Ryall Tony: Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Ryall Tony: Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:632;Page:4360] 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
: 
 This bill the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It is a heavy-handed overkill approach to address concerns about water quality in New Zealand. It is an approach that does not properly target those who might pose the greatest risk. To those who already comply it gives the shortest time frame for compliance and to those who may be the problem it gives the longest period for compliance. We in the National Party want to tell the House the reasons why we oppose this legislation—not the least of which is the huge burden and risk it will put on to local government which is something the Government failed to discuss in the Minister of Health’s introductory speech. 
The latest survey of drinking-water supplies conducted by the Institute of Environmental and Scientific Research in 2004 showed that about 70 percent of New Zealanders receive water that is compliant with drinking standard quality. It further went on to estimate that about 15 percent of New Zealanders receive water that does not meet the current drinking-water standards. Most of those supplies are in fact from very small systems that supply fewer than 500 people. The regime proposed by this bill will impose costs on the majority of complying drinking-water systems in an attempt to improve the quality of the drinking water provided by a very few small suppliers. 
We think the approach of setting up a whole new industry of assessors and compliers is complete overkill for what is required here. We in the National Party would have thought that the Government would come up with a bill that was more focused on targeting those systems it sees as the greatest risk providing more information and encouragement for those suppliers and involving local authorities through their asset management plans to improve the quality of those schemes for which they are responsible. Instead the bill puts millions of dollars of costs on to local government and ratepayers the very people who in 70 percent of the schemes currently under debate currently comply. 
The Minister was not able to give any local examples of where the problem is. He gave a whole lot of international examples of where the problem is but failed to give any New Zealand examples. We have a list of a few water supplies that have problems and the House will be interested to know that most of the recent incidents of water-borne diseases have in fact happened on school camps out in the wild. They are not happening in the areas the Minister is trying to suggest to the House. He failed to demonstrate that things were not working and that there are significant failures in the current system. What we wanted from the Minister was for him to define the problem and provide the answer. All we got though was a sledgehammer to crack a nut. 
And what about the cost? Have any members other than National Party members actually gone through the bill and read the compliance statements in it? Did anyone else see that Local Government New Zealand at one stage had estimated that it would cost between $50 million and $200 million to comply with the bill? Did anyone else read the fact that local authorities individually were last consulted on this in the mid-1990s? These are the concerns the National Party has—the devil in the detail—and they indicate why we oppose this bill. 
There is quite a lot of confusion within the bill about how various proposals will work. The bill hangs its hat on the fact that it will require local authorities to act in such a way that they do whatever is practicable to improve the quality of their water supply. But further on the bill states that they must do this and they must do that which is in complete conflict with the principle of their being able to do whatever is practicable to improve their water supply. 
We are worried about the overhead the new industry that will be created by this bill providing for the Director-General of Health to appoint assessors and officers who will be responsible for auditing drinking-water suppliers to ensure that they meet the requirements of the bill the drinking-water standards and their public health risk management plans. Initially the assessors will talk to local authorities about how they can improve their water standards but in the end they have the power to require that local authorities do x y and z. That is writing a cheque on the ratepayer but this Government was not prepared even to admit that in the Minister’s introductory speech. This is the Government that goes on about working with local government. I bet the Prime Minister did not stand up at the local government conference last week and say that regardless of what local authorities say a Ministry of Health bureaucrat will be able to decide how ratepayers’ money is spent—whether they want it or not. There was no mention of that. And there was no mention in the Prime Minister’s speech on local government of the risk to ratepayers from private schemes being priced out. 
Labour members will not have read the compliance cost. One of them should now yell out: “How much will it cost someone to register?”. 
Anne Tolley 
: How much will it cost? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: It will cost at least $130000 just to begin the process. That is the Minister’s own advice in the explanatory note. If one has a small water scheme supplying a few people in one’s neighbourhood that is a huge burden. We should remember that most of the schemes that are not meeting the water quality standards at the moment are the small schemes with fewer than 500 people. If we burden those schemes—generally operating at a not-for-profit level—with huge costs what will happen? The organisers will say it is not for them any more and they will give it to the council to deal with. And that is the problem. Local authorities will be at significant risk of private and cooperative schemes falling into their responsibility because of the burden of costs associated with this legislation. 
So what is the answer? The problem is that some smaller water schemes need to improve their drinking-water standards to meet the standards the Government wants. A small group of schemes usually supplying fewer than 500 people—a discrete group—could be targeted for improvement but what has the Government done? It has proposed a scheme that will apply to all local authorities and to all suppliers—even tanker operators—and that will put a huge burden on that sector and the Minister did not even talk about it in his introductory speech. The National Party says that the answer is to target the problem and to use the resources that are required to address the concern. 
The Government thinks it will get an easy ride on this bill. I tell members that local authorities all around New Zealand are marshalling their resources to oppose this legislation. The reason is that it not only imposes significant costs on those who are already complying but also imposes a significant risk to local authorities particularly rural councils that they will end up having to take over the private and cooperative water schemes that are operating out there at the moment. 
Why did we not hear from the Government the actual definition of the problem in New Zealand today? The Minister provided no New Zealand examples—all the examples were international ones—and there was no explanation of the costs. The Minister’s own statements in the explanatory note include an estimate from Local Government New Zealand that compliance will cost between $50 million and $200 million. That is a huge burden. Even though the Government proposes a 4 or 5 year phase-in that is insufficient. This measure does not target where the issues may be and this Government will find strong opposition not only within Parliament from members who are informed but in particular from local authorities which know that it will put a significant burden on them in costs. Members opposite might shake their heads in disbelief but they should ring their local councils tonight and find out the significant burden that this bill proposes for them. It is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.