Nash StuartSTUART NASH (Labour—Napier): One in 10 people lack access to safe water and somewhere a child dies every 90 seconds from a water-related disease. That is 60 children who are going to die of a water-related disease by the time this debate on water quality in Havelock North has concluded. It is estimated that more than 500000 people die as a result of drinking contaminated water every year. That is around 90 people who will die before this debate concludes. Some 636 million people are estimated to live without clean water and diseases from dirty water kill more people every year than all those who die from armed conflict. And then we shake our heads we change the channel and we watch the rugby because that is a Third World problem—because people in New Zealand do not get sick from drinking water. We do not go to hospital from drinking water out of our taps. Well we do. This is a wake-up call that we need to now take the issue of water quality and water security very very seriously. Let us deal with the facts when we do not get it right: over 2000 people are seriously ill. There are 22 people in hospital and knowing how stoic Hawke's Bay people are I assume it is probably twice that number who should be there at the moment. There are two people critically ill and apparently one person is possibly dead as a result. And this is in New Zealand. The facts as I understand them are that the district council knew conclusively on Friday but perhaps as early as Thursday that campylobacter was the cause of this outbreak but did not notify residents until Friday evening. When people have diarrhoea when they vomit they are told to drink water to stay hydrated and this is what the residents of Havelock North did for at least 8 hours but perhaps as long as 24 hours—young children healthy adults and elderly citizens. A good friend of mine was struck down with this on Tuesday. She drank water for 3 days in order to keep hydrated. This is the situation we find ourselves in and of course we need to find solutions. There will absolutely be learnings but let us crawl out from underneath our veil of smugness and start dealing with the issue of water seriously with the level of urgency it now deserves and as Kiwis we expect. This is not a time to apportion blame or to point fingers but it should be a time when central government and local government actually come together and work to come up with solutions under urgency to address the issue. I believe this has not happened in the optimal way that perhaps it could have. I suspect that what comes out of any review will hopefully be a plan that says: When this sort of thing happens this is what we need to do—and under urgency." It is not acceptable that it has taken 4 days for the council to start organising doorknocking for a whole lot of elderly residents. Keep in mind—and I have got to say this—Havelock North is not one of these poor suburbs where people are suffering from diseases of poverty. Havelock North is in fact one of the wealthiest suburbs in the country and certainly in Hawke's Bay. So this is not about social economics in any way shape or form. This is about how we deal with a very very serious situation in our communities. I just think that it could have been done better. In fact we all know that it could have been done better. Like Mr Foss I would like to be part of the review and I think my colleague Meka Whaitiri also should be part of that review because this comes down to the fact of what our communities are about. They are about us working together but they are also about meeting expectations when something goes wrong. I just do not think that the expectations of the Havelock North people the expectations of Hawke's Bay or even the expectations of New Zealanders—that when 2000 people go down ill it takes this long to get some sort of coordinated response. It could have been better. It should have been better. Like everyone in this House I wish the people of Havelock North a very speedy recovery. I hope we find a solution to this. I sincerely hope that this was just an unfortunate glitch in the system that is easy to fix. I hope it was but I will just reiterate: it should have been done better it could have been done better and next time it must be done better. Thank you very much."