened to that evidence, and it has said: “The lives of those children, or compliance costs?”. It is favouring compliance costs.

We heard from some of the families who had had children who had died through drowning. They told the select committee—they told this Government—“Don’t change the law. We lost a child through a drowning. We know what that means for a family. We do not want a single other family to have to suffer that unfairly and unjustly.” I can only assume that their reference to unfairness and injustice is in relation to a perception that this Government is choosing to balance child safety with compliance costs—that that, to them, is not fair for those families who may lose a child, through the lack of clarity and the loosening of this legislation, when they have come in front of us and told us clearly: “Don’t do this.”

The Children’s Commissioner came to the select committee and argued very strongly for changes to strengthen the existing law. But, again, we have a loosening of that law. Plunket came and said that it was seriously concerned about the impacts of this bill on children’s lives and on families’ lives.

For the Green Party, compliance costs and child safety do not balance out. For the Green Party, child safety comes first. We cannot support this legislation.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. He mihi atu ki a koutou katoa. As the final speaker on the Government side, I stand in support of this bill, the Building (Pools) Amendment Bill. I also would just like to summarise the major points of this bill.

There are a number of measures in this bill that explicitly strengthen pool safety. Retailers themselves will now be required to inform people who buy spas or portable pools of the pool safety rules, to help people understand how to use these pools legally and also safely. Councils will now be able to require inspection of swimming pools every 3 years. Also, talking about councils, they will have a more effective range of enforcement tools. Warning notices will be the preferred tool for compliance, with infringement notices and court prosecutions when warnings are ignored.

So that is the first part of the major changes around safety, but there are other measures in this bill that reduce the burden of compliance, where that can be sensibly done without impacting on safety. Spa pools and hot tubs with safety covers will no longer be required to be fenced, and this is just common sense. We know that children are not at risk from a tub that has a safety cover on it, and to require a fence as well is regulation for no purpose.

The other part is that we are simplifying the rules in this bill by making pool safety provisions part of the Building Act, and that is a major change. We are removing non-residential pools from these requirements, since they are already covered by health and safety regulations themselves. Also, the bill clarifies that garden pools and other water hazards, where the risk of drowning is much lower than in swimming pools, will not need to meet the swimming pool fencing requirements. Another part is that there is also recognition that barriers such as a cliff face or a high retaining wall would do the same job as a fence in terms of preventing unsupervised children from getting into the pool itself.

Finally, I just want to acknowledge the great work of the Local Government and Environment Committee. It is very much a committee like the Māori Affairs Committee. It is very pragmatic and principled ki ahau ki te tautoko o te pire, otirā, tēnei pire e mihi atu ki a koutou katoa, kia ora [towards me in support of the bill, but this one in particular, and so I acknowledge you all].

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare, otirā, tēnā tātou katoa. It is a pleasure to take a call on the Building (Pools) Amendment Bill. We cannot be too complacent about water safety, and this bill is all about water safety. As a youngster, I grew up in the small town of Taihape, where not very many people had their own pools, and so we all had to go down to the river or to the local swimming pool.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: That wasn’t fenced either.

No, they were not fenced at all. The barriers were not that great to get into the local swimming pool, which the local kids did. I did not; I never did that, of course—jumped over the fence.

We cannot be too complacent about water safety. As has been pointed out by other speakers, we are bringing in new regulations around pool safety and water safety because too many New Zealanders drown and too many of our children drown. Interestingly, I was reading that the number of children who drown around Christmas-time is particularly bad, and so I just wanted to note that.

At the first reading, which I spoke on, Labour supported this bill to go to the Local Government and Environment Committee. We felt that there were some things in this bill that were very worthwhile. We felt that it could be better. Through the select committee stage, I noted, the select committee made some amendments that do, in fact, make the bill better. But at the second reading, Jacinda Ardern, on our side, indicated that we would put up a Supplementary Order Paper to make the bill even better than it is now. Unfortunately, that Supplementary Order Paper was not accepted.

I do not believe that this bill is as good as it could be, for the following reasons. It is really about the option for pool owners to have alarmed doors, rather than automatically closing doors. With an automatically closing door there is a direct action and intervention, in that when the door is opened there is a mechanical action or intervention that happens automatically. With an alarm, the action or intervention relies on human intervention. That is not automatic, because human intervention requires someone to hear the alarm and then respond to it. There is no guarantee that, when an alarm is set off because the door to the pool is open, someone is going to intervene, and that is very worrying for our party and for a number of members here tonight.

I think the potential harm from not having an intervention or action taken every time an alarm goes off on a door is particularly worrying. I link it to some research in the United Kingdom over smoke alarms, because with smoke alarms you need a direct intervention as well—like get out of the place. The research took place in the UK and the problem was that smoke alarms installed in small homes and flats would obviously, because of the size of the flat, go off from the toast burning or cooking smoke that in larger homes would not set off the alarm. So the action that people living in those sorts of situations took was to turn the alarm off. That is also a problem with alarmed doors going out to swimming pools. This is because someone could intervene and turn the alarm off for a number of reasons—mainly because the alarms are annoying when they go off when you actually want to leave the door open. They are annoying just like a smoke alarm that goes off every time you have breakfast and have toast. So that is concerning—that is very concerning.

I support the statement by Eugenie Sage when she said that she did not want at some stage to be the one to say “I told you so.”—none of us want that. None of us want even a single child to drown because no one responded to the alarm, or one child to drown because someone was annoyed with the alarm and disconnected it. None of us want that. I would not even want to be the one to say “I told you so.” either, but nor do I want that on my conscience by voting for this.

So I say to the House that we will not be supporting this bill. We acknowledge the good things that the Local Government and Environment Committee has done to make this bill better, but, as I said before, it could be much better and I am very concerned about having alarmed doors rather than automatically self-closing doors as the preferred option. I think if we take into account the difference in the cost between having an automatically closing door and an alarm—and it was mentioned that we must support new technology, well, there must surely be an opportunity for new technology to come up with automatically closing doors that are closer in cost to merely putting an alarm on that door. So, as I said, we will not be supporting this bill, and I think members should think really carefully about those two options that I spoke about. Kia ora.