Turei MetiriaMETIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): This Building (Pools) Amendment Bill will lead to a child dying from drowning. Let us not try to use technical language to get around the fact that this bill loosens the rules on the fencing of swimming pools and that all of the evidence is that a child will die as a result of the provisions in this bill. The evidence from the experts is also that for every child drowning there are nine child near-drowning incidents—near-drowning incidents—that lead to brain injury. So from this bill we can expect children will die and children—many more—will be seriously injured for the rest of their lives. Those are the consequences of this legislation. That is why the Green Party will not be supporting this bill.The primary reason given by the Government for this legislation is this. It is about striking a balance between reduced compliance costs for residential pool owners and territorial local authorities … and maintaining child safety". This Government is pitting the lives of children against some cost savings for people who are rich enough to own a swimming pool and for some local councils. On that balance striking a balance the National Government has decided in favour of the pool owners against the risk to the lives of children who may drown or be seriously injured in a pool accident.We heard submissions from a large number of experts in child health and well-being who expressed serious concerns about this legislation. The Auckland Regional Public Health Service said that under the previous legislation—the 1987 Act that this legislation is now going to undo—there were 200 lives saved from the fencing of swimming pools and several thousand children were prevented from near-drowning as a result of strong rules and clear rules around the fencing of pools. The National Government is about to pass legislation that will undo that and increase that risk. Water Safety New Zealand estimated that the cost of child drownings and hospitalisations from near-drownings since 2005 in the last 10 years is around $110 million. That is the cost to the families and that is the cost to the health system. That is the cost if you just want to look at it in dirty money terms like National wants to—saving a bit of cash for a few residential pool owners and $110 million in the cost to families and the public health purse from changing these rules and making it easier for children to drown.We heard from Mr Neil Price paediatric surgeon and President of the New Zealand Society of Paediatric Surgeons. He was the one who said that "for every drowning up to 9 children suffer a near drowning [incident]." He said: "These consequences have grave social [costs] and significant financial costs." He said that the current law reduced the drowning rate from around ten to only three a year saving seven lives every year since 2002. Every single one of those lives saved by the previous legislation has meant a family has not had to suffer the terrible tragedy of a death and for many many hundreds of others not the terrible tragedy of a near-drowning.We heard from some of these families. They came to the Local Government and Environment Committee and they told us: "Don't change the law. We lost our child to a drowning. We know what that means for a family. We do not want a single other family to have to suffer that unfairly unjustly." And yet the Government just did not hear them. Those families did not exist for National because as Paul Foster-Bell argued people want to have infinity pools and would rather not have a fence. That is fine for that person; it is not so fine for the child who drowns as a result of changing the law to allow someone to have their little infinity pool that is not marred by the ugliness of a fence.The Children's Commissioner came to the select committee. He also argued very strongly for the select committee to make changes to the bill to strengthen the existing law to fence off pools for the sake of children's lives. He and others argued that all around the world including in Australia the most recent changes to these kinds of laws have been to strengthen the fencing provisions to protect the lives of children. So what does National do? Protecting the lives of children is not as important as reducing some costs for those who are rich enough to own pools and so it is softening the law and making it easier for children to access swimming pools without supervision and to subsequently drown or suffer a serious injury. The Children's Commissioner also talked about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to which New Zealand is a signatory saying that in all actions concerning children the best interests of the child must be the primary consideration. What is the primary consideration in this legislation? Saving money for some residential pool owners balanced against children's lives.We know that this bill will lead to increased risk for children and death and injury. And the purpose of making law surely by any Government—particularly regulations like this—should be to improve safety for children: to make it easier for children to live well live long lives and to meet their full potential. So how did we end up with a Government that would rather save a few rich people who can own pools a little bit of money and still allow for children to be at increased risk?Plunket has come and said that it is seriously concerned about the impacts of this bill on children's lives and on families' lives. They expressed deep deep concern that the law is changing around fencing to allow for untested experimental systems to keep children out because the standard that is being set in this legislation is not a standard about the kind of fence and the kind of latch on those fences but a performance-based standard. Children are being used—their lives are being used—as an experiment by this Government. The Government is saying: "You can use any kind you like; you can pretty much do anything you like as long as we think it might keep children out." But when those experimental systems fail it will be a failure that costs a child their life. On what basis would any rational Government decide that it is OK for pool owners to experiment with the kind of fence that they might use knowing that it is children who will pay the cost with their lives and their livelihoods for that experiment? Because that is what this bill does. This is really clear from the Water Safety New Zealand submission which talked about the cost the risks to lives about its efforts over many years to prevent New Zealanders from drowning—and particularly to prevent New Zealand children from drowning. So much of the work that has gone in to protecting children from exactly this risk is now being undone by a ridiculous selfish piece of legislation that National has dreamt up because some rich pool owners want to save a little bit of cash. Shame on you National.Hon Member: Ha ha!METIRIA TUREI: You think it is funny? I am sorry does the Minister—sorry let us just be clear about this. One of the members of National just laughed at the prospect that children are at risk because of this legislation. That is the kind of National Government we have. Thank you."