Kedgley Sue: Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Kedgley Sue: Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the Green Party to speak in support of the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill which we will be voting for with great pleasure. This was a very interesting bill and it was considered by the Health Committee at great length. The committee members have given this bill exhaustive consideration and we have made very very substantial amendments to it. 
One thing that all submitters agreed on—in fact I cannot recall any submitters saying anything to the contrary—was that water is too important to be left to a voluntary standard as the National Party is advocating. Everybody agreed that this is important—that there needs to be a mandatory standard for water and that we cannot simply leave it up to the free market. 
We have had a number of debates around the extent to which we have a problem with our water in New Zealand. It is true as some have said that to date there have not been significant problems in respect of people becoming ill from water in New Zealand and thank heaven for that. But I would point out that just a few weeks ago Canterbury’s top health watchdog was warning of the potentially huge health effects that may occur if the Central Plains Water scheme—a huge $350 million irrigation scheme—went ahead. He said this could result in an explosion—[ 
Interruption 
]—well he is the top health watchdog—in the incidence of crippling and potentially fatal water-borne diseases such as campylobacter and cryptosporidium. Canterbury’s medical officer of health Dr Alistair Humphrey who is a credible person said these concerns had not been given the attention they needed. 
Wally Clark a professor from the University of Canterbury said that water was a big concern especially where dairying was concerned and that campylobacter and cryptosporidium previously little-known diseases had become commonplace in Canterbury with the growth of dairying. These diseases were really bad and were increasing he said and he added that we needed to look at their incidence. He said that South Canterbury had the highest rates of campylobacter in the world and that there were issues relating to the potential degradation of aquifers serving residents in Christchurch. He pointed out that if we are going to see an expansion of dairying in New Zealand as we inevitably are then issues around water supply may very well become more commonplace. 
I agree with a previous speaker from National that if we are concerned with campylobacter in our water and are correctly moving to try to do something about it then we should be even more concerned about campylobacter in chicken because the overwhelming cause of campylobacter in New Zealand is chicken and we know that that is mostly to do with the way chickens are raised in the slaughterhouses. So why are we not making an equal effort to clean up the slaughterhouses and the sheds in which chickens are raised? However I will not get distracted by that issue except to make that comment. 
It is also true however—and National has already pointed this out—that when the original submitters came to the Health Committee the majority of local government was opposed to the bill and it was worried about the effect of the costs on rates. Local Government New Zealand came to us with very alarming estimates of the cost that this legislation might result in for ratepayers and it was worried that the cost could virtually bankrupt some of the smaller authorities in New Zealand. 
The Health Committee listened to the concerns of Local Government New Zealand and bent over backwards. I can think of no other bill that has come before Parliament where there has been so much genuine consultation—in this instance with Local Government New Zealand. We authorised Andrew Forsyth and his team—the officials working on the bill—to meet with local government. Those officials went to local government all around New Zealand they listened to its concerns and there was a genuine dialogue. Local Government New Zealand expressed a view on the particular issues that it was concerned about and we sought to address every single issue that it raised. We bent over backwards. I think this would possibly be the most genuine case of consultation and negotiation over legislation that has occurred in a very long time. 
As a result of the extensive consultations that we undertook we have made a whole series of important changes to this bill. I notice that the National member Tony Ryall whom Dr Jonathan Coleman referred to as Dr Tony Ryall—but he is in fact Tony Ryall—said that National had brought about some changes to this bill. I can assure anyone who may be listening that if we try to see where the changes came from we will find that they certainly came from the committee as a whole but in particular from New Zealand First and the Green Party because we had the votes and because both Barbara Stewart and myself expressed huge concern about this issue. We were not prepared to go ahead with legislation that would impose Draconian onerous and unnecessary costs on local government so we insisted that our officials make changes and as a result they did so. It was an example of MMP in action and of MMP parties requiring much greater consultation and negotiation. This resulted in more amendments and changes to the bill than would otherwise have been made. 
I actually believe that most of Local Government New Zealand is appreciative of the work we did and agrees with this bill. I suspect National members do too but they want to have a point of difference to campaign on so they are opposing it. But I think in their heart of hearts they agree that we need mandatory water standards and that this bill actually addresses the major concerns that were presented to us by Local Government New Zealand. 
We have created a new category of rural agricultural drinking-water suppliers with much more flexible obligations in respect of their drinking-water standards. We have created a new definition of “neighbourhood drinking-water supply” based on the number of people supplied. We have generally allowed suppliers serving fewer people to be given much more time to comply. We have amended the time lines so that the suppliers can align themselves with the time lines of the Local Government Act. That was in response to a concern that many people expressed which was that if there were going to be a significant upgrade suppliers would have to include that in their long-term local government plans. 
We have defined the term “all practicable steps” which councils must take to implement the standards to include affordability. That was a specific request made by Local Government New Zealand that we have agreed to. We have effectively taken on board virtually all those concerns of Local Government New Zealand including staggering time frames until 2012 and until legal duties are applied. 
There is one other little thing I would like to comment on. Under the bill the Minister will in future be able to amend or revoke drinking-water standards. We received a submission expressing a legitimate concern that this provision could somehow be used by a subsequent Minister to bring in mandatory water fluoridation effectively by the backdoor and without local consultation. So we made a further amendment stipulating that this provision will not enable mandatory water fluoridation to be introduced into New Zealand. We have also required the Minister to undergo a 3-year consultation period before amending a drinking-water standard and we have made a further amendment stipulating that legal duties under the new standards will arise only 2 years after the standards have been passed. 
So I think members will see from some of those provisions—and there are other provisions as well—that we have very extensively amended this bill. We took into account all the concerns of Local Government New Zealand. We extensively consulted with it and I believe we have come up with a bill that meets the need to have mandatory drinking-water standards and does so in a way that will not impose onerous costs on local government.