Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill

Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) Link to this

I move, That the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. I am pleased to speak at this third reading of the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill. I would like to start by expressing my appreciation to all members of the Health Committee, and in particular to the chair of the Health Committee. The committee worked very hard over an extended period of time to review the concerns of submitters and to forge consensus amendments to the bill in order to address those concerns. The committee has taken a good bill and made it better.

As this bill begins its third reading it is appropriate to reflect on its purpose and on the important role of drinking water and the means of its supply. Drinking water, as well as being one of the most fundamental requirements needed to support life, is a vital component of a sustainable and innovative economy. I would not mind a glass now, actually.

This bill will close what is currently a significant gap in the legislative framework for a sector with assets valued at approximately $5 billion. The sector is critical to sustaining life and protecting public health, critical to preserving the image and reality of “100% Pure New Zealand”, and critical to tourism and our export-led economy. In this light I would like to reassure the House that although New Zealand has to date managed to avoid major and fatal outbreaks of water-borne disease—unlike some other developed nations—we still have significant and ongoing issues and risks with the quality of our drinking water. This bill will bring New Zealand into line with most other OECD nations by providing a clear legislative framework for water quality.

Some of those people who have expressed their opposition to this bill seem determined to flaunt their ignorance of science. Not content with the dihydrogen monoxide incident, they have repeatedly asserted that there is no evidence of any problem with disease caused by drinking water in New Zealand. Although it is recognised that the science on this matter is not straightforward, and that there are a number of uncertainties to be considered, this does not mean that the overall picture is unclear. Of the nearly 14,000 cases of campylobacter notified to health authorities in 2005, only 2.5 to 4.5 percent are thought to be attributable to drinking water. However, as far as giardia and cryptosporidium are concerned, they cause an additional 2,100 cases of reported disease each year—in other words, a total of 2,600 cases of notified enteric disease each year.

Incidentally, it is well recognised that gastroenteritis is consistently and significantly under-reported. The best estimates are that in New Zealand something like only 5 percent of cases are formally notified. This leads to a further estimate that the total number of cases of water-borne enteric disease each year is probably closer to 52,000—in other words, about 1,000 tummy bugs a week; 1,000 tummy bugs a week are caused by water. This is not inconsistent with the estimate from the Institute of Environmental Science and Research of 34,000 cases. The institute states that that figure is probably an underestimate.

To return to campylobacter, it has been found in almost all surface waters, rivers, and lakes, etc., in New Zealand that have been examined. Fortunately, the level of water-borne disease due to campylobacter is able to be kept low, because the treatment processes used for treating drinking water in New Zealand, which this bill seeks to validate, are very effective in killing off campylobacter. The level of treatment is not available to many of the small rural water supplies. The Government’s $154 million drinking-water assistance programme is designed to deal with this problem and is concentrating on improving the extent to which small rural water supplies are adequately treated so that rural populations receive as equally good-quality water as the people living in towns and cities.

I would now like to turn to the bill and, more important, to the nature of its provisions and how they will address the kinds of issues I have just referred to. Although many features of the bill will contribute to improved drinking-water management, two elements of the bill are particularly important and world class in terms of both their technical content and the philosophy that underlies them. In combination they represent ongoing quality control and proactive quality assurance. Rather than waiting for a significant water quality failure, with the potential for a serious disease outbreak, and then taking corrective action, this bill embodies a preventive approach to protecting the public health. In so doing, the bill seeks to actively manage risks in a way that is commensurate with the level of risk, the nature of potential harm to public health, and the availability and cost of managing such risks. The two elements whereby the bill embodies these approaches are the ability for the Minister to adopt drinking-water standards and the requirement for public health risk management plans.

The standards, which are based on the best international benchmarks for water quality, specify the maximum acceptable values for a range of contaminants and pathogens. The standards also define the monitoring requirements that suppliers must have in place to demonstrate they are complying with those standards on an ongoing basis. Both the standards and the monitoring requirements are based on rigorous science and are regularly reviewed and updated. In an ideal world these standards would be compulsory. However, in recognition of the genuine concerns raised by many of the small suppliers, the bill requires suppliers to take only “all practicable steps” to comply with the standards.

The second key feature of the bill is the requirement for public health risk management plans. These are plans that provide a framework within which suppliers can identify all potential threats to the safety of their supply and then systematically provide for mechanisms to prevent, reduce, or eliminate those risks. The value of these plans is that their ongoing implementation will give high levels of confidence to the quality of the water provided by the supplier.

I endorse the recommendation of the Health Committee that giving effect to a plan, which has been approved by an independent expert, will be taken as grounds for demonstrating that the supplier has taken all practicable steps to comply with the standards. This legislation is very much in keeping with the best traditions of public health law. It seeks to ensure the safety of a vital public good that is essential for all New Zealanders. It takes a preventive, proportionate, and risk-based approach to managing the quality of drinking water and its supply. The bill will therefore make a valuable and lasting contribution to the protection of public health.

Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) Link to this

I would like to acknowledge the Minister’s acknowledgment of the members of the Health Committee and the work that was done on that committee. There is no doubt that the bill as reported back from the select committee is an improvement on the bill that went into that committee.

I draw the House’s attention to the fact that we think good progress has been made under the previous regime by water suppliers around the country, and we expect that more progress will be made in the future. But the National Party, as it has stated in its minority opinion in the committee’s report on the bill, is concerned about the financial consequences this legislation will have on small rural communities. We believe there is still underlying uncertainty about the cost-burden of this legislation. Of course, everybody in this House would want everyone to have a top-notch water supply and would want to eradicate all risks. But the fact is that the cost of achieving the eradication of all risks would be prohibitive to every community. Therefore, we have looked at the balance of what the uncertainties are for rural communities and water consumers.

We have also been concerned about the inability of the Government to provide firm costings in relation to what will fall on smaller communities and local governments. We heard, for example, that when the Government introduced the bill it estimated the costs would be between $50 million and $275 million. Local Government New Zealand’s estimates were up to $800 million. We know that at the 2006 water and wastewater conference the Ministry of Health advised that the cost could actually be $300 million. So there is some confusion about what costs will fall on communities. Similarly, we think it was progress in the select committee that approval of plans and actions will be covered under the concept of “all practicable steps”. The definition of “all practicable steps” is detailed in the bill for all people to see, and it sets out a number of criteria. Included in those criteria is the addition of affordability. The National members on the committee were particularly keen to make sure affordability was one of those criteria.

But here is another area of uncertainty that has concerned local government—and I should remind the House that Local Government New Zealand remains principally opposed to this legislation because of the various levels of uncertainty and the impacts it might have on communities. One of its major concerns was how the affordability requirements might cut across community decision-making in terms of priorities as part of the long-term community consultation plan. Local Government New Zealand was quite clear that it thought that the decision on how priorities should be set in this area should very much be one for communities, taking into account the other pressures those communities face. The Government has a fund to assist—an average, I think, of about $15 million a year—but it is a very significant burden that local governments may face. There is uncertainty about what costs might fall on consumers and district councils, particularly in those smaller rural areas.

We very much listened to the Minister’s point on the terms of water-borne disease, but I restate what I said at the very beginning, which is that the eradication of all risks would be hugely expensive and not practical. What we are looking to do here is to make sure that communities are aware of the importance of this, but we must balance the cost to consumers and councils, particularly in smaller rural communities.

I think the bill has been improved in the widening of some of the definitions of the very small schemes, etc., and the dates on which things must be applied. We have some concerns about the late addition of the rural water supply proportion. What is the name of that?

MARYAN STREET (Labour) Link to this

It gives me great pleasure to rise to speak to the third reading of the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill. First, I would like to acknowledge the significant improvements to the bill that emerged as a result of the extensive and very thorough deliberations of the Health Committee. That is, after all, the process of lawmaking that we are engaged in. I also recognise and commend the huge contribution that supplies owned and operated by local government make to the provision of drinking water in New Zealand.

Although the debate has tended to concentrate on the difficulties that suppliers may face in providing safe drinking-water, we should not lose sight of the fact that 71 percent of the population is provided with water that complies with the drinking-water standards. Local government plays a very significant role in this by providing water through 545 suppliers to 83 percent of the population. However, behind those figures is another important point. More than half a million New Zealanders use and consume drinking water that either does not comply with the standards or is of an unknown quality.

The bill endeavours to promote equitable and reliable access to safe water for all New Zealanders. Why should we in this House settle for anything less? In this sense the bill is both about the half million New Zealanders who currently use water that is either of dubious or unknown quality, and about ensuring that the large majority of New Zealanders who already receive safe drinking-water continue to do so.

I would like to take this opportunity also to correct some misapprehensions on the part of some speakers who, during the Committee stage, commented that local government had been inadequately consulted on the bill. This is just plain wrong. First, public consultation occurred during the late 1990s, and local government participated in this process. Second, Local Government New Zealand was consulted on the policy for the bill prior to Cabinet approval in 2000. Third, partly as a result of input from local government Cabinet agreed to include a phased timetable for commencement of the bill, for the bill to provide for flexibility in the way the legislation adopted the standards, and Government specifically agreed that Local Government New Zealand be involved in the preparation of the bill.

There are more examples. Fourth, during the drafting of the bill the ministry worked with three key stakeholder groups to ensure their input. As well as Local Government New Zealand, the ministry also consulted the New Zealand Water and Wastes Association and the Consumers Institute. Fifth, Local Government New Zealand was also consulted when Cabinet considered some refinements to the policy for the bill in 2006. Sixth, additionally, the technical group convened by the ministry to assist the process of reviewing drinking-water standards also included representation from local government.

