Radhakrishnan PriyancaHEALTH (DRINKING WATER) AMENDMENT BILLThird ReadingDebate resumed from 24 July.PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. I think when I began my contribution yesterday I pretty much ended with water is life" so I'll begin there. I said it because for obvious reasons it sustains us and yet so many people have an issue with both the quantity and the quality of the water that they're able to access. By some accounts the water crisis has touched virtually every continent with some 844 million people around the world lacking access to clean drinking-water. I pick up on the point also made by my Green Party colleague the Hon Eugenie Sage who talked about the importance or the need to safeguard the sources of our drinking water.Never has the importance I guess of this water crisis been more clear to me than when I was recently in India. I was in a city that's home to about 10 million people where a very prominent Government thinktank has said that due to the water scarcity the acute water shortage that they're facing they could completely run out of water by next year. That really brings it home and I highlight this because it's an issue that's facing so many countries and it brings home the point of the need for water management. It also brings home the point about needing to mitigate climate change but that's a completely different topic one that was highlighted very well by our youth parliamentarians who were here just last week.But in terms of water management this is something the need for which we've seen in our own country—in Havelock North more specifically when the gastro bug affected over 5000 people resulting in about 45 hospitalisations and the death of about four people. This bill gives effect to some of the recommendations that have come out of the Government inquiry into the Havelock North drinking-water outbreak. There were two stages of that inquiry: the first stage which identified the direct causes of the gastro outbreak that we saw a few years back and stage two which provided recommendations to reduce the likelihood of such an outbreak happening again.In terms of this specific bill the main change is about removing requirements for specific periods of consultation—so three years in advance notice that is needed to be published in the Gazette prior to making any changes to the drinking-water standards. This just means that there would be an ability for these standards to progress much more quickly where appropriate and for action to be taken in a way that's much quicker as well. It also then takes into recognition some of the new technologies that are available as well. Section 69P of the Act retains the existing obligation on the Minister to be satisfied though that there has been adequate consultation before issuing new or amended standards.The provisions in the bill that we're debating today are a mix of matters that were identified by the inquiry as requiring some urgent attention and some other minor amendments that were recommended by the ministry as well. I won't go into some of the minor ones because there are lots of amendments that are mainly technical in nature but I guess at the heart of this bill is the fact that we all have the right to safe drinking-water and to public health. It's a public health issue. This is a bill that will ensure that we have much better standards and that takes steps towards ensuring that such an outbreak doesn't happen again or limits the possibility of such an outbreak happening again.I want to commend the Minister the Health Committee members who were involved in this process and all actually who were involved in the process for getting us to where we are here today. I commend the bill to the House."