Turner Judy: Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Turner Judy: Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I stand to support the first reading of the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill on behalf of United Future. One of the interesting contexts I have found myself in was that shortly after I came to Parliament in 2002 I had an amazing opportunity to go to Viet Nam to represent New Zealand at a parliamentary population and development conference the subject of which was water. For me it was the first time I had ever really thought about water as a problem. In New Zealand we have always seen ourselves as having water in abundance. We enjoy our clean green image and think we are kind of all right. When we go into an overseas context we discover the very real problems that millions and millions of people face regarding poor drinking-water quality. 
However when I came back to New Zealand with I guess my senses heightened around the subject I discovered that all was not clean and green in New Zealand and unless we start to take serious stock of the way we manage our water resources we may find ourselves with some real problems in the future. One of the very interesting comments made on this matter when I was in Viet Nam was a prediction that in decades to come world wars will not be over oil but water. That was quite a scary and sobering thought. 
United Future has been concerned for some time about the overall issue of water quality in New Zealand. In fact as part of our supply and confidence agreement with the Labour-led Government we have received assurances that we will be looking significantly at ways of improving water quality in New Zealand in every sense. One of the things I discovered much to my horror was that we now have very few rivers and lakes where we are encouraged to swim. The pollution levels are such that signs are up on increasing numbers of rivers—even some of the rivers here in the Wellington region—in which people were previously able to swim only a few years ago and in which swimming is not now recommended. We think that is an appalling state for a country that prides itself on its clean green image. We are not doing as well as we would like to believe. Of course absolutely basic to this is the water we drink. One cannot have anything more essential as a human need than fresh clean water to drink and therefore we are very keen to see this bill looked at in a select committee. 
I remember a briefing we had recently from Ministry of Health officials at a committee I was on where they explained to us how officials respond to health difficulties as they arise. They simplified it for us by saying that there are three ways we can respond. The first option is we can ignore it—which almost seems to be what the National Party is saying. The second option is we can educate and historically I think that is what we have done with people who have been serving up water that is not of a high quality. We tell people to boil it and we talk about water purifiers and that has been our response. But the third thing of course is to regulate and start to bring in some realities around what needs to happen. 
The National Party is a party that boasts a sizable number of health professionals in its caucus and I think that should have been a real strength so I am a little disappointed that those members have taken such an oppositional position from day one on this bill. I think that is sad. I am also concerned that National members kind of accept that it is more of a rural problem and it is small isolated communities that have to struggle to maintain or even to have good water quality. Those people are their constituents. They are the people whom they rely on to vote for them. It feels to me as if they are saying to those people: “Please vote for us but do not forget to boil your drinking water and buy a water filter when you are in town.” I think there is something inconsistent there that those members need to consider in this matter. 
This bill has some really interesting provisions and I pick up on what Sue Kedgley from the Greens said because I think she made a very good point. She talked about the Greens’ concern about whether the Minister could use some of the powers suggested in this bill to for instance roll out across the country fluoridated water. Currently communities can make that decision for themselves and that is a good idea. United Future members support the right of communities to vote on that issue for themselves and we would hate to see that right removed from them. So there are some things in this bill that we would like to seek clarity about and we would like to see what comes up certainly during the submission process at the select committee but we are very keen to see this bill progress. 
The other thing that concerns me about some of the speeches from the Opposition on this bill was that those members talked about the fact that something like 71 percent of the New Zealand population is served by water that complies—right now—with New Zealand drinking water standards. National members have said that so many people are not affected by this matter and asked why we are worrying about it. They talked about this bill being a heavy implement to correct a small problem. Well that “small problem” is—as I think the member from New Zealand First has suggested—that nearly one-third of New Zealanders do not currently have access to water that officials can guarantee meets the New Zealand drinking-water standards. It is one-third of New Zealanders who we cannot say with surety will not be prone to some sort of infection or intestinal disease as a result of drinking dirty water. 
We also need to understand that although most of us think of the result of drinking dirty water being little tummy upsets and a mild bout of vomiting and diarrhoea the truth is that—and I think the Minister of Health himself talked about this—there are some very serious health consequences where people actually end up with renal failure and permanent disability as a result of some of the types of diseases that can be picked up from water. And they are not diseases that we hear about from just overseas; they are potential conditions and diseases that people within New Zealand right now have hanging over them. I think it would be irresponsible for any of us not to send this bill to select committee and we should be looking very seriously at this bill. This is a foundational issue. 
The worry that has been expressed about the pressure this legislation will put on local government is I think something that we may need to consider in light of some of the other issues that central government has successively dumped on local government such as zoning for prostitution and all the related local by-laws and compliance that are to be dumped on local government. We took the step of dumping those kinds of issues on to local government authorities when really those authorities are the best people to be managing water quality because they are looking after and overseeing the water resources in their own communities. They are the best people and it is affordable if we do not continually require local government authorities to do a whole host of other things. They are kind of morphing over time with a huge and hideous list of expectations that central government has devolved down to them—and yes rates are going up. 
But it seems sad to me that we then have to get tetchy about this hugely important local responsibility of drinking water quality and say that we cannot afford to have local government and local councils take control of this very vital service of water quality because it will cost too much. I think we need to be really disturbed about that kind of thinking because it is such an essential thing for our health. 
United Future is very happy to support the first reading of this bill. We are aware that the Government is prepared to put in substantial amounts—and the amount I have in front of me is $136.9 million that the Government has tagged to implement this policy. It is not a quick process; the Government is talking about a 6-year phase-in period that will hit first of all those areas that currently have a very good system of voluntary compliance around the New Zealand water standard. These councils and regions are virtually already there; they are already over the line. For them to comply requires little over a year and they will be up to speed because they are virtually there already. But a much more generous time frame is being put around those communities that we are the most concerned about currently. They will not be expected to come up to spec overnight. There is a 6-year phase-in which I think is a very sensible thing and I am really interested in some of the regulations being proposed to come off the back of this bill. We are very happy to support it at this first reading.