Luxon ChristopherCHRISTOPHER LUXON (National—Botany): Madam Speaker this is my first time speaking in this House and I just wanted to congratulate you on your appointment and to thank you in advance for your guidance and counsel to me over the coming months and years as I speak more regularly.We agree; we think this is very important regulation and the National Party supports this bill through to select committee where we can discuss it and explore it in more detail as the Minister just discussed. It is incredibly important legislation because we all watched the pain of a community in Havelock North go through that water contamination and we saw 5500 residents fall ill we saw 45 people hospitalised and it was linked to up to four deaths. So this can fundamentally never happen again. And when you put that to one side it's startling to think that in a First World country like New Zealand every year there are 34000 incidences of water-borne disease that impact our people. So the bottom line is anywhere in the world—but frankly here in New Zealand—every Kiwi as the Minister said should have access to and the right to clean fresh drinking water. It is time to address it because we do have a patchwork quilt of regulation in this space and we need to ensure fundamentally that all drinking-water suppliers do actually all work to the same and a common standard that raises the floor of water delivery and water regulation in this country.National does take the safety of water incredibly seriously. That's why we established the independent two-stage inquiry into the Havelock North circumstances and we clarified through that first report what actually happened. The second one really dealt with what were the recommendations and the principles that should guide future regulation as we go forward. Those principles I think are important—namely firstly to make sure there is always a high standard of care around water; to make sure we are protecting source water in particular; thirdly making sure we've got multiple barriers to avoid contamination happening; and never ignoring change because it's often when change happens that it precedes an event like we've seen in Havelock North. I know from my own background in aviation the importance of a quality regulated system because inevitably it's a series of what we call the Swiss cheese" effect—a series of issues—that actually build up and create an opportunity for a tragic event to occur. So it's important that we acknowledge that. The fifth thing really is about suppliers owning the safety of their own drinking water and finally just taking a risk management approach and having quality risk-management protocols around that. This bill is in fact the third in a part of a broader package of regulatory reforms. The first of course was the national environmental standard for sources for human drinking water. The second is the water services regulator Act which actually did create and form Taumata Arowai the regulator. And this bill of course is giving it the powers that it needs to undertake that work.I think this bill really does overcome the fragmented and weak regulatory system that we've seen and it does impose quite rightly some really strong duties on drinking-water suppliers. It's very practical things that really will raise the standard of water quality in New Zealand. It's about providing safe drinking water and making sure that we meet drinking-water standards; making sure that water suppliers are ensuring there is a sufficient quantity of water available to a community; registering drinking-water suppliers with the regulator; and keeping essential details and records which again has been part of the challenge of trying to understand where records are kept and where they are; that each water supplier actually has a drinking-water safety plan; and that we notify Taumata Arowai and take action when there are risks to public health. There needs to be a source water management plan—these are all very practical kinds of things—accreditation regimes and minimum skills qualifications and experience for those that are assessing water quality and importantly giving the regulator some real reporting compliance and enforcement powers. There is a consumer complaints framework in this legislation and that's really important so that actually consumers who have an issue with a supplier can actually appeal to the regulator and there are some key processes around that. The Minister talked about waste-water and stormwater environmental measures as well and fundamentally there's a capacity to be able to take good practice that's happening with one water supplier and to be able to share that through toolsets with others as well.So while we are supportive of this legislation and we're fully engaged with it and we think it's really important and a strong staring point we like the Minister are also very keen to explore some things in the confines of our select committee and better understand and discuss through submissions a couple of key things. It's good to see that there's a staggered and practical transition of this legislation in implementation but the sort of thing that we want to understand a bit more is that we note that the intention is that the regulation is proportionate to the risk the scale the complexity of each individual water supplier but we're interested to better understand what that cost burden looks like on small suppliers in particular. Domestic self-suppliers are exempt from this legislation and from these requirements but that exemption in itself excludes supply for more than one property. So there are circumstances where people may have a bore on their property they have an easement and that bore actually provides water to one or two or even three houses locally. We also see examples where we've got people with farms where they are providing housing to farm workers with a residence but they also have their own supply of water as well and so just getting clear around what domestic self-supply actually means is really important.The bill also allows for some classes of water suppliers to be exempted by the regulator's CEO—at their discretion essentially—and I think that some of our conversations should be focused on whether we think it's actually better to build some of those exemptions into the legislation upfront so that we know what we're asking of our citizens to comply with. And I think we need to explore even further with the councils any cost-burden concerns that they have in implementation but especially there is a component in this bill about the fact that if there is a local water supplier and they cannot meet the obligations of the bill there is a responsibility on a local council to then take over those water suppliers who can't meet those obligations. I think we just need to understand what that means practically for councils on the ground. I note that the Central Otago District Council has expressed some of those concerns publicly as well. And I think we finally owe it to ourselves just to reassure ourselves that the emergency powers that Taumata Arowai has are in fact appropriate and are fit for purpose. They are very important—that in a crisis situation they can step in and exercise those powers—but we just want to double check that they are appropriate and fit for purpose.Finally the bill amends the Resource Management Act and it requires consenting authorities to have regard to the actual or potential effects of a proposed activity on drinking water and that's something we really just want to understand what that could all mean in terms of how this legislation is actually implemented on the ground. I wonder whether wording like "likely effects" might be better language and we look into it. So they are obviously all considerations. As the Minister said we will explore that all in select committee. We think this is a really important time for us to take action to make sure that we are raising the floor and the quality of water standards across this country of ours and it's my pleasure to commend this bill to the House."