Also cited in the Committee stage was an early draft discussion paper on Rangitīkei’s capital expenditure forecasts that Mayor Bob Buchanan had sent to the Opposition. This document was, in fact, quite different from the final paper that was presented to the Rangitīkei District Council in which the issues raised by Mayor Bob Buchanan were absent. What was also not acknowledged was that at a later date, at a meeting of mayors called by Local Government New Zealand in the lower North Island to discuss this bill, Mayor Bob Buchanan supported the risk management approach for achieving the drinking-water management measures taken by the Government. All of those items should dispel any myths being perpetrated by the Opposition that local government was not engaged and not sufficiently consulted on the drafting of this bill.

Local Government New Zealand did advise the Health Committee of its policy of so-called principled opposition to the bill. The fact that local government did not engage in a public programme of opposition to the bill, and worked very closely with officials to develop amendments to the bill so they could accept it, means that this really was no more than opposition in principle, in particular to national standards. Also, the fact that many of the major water suppliers in the North Island supported the bill was not publicised. The Auckland meeting of mayors and major water suppliers providing water to some quarter of the total New Zealand population voted almost unanimously to support the bill, and this was never publicised by Local Government New Zealand.

To conclude, local government was involved in the development of this bill and a number of its features, including many of the significant amendments agreed to during the select committee process, reflect that involvement. It is noteworthy that opposition to the bill from some quarters in local government has often been led by councils that have a particularly poor track record in terms of their investment in drinking-water quality. One lower South Island council, for example, that made repeated and inflated claims about the cost of compliance is the only council in New Zealand where in 2005 all of the 26 suppliers that it operates did not comply with the standards.

In fact, parents who are sending their children to one of the schools in that area should be very concerned. We saw photos and evidence whereby a primary school in that area nearly closed because of the poor quality of the drinking water available to children in that area. That needs to be fixed, and this bill will do it. It is not sufficient or good enough in a country like ours to have schools providing substandard and, in fact, unhealthy drinking-water to children. That should not be tolerated anywhere. The Opposition’s refusal to recognise that point goes to its discredit.

This council that I am talking about will need to make significant investments, whether or not the bill is passed, in order to remedy years of neglect and the structural deterioration in some of its treatment plants. If it costs that council, it is its own fault, quite frankly. However, generally speaking, those councils that have taken a responsible approach to maintaining and improving their supply infrastructure and capacity—and let us be very clear here, that is the majority of councils—already do comply with the standards. These councils will face little cost and will have even less difficulty in complying with this bill. There is no reason why quality public drinking-water should not be an expectation of every member of the New Zealand public. We are not a Third World country, and we should be able to turn on the tap and get reliable drinking-water. That is what this bill is about. It has taken into account the requirements that local government has sought in order to spread the cost of necessary improvements over a working period of time. But this bill needs to pass, for the sake of the health of New Zealanders. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

JO GOODHEW (National—Aoraki) Link to this

I rise to speak in this third reading of the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill, and I want to say that since this bill’s introduction to the House I have had a keen interest in it. Can I begin by making some comments in response to both the Minister and the previous speaker, Maryan Street. The Minister said that this was “a good bill made better”. Actually, this is a complicated bill that carries with it significant financial risk to ratepayers. And, yes, the bill has been made better—it is now much better—but clearly there are still some concerns about it.

The previous speaker, Maryan Street, talked about the half a million people in New Zealand who have drinking water that is not safe enough. But then there is an undetermined—in fact, a not mentioned—number of that half a million people for whom the standard has not been determined. This is yet again another example of imperfect science, or really of no science at all. So what if 100,000 of those 500,000 people had water that did not comply and 400,000 had water that we could not determine whether it complied? [Interruption] Well, there we go. Again we have a lack of science.

I must say right from the word go that the National Party is very, very supportive of New Zealanders having clean drinking-water.

BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) Link to this

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 18,000 and 34,000 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.

SUE KEDGLEY (Green) Link to this

The Green Party is supporting this bill. On behalf of the Health Committee, I would like to say that we gave one of the most exhaustive considerations to this bill. We have made a series of very, very substantial proposed amendments to it. I think we have probably consulted more with submitters, particularly Local Government New Zealand, on this legislation than on virtually any other legislation that has come before a select committee. I think the committee did very, very good work, as did the officials, in terms of trying to understand the concerns of Local Government New Zealand and to make amendments to meet its concerns. I want particularly to compliment Andrew Forsyth and his team—the officials who worked on the bill. They spent literally months meeting with Local Government New Zealand to discuss its concerns and working out ways in which those concerns could be met. I really think the Health Committee and the officials did an excellent job with this bill.

