Whaitiri MekaMEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): E Te Māngai o Te Whare tēnā koe. Otirā e ngā mema o Te Whare nei tēnā tātou katoa. I am pleased to take a call on the second reading of the Building (Pools) Amendment Bill. I just want to cover the opening statement by the Minister for Building and Housing the Hon Dr Nick Smith. When I read his opening speech I was somewhat surprised when he mentioned that Swimming pools are a source of a huge amount of enjoyment for New Zealanders."—I agree with that. We enjoy our swimming pools because of the healthy exercise—I absolutely agree with that. Kiwi families learn "to get those water skills to … ensure that they are safe whether they go to the beach or whether they"—wait for it—"… swim in one of New Zealand's many rivers and lakes." Is that not ironic? Here we have a Government that promotes a wadeable water standard and yet the Minister is talking about us all going to swim in the river. I want to turn to and remind the House of the purpose of this bill. The bill amends the Building Act 2004 and repeals the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act of 1987 to reduce the compliance burden currently imposed on pool owners and territorial authorities in relation to residential pools while maintaining child safety. Many contributors to this particular bill have debated around getting the balance right between child safety and of course compliance costs. There have been people who made that point: have we got it right? One child who dies in a pool in this country is one child too many. We here as legislators need to make sure that while we shift and remove the compliance costs of swimming pool owners spa pool owners and hot tub owners we do not actually by accident create more unsafe practices for young people. Essentially that is what this bill is intending to do. As previous speakers have said Labour supported it to the Local Government and Environment Committee so we could hear from the many experts who presented their cases. I want to acknowledge the submissions on behalf of Water Safety New Zealand the Auckland Regional Public Health Service the Paediatric Society of New Zealand Starship Children's Hospital and a range of councils. We present this bill because the select committee believes it has got the balance right. My colleague Jacinda Ardern has Supplementary Order Paper 208 (SOP) which highlights the issue of the alarm system around spa pools and hot tubs. We would like hopefully to say that alarming them probably may lead to tragedy with young people so her SOP is presented here and we do hope the House endorses it. It is replacing the alternative of alarms and states: "doors between the building and the immediate pool area must not be able to be opened by children and must close and latch automatically after use:". That SOP goes to the very heart of ensuring that child safety is at the centre of this bill. I hope that when we get to that point we see there is wisdom in relying on again an access limitation to the pool area as opposed to having an alarm. I go back to the facts around our swimming history in this country because we do have the highest rates of drowning in this country. We are an island in the Pacific—many of us got here either by canoe or boat—we are surrounded by water and it is part of the New Zealand psyche that swimming is something that all New Zealanders enjoy. In fact from my own education I learnt to swim in the school pool. But for many of our young people nowadays in primary school that is not an option for them. I come back to the bill. We support wanting to make sure that areas for young people for pool owners and of course for local authorities and the question around inspection have been addressed. The committee thought long and hard about extending the inspection period—the current Act talks about 3 years—to 5 years. Or is it the other way round—from 5 years to 3 years? But the point is that we heard the submissions and we support that we have more regular inspections of swimming pools. Of course the issue is what we are putting on to councils particularly the smaller councils and whether they have the expertise around having properly skilled pool inspectors. We acknowledge that we should allow the councils to determine the relevant skills that are required to inspect those pools. We support making it easier also for smaller councils particularly. The other part that we all acknowledge is that the Act that we are amending or repealing the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act did actually go quite a long way to saving young people's lives. We heard many of the statistics that have been put up and shared in this debate around the reduction in the number of young children losing their lives. But again the question that begs a response from the Government side is: have we got the balance right? Have we got child safety with compliance particularly on swimming pool owners right? Like I said earlier in my speech one young life lost in a swimming pool or a spa pool is one too many. So we do want to see a continuation of what the Act shows which is a reduction in the number of drownings in this country. With this new amendment we want to ensure that that record of reduction is not compromised by the changes that we are proposing in this bill. I just want to talk again around Labour's support for anything that reduces child drownings. We do hopefully have the support of the House for my colleague Jacinda Ardern's SOP. To the many submitters who came in front of the select committee—even though I am a member of the select committee I did not participate in the actual submissions process but I do know that those who did submit gave some very very useful feedback so that we could reflect that positively in this bill presented tonight. Like my colleagues on this side we do support the bill with those amendments that our colleague Jacinda Ardern has put forward which are around latching as opposed to having alarms around the pool area. I commend this bill to the House and look forward to its passage with those amendments. Kia ora tātou."