Sharples Pita: Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Sharples Pita: Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. This bill is encapsulated in one simple sentence—the right to clean safe water is a fundamental human right. Standards are required and need to be enforced as there are numerous sources of threats to clean drinking-water. So we in the Maori Party have been happy to put forward our support for the bill as a party that stands up for the fundamental human rights of people. One would have thought that this would be an aspiration that all parties in this House would stand up for but of course it is now part of the international record of shame that our current Government will in New York on 13 September—that is tomorrow—put forward its opposition to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples—a declaration that addresses both individual and collective rights cultural rights and identity and rights to education health employment language and others. It is a declaration that outlaws discrimination against indigenous peoples and promotes their full and effective participation in all matters that concern them. It ensures their right to remain distinct and to pursue their own visions of economic social and cultural development. But no it is not a declaration that this Government is prepared to support. 
For Maori water rights have a particular value. Every iwi and hapu has a river or a lake so every iwi and hapu has been concerned about the global commercial interests that are being pushed through Governments with multinational companies looking to buy water rights. Ko te tikanga kia noho tonuma te iwi a-rohe te whakahaeremoonaake mana moana. Each tribal area should be responsible for its own territorial waters. 
So we look at the strategy underpinning the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill to see how tangata whenua are engaged and involved in the improvements in risk management in respect of drinking water. We are interested that the bulk of the 47 submissions received were from local authorities and water suppliers who of course have a vested interest in the quality of drinking water. What we know is that there are a host of threats to safe clean drinking water in Aotearoa. There is for example agricultural runoff; horticultural sprays; pest eradication spray programmes; industry both intentional and unintentional; stormwater mixing with drinking water due to infrastructure problems and flooding; lead water pipes; and possums and birds contaminating roof water and so on. 
Some or all of these issues are pretty much a constant feature of daily life as reported in the nation’s media. Any differences in water-supply quality tend to be due to where Maori choose to live. In other words as has already been highlighted in some of our rural areas where there are high Maori populations there are also some of the highest rates of E. coli and reported drinking - water - borne diseases. There are some big issues that need further analysis around the purity of the water supply to our marae. We have tended to overlook the damage of runoff from the roof and the quality of the water from springs and the question is: how careful are we? 
Hapu and iwi as kaitiaki of water would suggest that the management of water should be jointly managed with local authorities. We notice that the select committee gave emphasis to its extensive consultation with Local Government New Zealand and we in the Maori Party can only wonder whether there was extensive consultation with whanau hapu and iwi to discuss the new drinking-water standards. Although the Health Committee concluded that water supply has historically been the responsibility of local government we can only ask too what priority the select committee has afforded to those who persevere and embrace the spiritual and cultural guardianship of Te Ao Marama. 
Our whakapapa responsibilities of kaitiakitanga require us to exercise responsibility in a way that measures the wealth and well-being of resources such as water and I want to talk about the association between wealth and water. Any analysis of the economic environmental and social condition of Maori must include the sustainability and quality of the water supplies within our communities. Wealth is as much about living well as a whanau hapu and iwi as it is about the ecological capacity of our planet. That is where the welfare of Maori is absolutely connected to the public health risk-management plans that this bill creates as a duty and an obligation on suppliers. 
We do however agree with the concerns put forward in the minority view of our friends in the National Party regarding the impact of the compliance costs from this bill on local government and water rates. It has greatly concerned us as a party that an intractable political and corporate culture is approaching the economics of environment protection as another indicator of GDP. We would be extremely concerned to see the good governance responsibilities involved in managing public health risks being translated into further downstream costs for ratepayers. We are of course alarmed at the pollution of the ecosystem and the devastation of disease vectors that have increased the reservoir of potential water-borne human pathogens carried by animals—in other words the harmful impact of contaminated drinking-water whether done intentionally or recklessly. So on that one count alone we will continue to support this bill so that Maori can anticipate a future of living in good health and in reasonable prosperity. But we are also mindful that low-income communities in particular may be more vulnerable to water contamination if they are already lacking sufficient nourishment to fight off the harm. 
Once again it comes back to rights—the right of New Zealanders to benefit from living in a clean safe and healthy environment and the right of New Zealanders to prosper from the protection restoration and enhancement of mauri the life force within our natural environments. 
Finally despite the shameful performance that this current Government has demonstrated concerning the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples I am aware that on 22 March World Water Day a number of agencies internationally called for a United Nations convention on the right to water. We in the Maori Party respecting water as a taonga are interested in learning the position of the current Government toward such an international convention. 
We absolutely endorse the provision of safe affordable water for drinking and sanitation as a basic human right. We do not believe that the privatisation and trading of water rights sits alongside indigenous rights or human rights. Our commitment to supporting the bill at this its second reading is to do so in the interests of protecting and preserving a stable and secure environment for future generations. Such a goal reflects our party’s belief in genuine progress true wealth and kaitiakitanga. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker.