Goodhew Jo: Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Goodhew Jo: Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:642;Page:11889] 
JO GOODHEW (National—Aoraki) 
: 
 I rise to join my colleagues in opposing the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill and it seems really important that I start by expressing some concern about the drinking water in the debating chamber. Such was the invective of the member opposite Martin Gallagher that I think the drinking water may well have been endangered. I wonder whether it needs to be changed after listening to that speech from the other side. 
I speak on this bill in the knowledge that in my 2 years in Parliament few other bills have caused such an outcry from the rural people and the territorial local authorities of my electorate—Aoraki. I am worried about the misrepresentations made in the House today. First of all the whole of the Health Committee worked very very hard to improve this bill—not only advisers but all parties worked very hard. It is disingenuous of an earlier speaker to suggest that the improvement was all down to New Zealand First and the Green Party. In fact considerable work was done by all parties. 
I want to help out the member opposite who said he was not as learned as Dr Jackie Blue by explaining what this magazine is. It is the Food Safety Authority magazine  
Food Focus 
 and it states: “Campylobacterosis is an important food-borne disease in New Zealand and has the highest level of notifications. There are a lot of cases of this particular problem but most of them are food-borne cases.” Let me begin with a reference to a statement made by the Minister of Health Pete Hodgson during the first reading of this bill: “Water can never be made completely safe.” Well that is a good start. But the Minister prefaced that statement with the word “Although” and then set about explaining just how much money he wants the ratepayers of New Zealanders to pay to reduce the potential risk to public health. 
This is where I need to make a very strong point. The National Party does not oppose clean safe drinking-water for the people of New Zealand wherever they may live. This party does not oppose that but we believe that in many respects this bill is set up to fail. The cost is so high that it simply will not happen. We know this because we had significant representations made to the select committee. When the Minister referred the bill to the Health Committee he said it must be reported back to the House by December 2006. There are a number of reasons why that did not happen. Partly it was because of the concerted effort of all parties in the select committee process. There were 47 submissions and we heard 26 of them. Most came from local authorities and water suppliers which is no surprise. But do not be mistaken by the summary of support numbers. It is really hard for anybody in New Zealand to say that he or she is opposed to improved drinking-water—it is unlikely one would find anyone who would say that. But there are people who oppose this bill and the nature of it because they believe it represents significant financial risk. 
Back in January of this year the Ministry of Health put out a press release entitled: “Steady improvement in the quality of New Zealand’s drinking water.”—interesting considering it came up during the select committee process. It stated: “The quality of New Zealand’s drinking-water is improving steadily according to the  
Annual Review of Drinking-Water Quality in New Zealand 2005 
 which provides the most up to date information on the quality of our tap water.” We know there have been improving numbers of registered water supplies. We know that drinking-water supplies have been improving prior to this bill. Dr Paul Prendergast the Ministry of Health’s principal public health engineer said that the figures mentioned in the review did not “necessarily mean that 24 percent of New Zealanders received unsafe drinking-water in 2005 it simply means water suppliers did not demonstrate that the water was safe.” That is an important point to make. 
There were significant flaws in the development of the rationale for this bill; the most important being the Government’s belief that there will be significant improvement in gastrointestinal infection rates as a result of the bill. But the ministry was unable to demonstrate clear unequivocal links between a lot of these gastrointestinal problems and drinking-water supplies. 
I acknowledge there have been significant improvements to this bill but I just want to spend a small time on considering some of the objections to the bill. Both Federated Farmers and Rural Women surveyed their members. The concerns of Federated Farmers mirrored the concerns of many other submitters; 31 percent of their members responded to the survey which is quite a bit higher than it would usually get. In answer to the question: “Do you support the introduction of the drinking-water standards as compulsory compliance standards?” there were some interesting responses. Some people talked about being in an area where their water was graded E but there had not been outbreaks of disease. Some people thought the standards were overkill. Some said it seems an expensive way of over-regulating for schemes that are perfectly safe and have little risk of becoming dangerous. Some said the voluntary standards work; there is minimal ill health related to drinking-water standards. 
They were also asked: “Do you think the bill should proceed despite the financial costs outweighing the benefits?”. Some said in response that if they cannot prove the benefits outweigh the costs then forget it. They said: “We live here by choice”—in rural areas—“and accept that risks apply.” There was a feeling that the costs would add to the overburden on ratepayers. They said: “Costs will increase our rate bills.” I think generally the people in rural areas have said yes they want safe drinking-water but they want it in an affordable manner. I really want to reiterate that that is National’s point. 
When the National Party decided to oppose the bill it did so knowing that after all of the work that Local Government New Zealand undertook during the select committee process it had retained principled opposition to this bill. Local Government New Zealand worked with us in the select committee and achieved significant improvements to the bill. Those improvements have been covered by some of National’s previous speakers so I will not go into those again. The fact that Local Government New Zealand has principled opposition to the bill tells me that the costs it has estimated for its long-term council community plan expenditure both operating expenditure and capital expenditure are too high. 
I will touch briefly on the per capita costs for capital expenditure for long-term council community plans that will hit some councils very hard. Two of these councils—Queenstown and South Taranaki—have a figure exceeding $4000 per capita. Five councils—Marlborough Rangitikei Thames Coromandel Timaru and Whangarei—have per capita expenditure of more than $2000. That is just one example of what these particular councils and what Local Government New Zealand are concerned about and one of the reasons why Local Government New Zealand retains its principled opposition. 
I will close there because the rest of the debate will give us plenty of opportunity to further canvass during the Committee stage of this bill.