Shanks Katrina: Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Shanks Katrina: Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to stand here today and talk to the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill. I would just like to say a brief hello to those people who are in their cars in the traffic going up to the Kapiti coast Nathan Guy’s area. These people will have left at 4 p.m. so they could beat the rush and get out of the traffic jam. They will come up to see Nathan some time. 
I have had a quick look at this bill and my understanding is that it is really about water-borne diseases and making sure that New Zealand has water that is safe for everybody to drink. Nobody in the National Party would disagree with the fact that we need healthy drinking-water in New Zealand—we do need healthy drinking-water and we have it. 
I am a mother of three young children and we drink a huge amount of water in our house. The quality of the water is important to my family as it is to everybody who has a family and consumes litres and litres of water a day like my family does. We are very concerned about the quality of our water and I must say that we have not had any problems at all with the quality of our water. My mother who lives up in the Hawke’s Bay has not any problems with the quality of her water. At the weekend I was on Waiheke Island which has tank water and there are no problems with the water up there either. I am standing here as a water drinker for 38 years and I seem to be pretty healthy as do my colleagues over here who are also water drinkers. 
We have heard Dr Jonathan Coleman talk about this legislation. He has referred to it as a sledgehammer for a walnut. It is interesting. I looked back to see who was on the Health Committee which looked at this legislation. There was Dr Jonathan Coleman Dr Jackie Blue Jo Goodhew and Tony Ryall who were extremely high-powered to be on this Health Committee and very representative. They actually understand what water-borne diseases do to people. Of anybody we in the National Party have the more qualified members and the depth of understanding of what happens to our communities in the health sector when we have water-borne diseases. There just are not any water-borne diseases. 
During the select committee process there were many many submissions and from them came the fact that in the last 10 years only four water-borne diseases have been identified. None of those cases was due to the water itself; they were due to conditions around the water. As my colleague from Invercargill Eric Roy said those incidents were actually about sewage and not about the water systems themselves. Will this bill stop mistakes such as those that happened in those four cases in the last 10 years? This bill does not address the problem. We have a bill here that does not address half the issues of how the problems happen. 
This bill has become quite a major thing in this House at the moment. But we would like to think that the priorities of the Government are the accident and emergency department in North Shore or the neonatal units having to fly babies to Australia—or threatening to—or perhaps maternity services and how one cannot get lead maternity care. What are the priorities for this Government? Are they really with clean drinking-water or they about getting people into accident and emergency departments? Is the North Shore accident and emergency department a priority? Are the neonatal units a priority? [ 
Interruption 
] The Government members say: “No no no—talk about the bill.” but I am talking about real issues that many people face. I tell those people travelling up the Kapiti coast to Nathan Guy’s area that he is more than aware of these issues as well and more than aware of the priorities of this Government. 
Many councils made submissions on this bill and their biggest concern was the cost. The Government has said that it will put some capital expenditure into this but at the end of the day who will pay for this “sledgehammer for a walnut” situation? It will be the ratepayers. The ratepayers will be made to pay and pay over and over.