Kuriger Barbara; Mahuta NanaiaBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you Mr Chair. I wanted to speak in Part 1 to clause 8 of the bill and I wanted to speak to the Supplementary Order Paper in the name of Christopher Luxon. And clause 8 the request is that we insert a new clause 8(f) for which the wording is does not include a supplier who supplies drinking water to fewer than 30 end point users." And the reason I wish to speak to that and perhaps ask some questions to the Minister around that is that we see that this clause is going to be quite an administrative burden not just for the farmers for the bach owners for the marae but also for the people in Taumata Arowai who have to go through the process of setting up the administration functions for this particular piece of legislation. And while we accept that the Minister has her own Supplementary Order Paper which proposes to extend the time we still feel that to go to this level and have water sources under 30 end point users will create a lot of angst amongst smaller suppliers. And a second question for the Minister is: firstly is she confident that the administration will be able to be set up around it? Secondly: is she confident that a lot of water suppliers who currently supply a neighbour or somebody else are not going to simply disconnect those water pipes and expect those neighbouring houses to supply their own water?Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Local Government): Firstly can I thank the member for speaking to the Supplementary Order Paper introduced by her colleague Chris Luxon who was a member of the Health Committee. Our first premise around the approach to small suppliers is to ensure that every small and rural water supply is brought into a higher-standards framework. We don't want to abandon any community. We want the assurance of every drinking-water supplier to be included. I think helpfully and the select committee will be aware of this through the consideration of this particular issue it's simply not true that drinking-water contamination is only experienced through metro suppliers; it is also experienced in smaller suppliers.The Ministry of Health's annual report on drinking-water quality gave some information that between the period 2019 to 2020 it reported that suppliers serving 501 to 5000 consumers were 43.8 in compliance and those suppliers serving 100 to 500 consumers were at a compliance rate of 31.3 percent. And again it was very unknown as to what the level of compliance was for those water suppliers drinking suppliers serving 100 customers or less. But practically the benefit of including small suppliers into the regime that we are proposing that is overseen by Taumata Arowai is that Taumata Arowai will be responsible for working with small suppliers towards practical solutions and "practical" is the operative word because we want to ensure that small suppliers and the nature and profile of how they supply water according to the scale size and complexity as we've said in this House is taken into account as we come up with solutions that work for small suppliers.BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you Mr Chair. Just a further question to follow up on that one we know that there are options around water filters and UV filters and things like that. Were there any other options that were discussed that would have perhaps suited the purposes of the small water suppliers other than a registration process?Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Local Government): There may well be other options but the point that we were trying to get to—and there's some experience of Taumata Arowai as the bill was being considered because they were working with small suppliers and rural communities around practical considerations. So there may well be in the future. That's probably the best answer. But as it stands now the opportunity to make provisions for UV devices at the point of—like at the house will enable small suppliers to ensure that they can provide the household safe drinking water. Now I have some experience of this to the extent that part of my electorate has large rural areas. You only need to visit the rural parts of your communities to know that there could be some 5 kilometres between where water is sourced to stock being fed and then the house falls after that particular set of challenges around water supply. So Taumata Arowai according again to the scale and profile of what they're dealing with in small rural supplies will take all of this practically into account. There is no sense whatsoever in our conversations with rural advocates that they have misunderstood the intention of the legislation. I think there is a fair reflection back from them as we want to be assured that when Taumata Arowai is working with them to seek out practical solutions those solutions are practical. And that is the intention."