3Purpose of this Act

1. The main purpose of this Act is to ensure that drinking water suppliers provide safe drinking water to consumers by—

2. providing a drinking water regulatory framework that is consistent with internationally accepted best practice, including a duty on drinking water suppliers to—
   1. have a drinking water safety plan; and
   2. comply with legislative requirements (such as drinking water standards) on a consistent basis; and
3. providing a source water risk management framework that, together with the Resource Management Act 1991, regulations made under that Act, and the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management, enables risks to source water to be properly identified, managed, and monitored; and
4. providing mechanisms that enable the regulation of drinking water to be proportionate to the scale, complexity, and risk profile of each drinking water supply.

5. This Act has the following additional purposes:

6. to establish a framework to provide transparency about the performance of drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater networks and network operators; and
7. to provide mechanisms that build and maintain capability among drinking water suppliers and across the wider water services sector; and
8. to ensure that a quantity of drinking water sufficient to support the ordinary drinking water and sanitary needs of consumers is provided to each point of supply; and
9. to establish a framework for the continuous and progressive improvement of the quality of water services in New Zealand.