Rurawhe Adrian: Building (Pools) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRurawhe Adrian: Building (Pools) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 16 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6777. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru): I am really pleased to take a call on the Building (Pools) Amendment Bill. We have been talking a lot about protecting children and at the core of this bill is the protection of people’s safety around swimming pools and spa pools. I distinctly remember in 1987 leading up to the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act 1987 there being a spate of fatalities from drowning in swimming pools. There was a real campaign about addressing that issue. That piece of legislation went through the House and it was passed. It has done what it set out to do. The number of fatalities from drowning has reduced significantly from that time. When we consider our population which has risen over the last 30 years that is a significant issue. So I want first of all to acknowledge that the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act has actually done its job. We on this side of the House the Labour Party will support this bill to go to the select committee. The Fencing of Swimming Pools Act will be repealed by this amendment bill. We want to make certain that the safety of our children and our families is at the core of these changes. We need to be satisfied that everything that can be done will be done as part of this amendment.I also remember being part of a school board of trustees. I know that every time the Education Review Office review came round that was one of the key features—the school swimming pool. Although we are talking about private swimming pools I want to talk about schools and the role that schools play around water safety. I think they play a significant role and I will link that to this amendment bill by saying that in a lot of our communities our people do not actually have swimming pools and they do not have private spa pools at home but they do visit places where there are swimming pools and there are spa pools. So it is really critically important that schools play a role in ensuring that children in particular know the rules around safety and that they operate under good practice at those schools so that that knowledge can be transferred to when those children are in a situation where they are perhaps visiting a property with a private pool. I know that children can be hugely influential with their parents as well so having a set of guidelines for them will be very good for their parents who may or may not own swimming pools. I think it is a good idea for councils to regularly inspect private swimming pools to ensure that they are compliant. That is a very good thing.I thought I might mention the role of young parents or new parents and parents with young babies. Last night we talked about extending paid parental leave. I think that an additional 8 weeks might be quite helpful for parents to be able to be with their child on safety issues around pools.I think that although it is important to clarify the law and ensure pool owners have those options I do not think the bill should be allowed to put aesthetics above safety. I do not know what the statistics are around drownings concerning spa pools but I would suggest that the change around spa pools in particular is probably more to do with the aesthetics of not having to close off those swimming pools into a defined area by fencing them. That is something I would encourage and that I am sure the select committee will look at.I refer again to the councils’ role in this bill. I would certainly be looking forward to hearing what their contribution to the select committee process will be and how they see this operating and whether there will be significant cost for compliance. I read that 5 percent of young children who drown do so in temporary paddling pools. That is something that probably will not be covered by this bill but it is certainly something that the select committee ought to look at to make sure that it considers all options around the fencing of swimming pools. Also as my colleague Jenny Salesa mentioned a lot of our people who go swimming do not go swimming in private swimming pools. They go to the beach and they go to rivers and that is a whole other area. I think that we need to look really closely at that as well. As I said we will support this bill to select committee and that is my contribution. Kia ora.