Ardern JacindaBUILDING (POOLS) AMENDMENT BILLIn CommitteePart 1 Amendments to Building Act 2004JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): It seems timely that as we come to debate this bill a flyer from Safekids arrived in the mail which a number of MPs may have received. I just want to point out that Safekids have been massive advocates in this space and have repeatedly called on this Parliament to make sure that we do not lessen the current safety provisions that exist and it has to be said that the fencing of swimming pools under the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act has been incredibly successful in reducing the number of drownings. We have gone from 100 drownings in the 10 years before the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act to 30 in the 10 years to 2012. So no doubt it has had an incredible impact. What we need to be debating here in this Chamber today—well the primary consideration for the Labour Party—in the context of debating these parts has been what we are doing to further reduce the number of deaths and I want to add injuries because that was the significant point made by submitters on this bill. So that has been our primary consideration and it was from the point at the very beginning when Shane Jones originally in Government began a consultation process on this Act with the view—and I know this because I went back and read the beginning of the consultation document that Shane Jones put out as Minister—the primary goal of reducing drownings even further. That is in direct comparison to the discussion document because that process for reasons I am unsure of was dumped and restarted by the Hon Dr Nick Smith. When I went and read the beginning of that document drownings were mentioned but so was a reduction in regulation and regulatory compliance. So there was a different focus. There was an additional focus added at that point but for us the primary goal has been quite singular. From Safekids' perspective—look it has put out this information on the number of injuries and deaths of children in New Zealand. Over 60 percent of all injuries to under-fives happen in the home and it does point to the number of drownings—12 percent. It advises that pool owners use gates and stairs at doorways and have a compliant fence. Safekids' view of what a compliant fence needs to be and what this bill proposes are quite different and I do want to talk about that a little bit. The schedule of this bill does significantly change the way we define what is acceptable as an enclosure around a pool or an immediate pool area. If I could just give a little bit of context at the beginning of this Committee stage debate. When we first started this debate we entered into it in good faith and voted in favour because the Minister told this House and the regulatory impact statement told this House that this bill would save lives. Yet when we got to the select committee the overwhelming evidence from submitters was that their view—and they were experts in the field—was the opposite: we were in fact diluting in their view a number of the preventative factors that had been in place. I will concede that there has been considerable change by the select committee on this bill good change and I thank the officials and the select committee members for that. One of the most significant changes has been around compliance. If I were to find where that was set out—I believe it was in clause 12 of the bill in Part 1. The compliance regime for pools obviously is managed by local councils. Originally the first draft of the bill stipulated that we would have certainty around the inspection regime. At the moment it is a bit ad hoc. There are some councils that inspect on a different cycle from others. By and large though many councils tend to inspect around the 3-yearly mark and we know from Auckland Council that that was the case for them because they came and told us that they inspected pools every 3 years and that when they did that—I believe it was every 3 years—they found that 65 percent of pools were non-compliant within a 3-yearly time frame. The bill however—I will grant you this—wanted to create uniformity because some councils were not inspecting that often. So they chose 5 years. For some councils that would have been a lift but not for everyone. So the select committee took the evidence base that said some councils are inspecting at 3 years and are finding a lack of compliance and we know that for all of the drownings that have occurred in New Zealand or I believe at least the majority of them there have been non-compliant fences. It was not that the law had allowed a loophole that allowed a drowning; it was that there were non-compliant fences so surely compliance would be the thing that would be most likely to prevent all drownings in pool areas. So compliance needed to be absolutely at the top of our radar; absolutely. It was put at the select committee that perhaps yes having a uniform time and inspection cycle was a good thing but let us lift the bar. Let us not have it at such a large lead time that you could have disintegrated fencing or latches and so on. So I am very pleased that that was changed at the select committee to 3 years under I believe what would be roughly around—clause 12 I think is where the inspection regime is. We are absolutely supportive of that. Other gains that were made by the select committee included broadening the purpose beyond just drowning to injury. I still vividly remember the paediatricians—I believe it was—who came to the select committee and described some of the injuries including significant brain injuries. So yes we have fixated on death by drowning but the ramifications for a child who is in a pool for just a few seconds without supervision are absolutely crushing. The acceptable solution under the Building Act is now the one specified in the schedule to the old Fencing of Swimming Pools Act (FOSPA) which is excellent. The discretion to vary from that solution to another or to exempt pools is the same. So it is no wider in breadth and the test for its application is the same as what we had under FOSPA. I have to say there was really a lack of information out there for a lot of the groups who came to the select committee—that message simply had not got through. I can understand the alarm that they had and it was rightly placed. Also the bill now provided that the information provided to councils for spas and other small pools would help them distinguish—because the rules now around a spa being allowed to have a lockable lid is a big change and one where we are going into somewhat uncharted territory. So we had a number of areas where we have had concerns with this bill but I have to say there was one that really stuck for us and it is set out in Part 2 of the schedule and I want to bring that up in the bill. That really defines the way that a pool area must be enclosed. It says in the schedule and there have been some changes here that where a building forms all or part of an immediate pool area—so imagine that you perhaps have a house form one side of the barrier around a pool area. You might have a fence on three sides and then maybe a ranchslider out into the pool and this forms all or part of an immediate pool area barrier so it is not a four-sided fence. The bill says that the doors between the building and the immediate pool area must not be able to be readily opened by a child and must either emit an audible warning when the door is open or close automatically after use. What that means is that you could have a ranchslider for instance that could be opened but when it is opened an alarm might go off but you are to all intents and purposes in the pool area at that point. There is an alarm ringing but you are in. Our major concern is that this is not proven as a way to prevent drowning and harm—an audible alarm. It is not proven. We know that a contributing factor to drownings in a pool that might be compliant the fencing might be compliant is lack of supervision. So we cannot allow any of our regulation in this area to be reliant on the most fallible thing of all and that is the constant attention of an adult or of supervision. Because if we rely on that we know we will fall down. And we are relying on an adult hearing that noise and responding to it. What it suggests to me is that (a) if a kid is able to pull open a door and get out that door there is probably no one around in the vicinity and if you are in a large house who is to say they will be able to hear that audible alarm; (b) who is to say that alarm does not get triggered every so often and it does not drive everyone in the household crazy to the point that they disarm the alarm? That is a reasonable assumption because we know that has happened before. There was I think evidence from a study in London of smoke alarms installed for free in low socio-economic neighbourhoods. In small flats the alarms went off regularly so what was the response? They were taken out by the owners. They were just disabled because they drove people nuts. I have the same concern about being reliant on these alarms. So we have a Supplementary Order Paper that basically—