Hide wants a few grand rather than safe drinking water

When a news article comes out reporting that Rodney Hide wants the goverment to review "... rules on drinking water ..." because the rules "... are costing councils and communities tens of thousands of dollars" I am immediately sceptical of his intentions.

In 2007 Labour passed The Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2007 which requires Councils and Territorial Authorities to comply with basic drinking water standards. Hide has now called for a moratorium on this legislation until a government review of the costs has been carried out - a task that he says should take a couple of weeks.

As the basis of life I believe you cannot put a price on safe drinking water. I therefore fundamentally disagree with Hide's actions, however, at the same time, Labour should check their facts and choose the right angle before attacking Hide's move.

Labour's water quality spokesperson Brendon Burns says that some 800,000 New Zealanders are drinking water that is not safe. On looking at the report to which Burns refers it appears that the figure of 811,000 is used, but that it includes people that are supplied with drinking water that
"... either failed to comply bacteriologically with the criteria of the DWSNZ [Drinking Water Standards New Zealand] or for which there are no data because they were self-supplied."

The number of people with self-supplied water which has not been tested is 333,000 while a further 365,000 people's water was not fully tested and therefore cannot be judgd either way.
This drastically reduces the number publicised by Burns. In saying this, I do not intend to take away from the fact that:
"... 92,000 were served by registered supplies with unacceptable levels of
E. coli." and "... 29,000 were served by registered supplies where water suppliers failed
to take appropriate corrective action once E. coli had been found."

My point is that Hide should be challenged for the fact that, for the rationale of costs of "tens of thosands of dollars", he seems to want to do away with the law that requires suppliers of drinking water to meet basic standards.

Yet again it seems this government is happy to undermine the health of both the population and our environment for the matter of a few thousand bucks.