Sage Eugenie: Building (Pools) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSage Eugenie: Building (Pools) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 16 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6783. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]EUGENIE SAGE (Green): E te Mana e te Whare tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te mema o te Whare Pāremata. I am pleased to take a short call on the Building (Pools) Amendment Bill. As my colleague Jan Logie noted the Green Party will be supporting this going to the Local Government and Environment Committee.I could not believe it when I read in the regulatory impact statement that in the 10 years between 1972 and 1982 100 children had died in home pools. It was obviously necessary to introduce the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act which this bill is replacing. As the regulatory impact statement also says overall the Act is working well to reduce the risk of drowning. The number of children who tragically have drowned in pools in the 10 years from 2002 to 2012 was 30. That is obviously far too many but is a substantial reduction in what it was before the legislation was introduced.Although Scott Simpson a speaker from the National Party talked about the current Act as being frustrating and inconsistent and called the bill sensible and pragmatic the key test is where the balance is drawn between the vital need to protect our young children from drowning and compliance costs. The regulatory impact statement also says that compliance costs for councils are $3.5 million annually. Yes we want effective legislation that is easy to administer but protecting our children from the very real threat that home swimming pools provide is vitally important.That is why the Green Party is supporting this bill going to the select committee because we are very interested in the submissions from people like Water Safety New Zealand from swimming pool owners from Plunket from Starship and from others about what the impact of some of these changes will be. Because with things like hot tubs and spa pools—certainly in other jurisdictions overseas they exempt spa pools from fencing if they have got child-resistant covers. There was certainly strong support in the public submissions on the discussion documents for these to be exempt from fencing but organisations like Water Safety New Zealand want spa pools and hot tubs to be subject to monitoring by councils and that is because when the council officers go out to do an inspection they engage with the homeowner. They are able to remind them of the risk that these hot tubs can provide when the covers are off. So that is why we are supporting the bill going to select committee. I think there will be quite a number of submissions around this issue of hot tubs and spa pools and whether they should be subject to an inspection regime.Other parts of the bill in terms of making it clear that the fencing requirements do not apply to things like stormwater hazards or where you have got swale drains to garden ponds I think will be an improvement. In Rolleston for example where there is an effort to improve stormwater quality so there are large swale ponds that are used to help filter stormwater—they are immediately adjacent to houses. The council was wondering whether they should be fenced. And so I will be very interested in submissions from councils presumably in support of the clarification of the law around these swale drains and garden ponds.But it is a question of making sure that in the Government’s drive to reduce compliance costs for councils and swimming pool owners we are not undermining the very important and effective provisions in the current legislation that have significantly reduced the number of child drownings. I think 92 percent of the children who have drowned in a pool have drowned at home or in the pool of someone whose place they have been invited to. Of those drownings 65 percent have occurred while their caregivers have been inside and 80 percent of the drownings were of children who were 2 years old or younger. It is often in a momentary lapse in supervision that those drowning have occurred.There are important provisions in this bill in terms of where doors are located and whether they are to be self-closing—the changes there which we will look at very closely because they contribute at the moment to reducing drownings. So it is the balance between compliance costs but overall ensuring the safety of our youngest citizens. Thank you.