I think that every single submitter, as I recall, made the point that water is too important to be left to a voluntary standard, to be left to the free market, as essentially the National Party seems to be advocating. It is very hard to understand why anybody would think that something as fundamental to life and to our health as water could somehow operate with a voluntary standard and be left completely to the free market to decide whether it would wish to comply with that standard. So there really was not any dispute, that I recall, amongst any submitters on that point. I am, frankly, surprised that the National Party is still advocating voluntary standards and a free market for the supply of water in New Zealand.

However, a lot of concern was expressed by many of the submitters, particularly Local Government New Zealand, about their opposition to the bill in its original form, because they were worried about the effect that the costs of complying with the legislation would have on rates. Councils up and down New Zealand came to the committee with very concerning estimates of how much it would cost their ratepayers if the legislation was to be fully implemented. Some of them argued that it would effectively bankrupt their authorities.

We took their concerns extremely seriously. None of us wants to pass legislation that will bankrupt local authorities in New Zealand. As a result, the committee made a very substantial number of amendments. My understanding is that Local Government New Zealand now is basically extremely satisfied with the bill; as well it might be, because really we have met all of its major concerns. We have created a new category of rural agricultural drinking-water suppliers, with much more flexible obligations in respect of their drinking-water standards. We have created a new definition of neighbourhood drinking-water supply, based on the number of people supplied. We have amended all the time frames, which Local Government New Zealand was concerned about, so that they are aligned with the Local Government Act. We basically defined the term “all practicable steps”, as Local Government New Zealand requested us to do, to take into account the issue of affordability. We have required the Minister to undergo a 3-year consultation period, before amending a drinking-water standard. I could go on and on about the changes, but I would say that we worked incredibly closely with Local Government New Zealand. It was a very good example of the Government and the select committee, and local government, working in partnership in trying to sort out the problems and issues that they were concerned about.

I think it is important that water quality is mandatory, that there is a national mandatory standard for drinking water and that it is not simply left up to the free market. There was dispute as to what extent there had been a problem with our water in New Zealand. There were varying issues about the number of campylobacter and cryptosporidium cases, and so on, and how much of a problem we have had. But the point is that we are being warned that in parts of New Zealand, particularly Canterbury, we will face issues around the water supply, and they will become ever greater because of the expansion of dairying. A Canterbury University professor, Wally Clark, pointed out that as a result of the growth of dairying, campylobacter, cryptosporidium, and previously little-known diseases had become commonplace in Canterbury. Indeed, South Canterbury has the highest rates of campylobacter in the world. Basically, he warned that if the proposed new irrigation scheme went ahead, potentially there would be huge health effects in respect of water and the possible degradation of aquifers serving residents in Christchurch.

Whatever people say about the quality of our water in the past, the fact is there are very real threats to the quality of our water, particularly as more and more of New Zealand farming converts to dairying. Environment Canterbury has just released an annual report showing that 60 percent of dairy farms in Canterbury did not comply with their effluent discharge consents; they are in breach of their discharge consents. What will that result in? That will result in the contamination of our water supplies. Thank heavens we have this bill, which requires a mandatory standard for water and states that it is no longer sufficient simply to leave water quality standards up to the free market. It puts in place an effective regime, but it is not an onerous and Draconian one. It has been worked out with local government in a way that reduces the costs on local government.

I think that this is an example of where MMP has resulted in better legislation. Having smaller parties like New Zealand First, the Green Party, and the Māori Party on the Health Committee meant that the bill was not just rushed through, as it might have been in the past. Legislation under first past the post was frequently just bulldozed through and rammed through select committees. Now, under MMP, and with the balance of voting in the select committee, when smaller parties are concerned about issues raised by submitters, as we were with this bill, we can make sure that those concerns are given the utmost consideration. It was particularly those of us from the smaller parties—although the Labour members were equally happy to cooperate—who required ever more extensive consultation with Local Government New Zealand. We extended the deadline on a number of occasions. I think we have come up with legislation that we can be very pleased with, and it seems that Local Government New Zealand is pleased about it too. Thank you.

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) Link to this

Kia ora, Madam Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tātou te Whare. Access to clean, safe water should be a fundamental human right. Because of that, the Māori Party supports the provision of safe, wholesome drinking-water for all of our communities, replacing voluntary standards with a mandatory scheme to ensure that as many citizens of Aotearoa as possible have access to safe drinking-water, and the setting up of guidelines to ensure quality standards are being met.

I was interested to note that most of the submissions on this bill came from councils, whose major concern seemed to be about how smaller water suppliers might be forced out of business by the costs of trying to meet the standards and the wider implementation costs that might be passed on to ratepayers. I note that most of the compliance and cost issues seem to have been dealt with through amendments to the bill, like having longer time frames for water suppliers to get their act together, having different categories for town and country, and having clearer interpretations and definitions of quality and assessment. Those amendments seem to be at odds with the desire for national standards, but they will allow smaller towns and communities more time to bring their systems up to scratch.

