Muller Todd: Building (Pools) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMuller Todd: Building (Pools) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 16 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6778. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): I rise to take a short call on the Building (Pools) Amendment Bill. Essentially I guess we have the question here around what good policy is—the balance between public safety on the one hand and the efficient administration of that policy on the other. What is the right landing point with regard to that question?One thing that really underpins this bill as we read it for the first time is that rules need to be effectively applied proportional to the risk at hand and of course consistently applied as opposed to this sporadic application that has clearly been the case of the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act since 1987. But to be fair we are not approaching this from a blank sheet of paper. We have an established piece of legislation—that Act that was passed in 1987.We do have to acknowledge that that is an underpinning piece of legislation. It has been successful. It has kept young children safer than they otherwise would have been. The rate of drownings as we have already heard from my esteemed colleague to my left Scott Simpson has dropped from 100 young children in the 10 years to 1987 to 30 young children in the 10 years to 2012. These are young children being saved by this piece of legislation so it is not surprising that the evidence shows that if we fence swimming pools then we obviously reduce the risk of drownings. In fact most if not all—not quite all—drownings occur in pools with non-compliant barriers.But as we have heard there are some challenges with regard to the current law that this bill addresses. As early as 1989 2 years after the initial Act came into place feedback from the community was that it was difficult to work with. The rules were duplicated under two Acts. Initially the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act 1987 and more latterly the Building Act 2004 were particularly inconsistently applied and cumbersome. I think that that is probably the key message that the community has sent to us over the last few years.There are wide variations in inspections—some are every 3 years and other councils have no planned inspections at all. Also the view around needing a permanent barrier in respect of spa pools is clearly onerous when you look at the nature of spa pools today and the heaviness of the secure lid. That was disproportional to the risk at hand.This bill I think quite sensibly seeks to bring together all those community concerns over the lack of consistency of reviewing the potential and particular barriers that are up there. There is a real focus on spa pools and how to more effectively manage those. The bill has a list of areas that we are going to step through and we are also going to be consistent in respect of the 5-year requirement for all councils to view that you have actually got a compliant swimming pool set-up which I think will be very good. It will also then be giving the council a consistent approach in terms of response to enforcement—a notice of infringement first and following up with the ultimate $500 or even $5000 fine if it unnecessarily has to go to that level.I am very supportive. I think this is good public policy. I am pleased to hear that we have got from what it sounds like pretty broad support from the House. I do look forward to the select committee processes Mr Simpson has outlined. I think we will get a lot of people from the community and I will wait with interest to hear their views on what we have put forward and I look forward to the process. Thank you.