Coleman Jonathan: Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Coleman Jonathan: Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (National—Northcote) 
: 
 Hearing Steve Chadwick’s contribution really shows us where the Labour Party is going wrong on the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill. We heard a whole lot of mumbo-jumbo and pseudo-science and all sorts of bizarre explanations why there is actually a need for this bill. We heard stuff like the drinking water on the East Coast is giving people bowel cancer and stomach cancer. We heard all sorts of odd stuff in the speech from Steve Chadwick who is standing in for the Minister of Health—that there was an outbreak and some sewage was poured into Lake Wakatipu back in 1984. One has to ask how this bill will actually stop sewage from being poured into Lake Wakatipu. That sums it up really. 
This bill is a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. It is an answer to a problem that has not been defined. When one looks at the evidence for the need for this bill one sees it is not solidly there. We have to be cautious before imposing these massive costs—$2.3 billion over 10 years. It is amazing when one looks at the priorities of this Labour Government. It is so concerned with getting this Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill through but the reality is that we do not have typhoid in New Zealand. We do not have these really severe water-borne epidemics. We also do not have elective surgery. That is really the problem. We do not have a focus from this Government on the real problems in health. 
The Government is rushing to do things like head up to North Shore Hospital and erect a statue. All the local failed list MPs were rolled out to back up Helen Clark to put up a statue to shed light in places where darkness has descended. The Government is rushing to get this Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill through and to spend all this money on purifying the drinking water which frankly may or may not be contaminated; the Government does not know. At the same time it is ignoring the basic health problems in New Zealand. The fact is that people cannot get elective surgery. The fact is that patients in North Shore Hospital in my electorate are sitting on trolleys. 
Steve Chadwick 
: Prevention. That is what this bill is about. 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: This bill will prevent the problems at North Shore Hospital? We are not having the water-borne epidemics that these Ministers and members are talking about. It is interesting. As Dr Ryall said— 
Moana Mackey 
: Dr Ryall? 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: He used to be known as “Justice Ryall”. Mr Ryall said that this Government likes to pride itself on consultation with local government. Person after person from local government came to see us at the select committee. They said: “Look! This bill will impose an absolutely intolerable burden on councils. It will be absolutely impossible to pay for this.” We have over 20 councils in New Zealand that will have to pay more than $2000 per head per capita of the population they serve in order to solve a problem that to those councils does not actually exist. We heard from a couple of councils that will have to pay over $4000 a head. We heard that over the next 10 years $2.3 billion of council expenditure— 
Steve Chadwick 
: What about the subsidy? 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: Let us talk about the subsidy; we have to get on to the subsidy. Steve Chadwick talked about the Government subsidy. I can tell members that what came out of that is that the Government subsidy will be for capital expenditure only. It will not cover operating expenditure to solve this problem. 
Steve Chadwick 
: It helps. 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: It helps but it will still result in massive costs being imposed on local government. The Government knows this but it has no answer. 
The thing with this Labour Party is that it does not have any voters in rural areas any more. It has lost all its rural seats. Frankly Labour does not care about anywhere but the vote in South Auckland and west Auckland because that is the only hope it has. It has given up on Jill Pettis’ seat in Wanganui; that is for sure. The Government knows that Labour is going out in Rotorua so really it does not matter if a whole lot of costs are going to be imposed there because the votes will not be there. The votes are not there for Labour. If we look at the scientific evidence here we will see— 
Jill Pettis 
: So National only does something if there are votes in it? 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: No. It is not a matter of that. It is not a matter of that at all. I am saying that this Government is quite prepared to impose this cost on rural people and on local government because frankly it has given up on those people and it does not care. It is keen just to see this bill being bulldozed through at any price whatever. It is definitely a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. 
 But it is the spend and tax Government that we have now suffered under for 9 years and the people of New Zealand have had enough of it and Local Government New Zealand has definitely had enough of it. As I said we had mayor after mayor and chief executive officer after chief executive officer coming in and saying: “Please do not impose this on us.” As Mr Ryall said we managed to get some concessions out of them. We had ludicrous situations where people who were supplying one or two or a mere handful of rural customers were going to have to comply with this standard. It was pointed out that at the end of the day the customers would just turn off the tap. So once again the Government yielded to this and finally started to see common sense. 
But what is really concerning is that there has been no real legitimate cost-benefit analysis to justify imposing this expense on people. We have heard these vague testimonies about what has happened overseas and about outbreaks in Russia and Wisconsin but we have heard no solid evidence about what happens here in New Zealand. The member for Rotorua talked a lot about campylobacter. Well campylobacter is actually a food-handling disease and is a disease that we get from chickens. The Government is not using any evidence to link up its arguments and that is the key problem; there is a flaw there. There is not sufficient evidence to support its case. There is not the evidence to justify this $2.3 billion of expenditure. With $2.3 billion over 10 years we could do a heck of a lot for the health of New Zealand in areas where we know we will get a return. That is the problem. There is no focus from this Labour Government on what really counts and what is really going to deliver the changes that we need in this country. 
This bill will impose a completely unnecessary level of compulsion. As we heard during this inquiry the vast majority of town water suppliers throughout the country actually comply with the standards. We heard that when it came down to it the bill’s provisions were going to affect 16 percent of water suppliers throughout the country who would really have to clean up their act and many of them would just end up turning off the tap anyway. So it seems to be completely ridiculous to impose another level of cost and bureaucracy on suppliers who are already complying. At the end of the day it will be the poor old ratepayers the people who pay their taxes who keep local government going and who keep the country going—basically the people who are out there working—who will end up paying for this. I can tell members that people in New Zealand are pretty much fed up with seeing their taxes being spent on things that they do not need to be spent on basically for this Government to come up with answers in areas where there really are no problems. So there has been a flawed rationale behind this whole bill. 
Let us consider the rates of water-borne outbreaks. We heard this story about something happening on a ski field about 20 years ago but there has not really been much more detail to back it up. We have not seen the hard science from the East Coast which that member from Rotorua was talking about—the links between stomach cancer and bowel cancer and contaminated water. I tell members that if there really was a link the Health Committee would be really glad to have a look at it because bringing up that sort of fatuous argument does nothing to justify this $2.3 billion of Government expenditure. It really is a ridiculous situation. 
But what was really interesting was what we heard from the officials and Tony Ryall touched on this. Originally the estimate was this would cost about $50 million. Then we heard that it might be $50 million to $275 million. Then they had a conference last year and said: “Well actually it is going to be $300 million.” It is pretty hard to see how much this whole thing is going to end up costing. But what we can say is that we do have figures from some of these councils and they are all from the South Island. The Mackenzie District Council which covers 3000 people will have to pay $3 million to comply with this legislation. I do not know how much cholera and typhoid we have had in the Mackenzie Country lately but I would like to bet that it is not too much. The Ashburton District Council—Ashburton is another area that Labour will never hold—will spend $10 million over the lifetime of the long-term council community plan and the Clutha District Council will spend $20 million. In Owaka 200 ratepayers will have to pay $750000 to comply with this. Central Otago with 23 water suppliers will spend $5 million. 
The problem is that these Labour members think there is a massive problem here with the drinking-water standard that is causing some sort of water-borne outbreak of terribly debilitating diseases throughout the country. There is not. That is the issue. If we had some competent people on the Treasury benches who could take this $2.3 billion they could do a helluva lot with that money over the course of the 10 years it will be spent. 
This bill is a bit like hair dye. One can apply it to try to cover up a problem but at the end of the day the problem lies underneath. The reality is that this Government is out of time it is out of answers and it just does not know which problems are worth focusing on. It is sayonara to the Government.