However, the biggest concern of all still remains the fact that although water is a renewable resource, it is also finite, and learning to live in a sustainable way with our water resources is one of the key challenges for the 21st century. So I would hope that sitting alongside the Government’s insistence that all New Zealanders, including those living in rural areas, need safe drinking-water, we will see specific initiatives to address ongoing concerns about polluted water tables and failed septic systems.

The other day I read a section in the Bay of Plenty Regional Policy Statement on fresh water, and I thought it useful to include it in this debate: “On-site human effluent treatment and disposal can also adversely affect water quality. Within the region, there are a large number of small communities which rely on septic tanks or other on-site systems for domestic waste disposal. Discharges from these systems can lead to cumulative effects on water quality, when insufficiently treated effluent reaches surface or groundwater.” That is an issue of major concern to the community I live in, Waimanoni, because we are not on town water supply; we all use septic tanks. We know that a number of rural communities like Waimanoni and others all around the country simply do not have access to drinking water of sufficient quality, while others receive drinking water that is either inadequately monitored or simply not monitored at all.

Members also need to bear in mind the submission to the select committee from rural women, who stated clearly that responsibility should fall on the Government, as the public health provider, to provide equitable access to safe water for all communities. That is a bit of a worry, when we consider the report from the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development, which last month found that two out of every three New Zealanders believe that the public health system is inefficient and almost half believe that the system has got worse over the past 5 years.

It is true that we must ensure that decent drinking water is available to meet the long-term needs of all the citizens of Aotearoa, but if the public health capacity within the ministry is being run down, as it is, we have to ask who will have the oversight to enforce the new standards and address the numerous sources of threats to clean drinking water.

I raise another key issue about water, which is how we manage the tension between water as a human right and the pressure from those who see water as an economic good for the creation of wealth. Ngāi Tahu chairman Mark Solomon said recently that, no matter what the Government is saying, it is moving towards water becoming tradable, which creates property rights. If that is the case, then iwi have a right under the treaty as tangata whenua. We know the growing bitterness and frustration for Māori about the Crown’s refusal to acknowledge iwi access and rights to water, and we know that for some time there has been dialogue between Tainui, Ngāi Tahu, Tūwharetoa, Whanganui, and others over the ownership and management of the lakes and rivers of Aotearoa—the sources of much of the country’s drinking water. We know too that the whole water ownership debate still remains to be had and cannot be sidelined by Government fudging and denials forever.

The Māori Party firmly believes that water to homes should be free and not charged for. In my own electorate of Te Tai Tokerau I see that Metro Water makes a $62 million profit every year from water charges, and I wonder how much of that is reinvested into ensuring compliance with safe and wholesome drinking water from drinking-water suppliers. I also wonder about claims that user-pays water management models promote less water wastage when the amount of unaccounted-for water—water lost or wasted by the water retailer—has actually increased under user-pays regimes.

There are many more issues around water and water ownership that, although not addressed by this bill, remain longstanding concerns for tangata whenua, such as the appropriate mechanisms to manage water supply. As kaitiaki of water, hapū and iwi are of the view that water arrangements should be jointly managed with local authorities, and although we will support this bill at its third reading, we will not support any moves that threaten to exclude Māori from our rightful place in taking a lead decision-making role on water. Tēnā koe. Kia ora tātou katoa.

JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) Link to this

I stand to take a brief call on the third reading of the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill. This bill begins the process of phasing in a risk management approach to New Zealand water supplies to ensure that the current one-third of the population who either do not have a water supply that is compliant to the voluntary scheme that exists at present or for whom we have no idea as to whether their water supply meets acceptable standards, will have good quality water supplies.

The costs of implementation and compliance have been held up as a concern, particularly for local government agencies. United Future believes that both central government and local government need to ensure that water quality is never neglected as a funding priority. On an issue that is as basic to human needs as water quality, we contend that where humans are reliant on a water source, human standards of excellence should apply, and, in relation to water quality, rural communities should not be the poor cousins of their urban counterparts.

I agree with the New Zealand First member Barbara Stewart, who reflected that we do not have to travel very far offshore to experience living in a community where people have to be to vigilant all the time about the water they consume—places where we do not allow ice to be put in our drinks and where we are very careful about where the water we drink comes from.

However, United Future is very pleased that the Health Committee did not dismiss local government’s concerns about possible rate hikes, that changes have been made, and that those changes are considered to be real solutions. We commend the select committee for the work it has done. United Future is not represented on the Health Committee, and we are very interested to hear from the Green member about the work of the MMP parties to hold this issue to account, to insist on more consultation, and to push for some real solutions. United Future is happy to support the third reading of this bill.

