Stewart Barbara: Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Stewart Barbara: Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the third reading of the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill. The right to have clean safe water is a fundamental right here in New Zealand whether one lives in a city a town or a rural community and one that we would expect any and every First World country to subscribe to. In fact every party in this House would want good drinking-water available nationwide here in New Zealand. The fact that the New Zealand standards are based on the World Health Organization guidelines means that there is a very solid basis to these standards. They are not greater than what is required. In fact they are used by many OECD countries. The standards are not unique to New Zealand and the bar has not been raised higher than it should be. When the water going to over half a million Kiwis does not meet water standards it would be very negligent of any Government to ignore it. We would all be wanting action in this House. We know that 71 percent of Kiwis receive quality drinking-water. It is those who do not receive it that we are concerned about. 
I was talking to my colleague Doug Woolerton who has recently returned from India and he said that he cannot understand how anyone would not support legislation for clean drinking-water—after what he has seen in India he finds it incredible. We are very lucky that here in New Zealand we do not even really think about the quality of our drinking water. We take it for granted. Perhaps from time to time when it smells more of chlorine or some other chemical than we think it should we moan a bit then we get on with life quite secure in the knowledge that over the next few days the water will return to the good quality that it was. We do not value clean drinking-water at all as we should. We expect it to be of good quality and fortunately it is. 
This bill represents a move towards a more flexible risk management approach. We are all very aware that the bill does bring in some legal duties rather than leave water a very precious commodity to voluntary standards. I imagine that very few people in New Zealand would have even realised that drinking-water standards are voluntary. This is the year 2007. It is time to move beyond voluntary drinking-water standards—past time in fact—and I would imagine that local governments knew that such an important resource which is fundamental to public health would not and could not continue under any voluntary regime. 
 We heard Maryan Street say that consultation with local government has been under way for quite some time. We are very aware that although large cities have very good quality drinking-water and risk management plans in place this is not the case with some rural communities. The bottom line is that rural communities have the same right as city dwellers to access clean drinking-water. We know from the Ball report that the occurrence of water-borne disease has been demonstrated by quite a number of studies. It is fair to say that although there are highly visible outbreaks of water-borne disease—the Ball report states there are 16.8 water-borne disease outbreaks a year affecting 100 to 200 people—the larger problem is that individual cases do not get any publicity at all. The Institute of Environmental Science and Research estimates there are between 18000 and 34000 such cases annually in New Zealand. Again this is expected to be an underestimate because in nine cases out of 10 they will never ever be reported nor will they necessarily be diagnosed. Most Kiwis think they will come right in a couple of days so do absolutely nothing about it. Fortunately in New Zealand we have managed to avoid major outbreaks of water-borne disease. 
The Health Committee and Local Government New Zealand worked quite extensively on this legislation and made significant changes to ensure it was as good as it possibly could be. We have to acknowledge their input and the input of officials. They worked tirelessly with the select committee on the legislation. New Zealand First was pleased with the technical assistance grants because we know that these will be needed by some suppliers and many of the councils. The challenge will be to ensure the grants are used for the specific purposes for which they have been given rather than used to carry out much-needed maintenance on some part of a water treatment plant that has been sadly neglected in the past. I am only too aware that some of the pipes in the treatment stations carrying water to our homes and our schools do need to be upgraded. The select committee was shown photos of the state of disrepair of some of these treatment stations. 
We are happy to see that the implementation of the legislation will be phased in over several years. This will give significant time to determine whether extra funding is actually needed to bring these treatment stations up to the required standards. The standards in the monitoring regime that is put in place by the legislation will ensure that all practicable steps are taken to ensure that New Zealanders can have confidence in their drinking water. Like other parties New Zealand First expects that more progress will be seen to improve the quality of our drinking water. 
This bill is very worthy of support. New Zealand First wants to protect the clean green Kiwi image and quality drinking-water is something we expect every time we turn on the tap. So we definitely support this bill.