Goodhew Jo: Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Goodhew Jo: Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:642;Page:11924] 
JO GOODHEW (National—Aoraki) 
: 
 I take great pleasure in standing to talk on Part 1 and to respond to the Minister’s comments. I am not sure why he denies all the information that submitters gave us at the Health Committee. That information is based on the financial risk they believe their organisations and ratepayers will be faced with. I am well aware the Government has said it will give Local Government New Zealand $150 million to help out with meeting the costs of implementing this bill. However the chairperson of Local Government New Zealand said in a press release that he believed the bill would cost $800 million. So $150 million will not go very far. 
 We heard a lot of concerns during the select committee process about that $150 million and about how the process to get one’s hands on it was potentially bureaucratic—was potentially full of hoops to be jumped through. In fact Local Government New Zealand was terribly concerned about who would actually qualify. We heard concerns expressed by various members of the select committee and the Maori Party representative Tariana Turia was particularly concerned about smaller poorer communities around New Zealand that may have their ability to apply for that money affected by some wealthier residents in those local areas. That certainly was of concern to people in those parts of New Zealand. 
I want to go back to something I reiterated in the second reading of this bill: the National Party completely supports the premise that drinking water should be safe and should be clean. But at the same time the National Party realises there is a cost to be met in achieving that across New Zealand and believes that the cost should be representative of the gain that is made. 
I will spend a moment talking about the Balmoral No. 1 Rural Water Supply Scheme committee that submitted to the bill. The conclusion in its submission was that its water supply was already safe. It believes that its water supply is safe. We know that 24 percent of the water supplies around the country have not been demonstrated to be safe but that is simply because they have not actually had to be demonstrated to be safe rather than to be proven to be unsafe. The submission from the Balmoral No. 1 Rural Water Supply Scheme committee also stated: “Current drinking water standards are delivering safe water to us now. The cost of meeting the new standards is too great for small rural communities. They are already struggling.” And the Clutha District Council which the Minister has already mentioned stated: “Principles underlying the reason for the legislation are seriously flawed and based on poor science. The cost burden of complying for small urban and rural communities is just too high.” 
Of course we know that Local Government New Zealand has taken an unusual stance on this bill and has maintained that it has principled opposition to the bill. Members can imagine whether Local Government New Zealand was thinking that that would reflect on its ratepayers—whether its members thought they would have to stand up at meet-the-candidates nights and say they did not favour people having safe clean drinking-water and say that to all the people they hoped would elect them. Well that is not what they are saying. They are the protectors of the ratepayer’s purse. They are saying they simply do not believe they can afford this legislation they are asking whether another way can be found and they are telling us they have principled opposition to this bill. 
As National members have already said in the second reading debate of this bill there was significant interaction between the select committee and Local Government New Zealand. I believe that to the latter’s credit and to the credit of the committee significant gains and significant improvements were made in this particular bill as a result of that interaction. But Local Government New Zealand was still very concerned about the lack of cost-benefit analysis. It was very concerned that there was not a robust link between drinking water and the gastrointestinal diseases that are recorded in New Zealand. It also talked to us of its concerns about the impact on its long-term council community plans and we have heard quoted the costs for the capital expenditure and operational expenditure figures for those plans and the costs for those two district councils—Queenstown Lakes and South Taranaki—with figures exceeding $4000 per capita per annum.