SUE MORONEY (Labour) Link to this

Earlier in the third reading debate on this bill, Tony Ryall rose to speak about cost escalations. So I want to examine the issue of cost escalations in the context that it is just too bad that Tony Ryall was not too concerned about cost escalations when he inadvertently let slip that the National Party thought it was a good idea to take the cap off doctors’ fees. That, of course, is the ultimate in cost escalation, and it would deeply affect public health in this country. This bill is also about public health in this country. It is important to consider and address the matter of costs associated with any bill, but particularly for a bill that will affect a $5 billion sector that ultimately is vital to this country’s social and economic development. However, it is also important that such consideration be balanced and that the figures used are robust.

We have heard much in opposition to the bill about the varying ministry estimates of the cost of implementing the bill, which, allegedly, was $230 million in 2001, $250 million in 2004, then $300 million in 2006. The escalation seems to surprise Opposition members. Does it not occur to them that the changes merely reflect the increase in the cost of capital works over that period? Therefore, although the ministry’s estimates of the costs of the bill increased by 30 percent over the period, the costs of housing increased by 47 percent over that same period. It seems to me that the ministry’s estimates reflect reality better than the expectations of the Opposition. But it is not the first time Opposition members have exposed their lack of economic understanding.

Then, to cap it all off, the Opposition introduced its own figure of $800 million, which it claims comes from Local Government New Zealand. This figure has never been produced by Local Government New Zealand to the Minister, to the ministry, or even to the select committee. Thus it has never been subject to review. The figures that have been produced to the select committee by Local Government New Zealand include the greatly inflated claims that the costs of the bill to Clutha would be $32.3 million, whereas on examination by competent engineers this figure was subsequently reduced to $20 million at the most, and even this figure was for a gold-plated upgrade that would ensure that the drinking-water standards would be met under any management conditions.

The ministry’s consultants costed the upgrades necessary to enable the water suppliers to meet the standards at $4.86 million. In a final attempt to blow smoke into the eyes of the public, the Opposition conjured the figure of $2.7 billion out of thin air. Additionally, the Opposition also alluded to the large bureaucracy the bill will allegedly create. This is a common feature of its opposition to anything. “Large bureaucracy!”, those members scream, referring to it as some sort of job creation scheme. But this shows a very poor understanding of the way public health services are provided in New Zealand already. In fact, district health boards already employ the designated officers and assessors who will perform the enforcement and compliance verification functions under this bill. At present, these officers support the operational aspects of the largely voluntary drinking-water strategy, of which this bill is merely one component. [Interruption] For the record, I say to Mr Ardern, the ministry already maintains a register of drinking-water suppliers, though given its current voluntary status, this does not include many of the smaller suppliers whose existence had not been officially reported to the ministry.

The ministry also provides regular reports on drinking-water quality and operates a system for recognising the competence of laboratories in carrying out water analysis, and it is already promoting understanding and encouraging the uptake of public health risk management plans by drinking-water suppliers. So this bill is an extension of what the ministry has already shown it is capable of providing.

Although the bill does represent a significant step in completing the framework of controls for drinking water in New Zealand, it is important to be mindful of what the bill cannot do and does not do. Therefore, there are three important elements that any understanding of the bill must recognise. Firstly, all building owners are already subject to legal obligations in relation to water available for consumption by users of buildings. Several statutes apply, but the principal one is, of course, the Building Act 2004. For this reason, generally speaking, the jurisdiction of the drinking-water bill ends at the water toby. After the water toby, the quality of the water is the responsibility of the building owner. Where a building is not connected to a network supply—that is, it has its own source of drinking water, such as from a roof tank or a bore—then, again, the drinking water in such buildings is primarily governed by the Building Act that is already in force.

However, where such a self-supplied building is also used by the public or is otherwise a community purpose building, then this bill will require it to be included on the register of suppliers; so it should. This is to ensure that the public can have access to information about the quality of the water in such buildings. Additionally, more complete information about self-supplied, community purpose buildings may also assist with the investigation of water-borne diseases, and that would be a good thing. Also, within this context, the bill strengthens an existing mechanism in the Building Act, the land information memorandum provisions, to provide important information to building owners and prospective building owners about what is known about the quality of the water in the building.

The second point is that sources of raw water, such as catchments and ground water, are managed under the Resource Management Act 1991. Although the drinking-water bill encourages drinking-water suppliers to take an active interest in the overall management of the sources of the raw water they receive, legislative jurisdiction for the management of sources stays with the Resource Management Act 1991. In this light, and with the active encouragement of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry for the Environment is well advanced in its preparation of a national environmental standard for the management of source waters under the Resource Management Act. This will help, and in some cases effectively require, councils to improve the way in which they manage such sources.

