Jacinda Adern

Children’s Spokesperson
3 December 2015

Nick Smith misleads Parliament over pool laws

The Government is ploughing ahead with changes to pool safety laws despite being told they could lead to more children drowning, Labour’s Children’s spokesperson Jacinda Ardern says.

“Pool safety laws were hard fought for, and have been credited with reducing the number of young children drowning in home pools from around 10 deaths a year to about two.

“The Government is now looking to repeal them, loosening up the rules around fencing and reducing compliance inspection requirements.

“That’s despite several large red flags being raised by Plunket, water safety groups, local authorities and by the Children’s Commissioner, who argues the changes are likely to see more kids drowning, not fewer.

“Disturbingly the architect behind the proposal, Building and Housing Minister Nick Smith, gave a flippant and misleading response to serious questions around this law change in Parliament today.

“Rather than answer questions, he claimed Labour was behind the changes. Labour started a review in 2008 to ‘further reduce drownings’. Nick Smith dumped that process and in 2013 started his own consultation document because the Act had ‘long frustrated pool owners’ and he wanted to ‘reduce some of the dreadful compliance costs’.

“This wasn’t his only motivation, with the Master Pool Builders lobbying the industry to get behind it as a means of reversing a down-turn in pool construction.

“In an email the association sent out, it notes the industries (sic) focus will be to eliminate territorial authority ‘opinions’ regarding the ‘immediate pool’ area, which are the cause of many home pools being cancelled.

“It wanted to ensure the stated objective of the new legislation, being to ‘make pool safety compliance easier’ is achieved.

“We are talking about children’s lives here. Watering down laws that have proved to be effective in saving some of those lives is just plain stupid and wrong.”

ENDS