Smith NickBUILDING (POOLS) AMENDMENT BILLThird ReadingHon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): I move That the Building (Pools) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This bill is about improving the safety of swimming pools and saving the lives of young children. It is also a bill about making our law in this area more practical and enforceable. It is worthwhile reflecting on the history of when Parliament passed the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act in 1987 around which there was some controversy. There were 103 drownings in the decade prior and if we compare that with the most recent decade the number of children drowning in swimming pools has dropped to 21—or a reduction of about 80 percent. The provisions that we have in this bill will further improve child safety and save approximately six young children's lives over the next decade. This bill will do that by addressing the greatest deficiency in the current regulations and laws in respect of the safety of swimming pools. The main deficiency in the current law is actually compliance—that is there is no requirement in the existing law to regularly inspect swimming pools after they have been constructed to ensure continued compliance. For some councils that do regularly inspect they find that 50 percent of pools are non-compliant and that is why the significant safety gain in this bill is a nationally consistent approach that will require all of our 60000 swimming pools to be inspected once every 3 years to ensure that children are safely excluded from those. There are two further changes around enforcement that make good sense. The first is that currently when there is a non-compliant swimming pool councils have only the choice of going through a full court prosecution with all the cost for the ratepayer that goes with that and they do not have the power to give a notice to fix. So it is a good sensible practical change that this law enables the councils to give a notice to fix and enables them to be able to impose infringement notices as well as still have that option of doing a full court prosecution. It is my view that those measures will improve compliance and that is where there are big gains for improving the safety of young children. But this bill is also about getting rid of some of the areas of regulation that simply are unpractical and not workable. Across New Zealand we have 100000 spa pools or hot tubs and the current law actually requires every one of those to be fenced—that would come at the expense of about $300 million. Understandably there is very poor compliance and what this bill does is require those hot tubs spa pools and those small swimming pools to have a cover that is lockable and excludes children and that ensures that children are not able to access them. In my view that is effectively what most councils are turning a blind eye to and this law will formalise that approach. I know there are members who have opposed the practical changes in the bill around those spa pools. I would simply point out that actually more children have been drowned in baths than in spa pools and no one in this Parliament is seriously suggesting that we should have to put a fence around a bath. The second change in this bill to make the legislation more workable is to incorporate our regulation of fencing around swimming pools into the general Building Act. There are people who have argued from a symbolic basis that somehow it is better law and is more likely to be complied with if we regulate the fencing of swimming pools in its own Act. I just do not buy that sort of mushy symbolic law. I want law that will work. Incorporating the requirements for the fencing of swimming pools into the Building Act will enable us to use the inspection powers the enforcement powers the waiver powers and the modification powers that all exist in the Building Act. I ask this House why you would have different rules around fencing pools as compared with the laws that require the fencing of high balconies which can cause fatalities or as compared with the other safety requirements that we have of buildings and ensuring that they are safe. There are also important pragmatic changes in this bill around dealing with garden ponds and dealing with drainage ponds. Current strict interpretation of the law is that your council garden pond where children go to watch the ducks and to feed them with pieces of bread is unlawful and should be fenced. It is my view that we need pragmatic law that is workable and that is why this bill makes plain that it applies to swimming pools and not those other bodies of water that may pose some minimal risk. This Parliament should be focused on minimising the loss of life but equally there needs to be practical law that is workable for New Zealand citizens. There have been those who have argued that the law should be absolutely rigid and that fences should be required on all four sides of every pool. We on this side of the House are more practical and understand the realities for families. For instance if there is a pool alongside which there is a 20-metre cliff and that no child could reasonably get access to should we require that landowner to put a fence along there? Or if there is an infinity pool where there is no practical way for a child to access the pool—again we think the pragmatism that is in this bill makes sure children are protected but also respects the fact that there is a wide range of circumstances and there is more than just a fence that can exclude children safely from pools. The other significant change I want to note is that this bill provides for independently qualified persons not just councils to certify that pool fencing is safe. The reason that provision is in there is that actually there is a significant number of pool owners who rightly contract with professional organisations to monitor the chemicals and the safety of their pools—and why would we not allow them to certify the fencing? We do it for lifts we do it for all sorts of other building components—it makes good sense for Parliament to recognise that there are people other than council bureaucrats who are capable of ensuring that our pools are safe. I want to acknowledge the work of Scott Simpson and the Local Government and Environment Committee which has done an excellent job in ensuring this bill meets its purpose of making our children safer but also makes owning a pool practical and makes this a piece of law that is respected and not simply ridiculed as being ridiculous red tape. The committee has done a very effective job of refining this bill. I commend the bill to the House. I say again it is a bill that will reduce the number of child drownings by six per decade but it is a practical law that will work for New Zealanders and I urge the House to support it.