Smith NickHon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): 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.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: 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."