Finally, in keeping with the principle of proportionality, the large majority of the provisions in this bill will not apply to the very smallest suppliers. Any supplier that provides water to fewer than 16 permanent residents, or to any grouping that in aggregate uses water for fewer than 6,000 person-days, will not generally be subject to the key requirements in this bill. In other words, those suppliers that are even smaller than a neighbourhood supplier will not be subject to most of the provisions of the bill; nor will they have to monitor the quality of their water, nor will they be required to prepare and implement public health risk management plans, although I hope many of them will. This is less than desirable from a public health perspective, but it is a pragmatic recognition of the difficulties faced by such suppliers. However, the bill is still clear that even though these very small suppliers must investigate any complaints that might be made about the water they provide, they cannot knowingly provide polluted water.

I say in conclusion that the bill provides for a balanced range of provisions that support its purpose of protecting the health and safety of people and communities. That is the fundamental purpose of this bill. The bill does this in way that provides flexibility for all suppliers, particularly small suppliers, and it links well with other key statutes.

One of the interesting things about this debate is that it has continued to expose the idea that the National Party still holds on to dearly—that the market fixes all, and that having a voluntary system in place, and the invisible hand of the market, will deliver quality standards in this country. The evidence is quite to the contrary. The evidence seen by the select committee showed that. Some of the local authorities that came before us argued that they did not want to meet quality water standards at all, and some argued that a voluntary standard would not be good enough. The invisible hand of the market is not good enough. We have to do something quite deliberate and quite important to make sure we have First World standards when it comes to healthy drinking-water.

Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) Link to this

I stand to oppose the third reading of the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill, along with my other colleagues in the National Party. We believe that the aim of the bill is commendable and laudable. National does support the right for safe drinking water. We believe that water is essential to life, but we do not consider that this bill is the mechanism to achieve this.

One of the concerns the National Party has is the cost this bill will impose on the ratepayer and local rural communities. Local communities were very concerned that they wanted to be consulted, and they felt they had not been consulted or heard. They were concerned that they should have been consulted over the level of risk they would be prepared to take. It is all about a balance between risk, cost, and benefit. Local government was up in arms over the costs and the burden to local communities. The costs were exorbitant. The Health Committee heard of wide-ranging costs, from $50 million to up to $275 million—and, yes, we did hear from Local Government New Zealand that the cost could be as high as $800 million. There were wide variations, and when there are wide variations in cost, we know something is fundamentally wrong. Affordability has not been factored into this bill, nor has the effect on the very small suppliers, who are almost doing a community service to their local communities. In the face of such bureaucracy and burden of cost, what will they do? Basically, they will turn off the tap, and a community service will be lost.

The committee had councils coming to us, one after the other, with examples of the costs they would be expected to uphold over their plans. There was the Mackenzie District Council: $3 million over the course of its plan; Ashburton District Council: $10 million—these are not small sums—Clutha District Council: $20 million; Central Otago District Council: $5 million. These are not small sums for small communities to sustain over a period of time. We were told that the vast majority of water suppliers gave excellent quality of water and that it was just a small minority of suppliers that needed to clean up their act. Where there is a clear link between drinking water and infection, we support firm action being taken and the situation being remedied immediately.

Local government was interesting. Local authorities still—after all the discussion and the amendments—remained principally opposed to this bill. They are the defenders of the community, and surely one would think that if, after all the discussion and the consultation, they felt the bill was in the right frame—that it would support their communities and would not be burdensome—they would support it. They remain principally opposed, and that speaks volumes. The local communities wanted to be consulted. They felt they had not been consulted. They wanted a local solution for their local water-supply issues.

The select committee had an example from the Kaipara District Council, which started off its statement by saying it supported safe drinking-water but not the safest, gold-plated drinking-water. In other words, it wanted the committee to see that there was a balance between risk, benefit, and cost. I did not write that; it was the Kaipara District Council that wrote it. The council wanted safe drinking-water, but it did not necessarily want the gold-plated version. It was all about assessing risk with benefit and cost. It felt the cost was over the top. It felt that the community’s wishes had not been heard and had been overridden, that the increased cost would not deliver recognisable outcomes to the community, that the nation’s costs should not have to be met by the ratepayers, and that the one-size-fits-all-policy was not suitable and did not fit with the community. It felt very strongly that the current proposal would add significant cost. It summarised by saying that it was concerned that no adequate cost-benefit analysis had been undertaken, and that the cost of this legislation could easily exceed any benefits.

