Roy Eric: Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Roy Eric: Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) 
: 
 I have been listening to the debate with some interest and I think we need to set out a few principles relating to it. Nobody wants anybody in New Zealand to drink water that will do them harm. I think that is a pretty good principle to start with. The next issue we need to address is what we actually need to do to fix up what may be wrong. What have we determined is the error? A couple of examples have been given involving contamination at Wakatipu and Cardrona and I will speak to those a little later. But I see here quite a comprehensive bill of 80 or so pages that is just about making water suitable for people to consume. The mischief really is not defined. I think our team has said quite clearly that this is over-elaborate legislation that will add significant costs to a whole range of people who are out there consuming water. The Minister in the chair the Hon Parekura Horomia has a somewhat agrarian background and I say to him that this bill is a little bit like treating scrotal mange with a hammer. I think he understands that term and that the proposal in this bill is serious overkill for what is said to be a problem. 
I want to pick up on a point or two made by Lesley Soper who spoke earlier in the debate. She said she visits schools or used to visit schools in her area. Well I actually visit a few schools too. I think what I will do is copy the  
Hansard 
 record of her debate and send it to the likes of the Gorge Road School and the Otatara School in the electorate of Invercargill which I visited recently. They have pleaded with me to oppose this legislation because of the costs it will impose on schools that are not in a reticulated area. The question that needs to be answered by those on the other side who are promoting the bill is what they will do for the operations grants of schools that will be impacted on by significant increases in the costs of running their schools purely and simply as a result of this legislation. The Otatara School is in the Invercargill electorate and it is in quite a large suburb of the Invercargill City Council area that does not have reticulated water. Every resident every business and every entity in that suburb of the city has to rely on rainwater or bore water. The cost that this legislation will impose on that suburb alone will be such that I think we need to circulate the  
Hansard 
 record of Lesley Soper’s speech to those people as well so that they can get an impression of how she is quite happy to overload costs on them through an overkill piece of legislation. 
Let us take another part of the Invercargill electorate that Lesley Soper is so desirous of representing—that is Stewart Island. Again there is not a great deal of reticulation on Stewart Island. The people of Stewart Island make up a wonderful community. They actually seize the opportunity to look after themselves. One of the things that the island’s population of 380 people did was to build its own community centre. It spent $1.4 million resulting from a lot of entrepreneurial activity on building that community centre. One of the ways in which the people there fund the ongoing maintenance and management of this community resource is by catching the water off the roof and selling it as pure Stewart Island water. But I have just read the bill. Those people in Stewart Island will not now qualify without a whole lot of expenses so this legislation will kill their little fund-raising scheme. Stewart Island pure water will no longer be available without some considerable expense to those who are managing that fund-raising experience. 
Let us go back to the two illustrations that have been given where there is contamination of sewage—Lake Wakatipu and Cardrona. It is appalling that there is contamination of sewage but will this bill stop that? Surely there has been a breakdown in sewage management on the part of the people who are responsible for ensuring there is no contamination. We can pass all the legislation we like but if we have legislation that says to keep the brown stuff away from the white stuff and it is getting mixed up we do not need legislation to fix the problem. We need to sort out which pipe goes where and have someone on the ground who understands what is important in delivering clean drinking-water.