Then we had another example, from the former Mayor of Rangitīkei, who gave a personal oral submission. He was very surprised when he read in August 2004 that his own community had the highest rates of water-borne and drinking-water disease. He was very alarmed by this as he had been a former mayor of the community. He set about investigating. He phoned the New Zealand Water and Wastes Association to get information from the Ministry of Health, and from the district health board he got information that showed that Rangitīkei’s water-borne diseases were five times the rate of the rest of the nation in 2003. This surprised him, because he was the mayor at the time and no one had told him there had been an outbreak or an epidemic. Apparently, when he delved more closely, he found that the outbreak had occurred at a Marton kindergarten and that 12 children were involved. He thought that was a little odd, because in fact there were five kindergartens that had the same water supply. He said in his submission that he smelt a rat and investigated further. He went to the kindergartens and found that not one of the kindergartens could remember an outbreak. He went to the local medical centre, which also could not remember an outbreak. He went all the way to the Institute of Environmental Science and Research Ltd, which reluctantly admitted that it investigates information on only half of the notified outbreaks. In other words, the reliability of information stored at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research is dubious.

In fact, the evidence of water-borne disease outbreaks was very interesting. We had a lot of comments that campylobacter is the main culprit. Well, it is not. Campylobacter is often related to food-borne illnesses. It is often related to chicken and often is not a water-borne disease at all. The Institute of Environmental Science and Research presented information to us. It gave us a whole document that looked at 23 case studies over the last 20 years. In fact, when we look at the last decade, we see that only six of those 23 cases occurred in the last 10 years. When we look at the particular case studies, we see that three could not be proven, as there was no clear link between water-borne outbreaks of disease, two were malfunctions of equipment—and we cannot say that this bill is going to fix those malfunctions of equipment—one was an ultraviolet system that was not working, and another was a septic tank that had broken and effluent was getting into the water supply.

The most recent example was in 2006 at the Cardrona ski field, where there was an effluent overflow. The drinking-water supply was not registered and there was an issue with the cartridge filtration and ultraviolet treatment. The case study states that although the water treatment comprised cartridge filtration ultraviolet treatment, the cartridge did not comply with the requirements of the New Zealand drinking-water standards, and the efficiency of ultraviolet treatment was unknown. I think that is a fair enough example. But really, of the rest of those six examples in the last decade—and we are talking about the last decade—three could not be proven as there was no clear link, and two had a malfunction of equipment. The only one I could use as an example was the Cardrona ski field example, and that was in 2006.

So, in summary, National opposes this bill. We think the costs to the ratepayer and the local communities are burdensome. We do support the right for communities to have safe drinking-water, but there has to be a balance between risk and cost and benefit. Many of the communities we heard from were very concerned that that had not been factored into the equation and their communities would be faced with large, burdensome costs, without the outcomes and benefits being seen.

LESLEY SOPER (Labour) Link to this

Perhaps the Opposition speakers should adopt a new theme song “Water, Water Everywhere, But Not a Safe Drop to Drink”, to go with their opposition to the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill.

I was a member of the Health Committee that worked very hard on this bill over a lengthy period, as the chair has said, and consulted widely with Local Government New Zealand to address concerns. I am proud to stand to support the third reading. I am also a lifelong water drinker who has experienced, in a number of rural communities in the South Island, being given the advice not to drink the tap water. I have heard that same sort of advice in Third World countries too, but New Zealand is a First World country. We aim for First World outcomes. May I say that I was at a certain southern primary school on several occasions in the last few years when that school was threatened with closure, due to the dangerous quality of the water supply. This bill will ensure that that sort of nonsense does not happen again.

This bill is about ensuring that all New Zealanders on community water supplies have access to safe drinking-water. That is a basic right and expectation in a First World country. It continues to amaze me that with nearly every other party in this House supporting this bill, the speakers from the National Party want to do nothing but play politics with it. Do any of those National speakers at all, including the ones with medical qualifications—one of whom is currently leaving the Chamber—actually listen to and believe what they are saying? Well, it would appear that they do not, and perhaps their opposition to this bill is not so surprising, coming from a party that would sell off water in this country if it got a chance. National would privatise water, just as it has announced that it would privatise the Accident Compensation Corporation, and just as it has announced that it would dramatically increase funding to private schools, sell off State assets, and remove the cap on doctors’ fees and tertiary fees in order to allow them to skyrocket.

National members would no doubt say, as the cloud-jumper Mr Key has said in relation to removing the cap on doctors’ fees, that the market would rule, and, in this case, miraculously deliver us safe drinking-water from somewhere or other. Perhaps, as Mr Key said on doctors’ fees, people could go down the road to find another drinking-water supplier that was safer than the one they had.

The fact is that at the current time there is only a voluntary requirement for water suppliers to comply with the Drinking-water Standards for New Zealand 2005. About 71 percent of New Zealand suppliers currently provide drinking water that already complies with the standards, which means, for those members on the other side of the Chamber who find it hard to figure it out mathematically, that about 29 percent do not. It is not acceptable that a high percentage of New Zealanders receive drinking water that is either below standard or not graded.