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Tēnā Tātou Katoa,
It is my pleasure, as Chair of the Board of Water Safety New Zealand, to present this annual report.
Our role as the water sector leadership organisation provides us with constant challenges. The sector has a collective responsibility to ensure all New Zealanders enjoy the water safely. This is a huge task and without you all this would not be achievable. We all work extremely hard and aspire to be part of a world leading water safety sector.
The Board would like to express our thanks and gratitude to NZ Lottery Grants Board, ACC, Sport NZ and our commercial partners for your ongoing support and investment.
The Board is confident in the financial performance of the organisation during a period of steady stewardship and modest investment into sector drowning interventions but we are all cognisant that a ‘holding the line’ approach is not good enough and more is required. The Water Safety Sector 2020 Strategy provided us all with an ambitious vision that ‘No one drowns’. As Chair, I can say that we have made good strides towards achieving our mission of working collectively to reduce drownings and injuries. However, the social and economic costs remain too high. To address this, major work is currently underway to ensure our sector is fit for purpose and financially sustainable now and into the future.
A sector capability review was undertaken in 2017/18 and based on the findings a range of potential actions have been identified with a key priority being the need to secure long-term sustainable funding for the largely volunteer sector. Water Safety New Zealand is also engaged in developing insights and understandings of the drowning problem. This is an exciting and necessary work stream. The results will be applied via social marketing to influence positive behavioural change targeting at risk groups who make up the majority of our drowning statistics.
Water Skills for Life continues to be our flagship programme for drowning prevention and water safety and I am very pleased with what has been achieved with this programme to date. In partnership with Swimming New Zealand, whose educators provide aquatic professional development to school and swim teachers, and our funded partners including regional sports trusts, councils and swim schools, our goal is that every child will learn Water Skills For Life across the country.
I thank my fellow Board members as we farewelled Katie Phillipps and welcomed Kate Wareham to the Board. I wish to also take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank Water Safety New Zealand staff, Core Members namely Coastguard New Zealand, Surf Life Saving New Zealand and Swimming New Zealand, General Members and our numerous sector volunteers for your service, commitment and contributions.
Nga mihi ki te whanau whānui,
Danny Tuato’o, Board Chair
Tēnā Koutou,
Undoubtedly, one of the main attractions of Aotearoa New Zealand is our magnificent waterways. Most Kiwis and visitors to our country love to recreate in, on and around the water. However, when water safety competence, knowledge and behaviour is lacking too many people are paying for it with their lives. Drowning is the leading cause of recreational death, the second highest cause of death for 1 – 24 year olds and the third highest cause of accidental death in New Zealand.
Every preventable fatal drowning leaves a family and community devastated. Over the past ten years the cost of drowning deaths and injuries to New Zealand is in the order of $4.79 billion.
The New Zealand Water Safety Sector 2020 Strategy set bold targets for a reduction in drownings, particularly for male and under-five year old drownings, and all hospitalisations. This strategy represents a shared vision, aims and intent of the water safety sector, with all sector agencies committed to working together on the plan.
With our investment into the community of $1.7m for the year, we continue to work with providers to try and meet these demands, specifically reaching out to those most vulnerable and at risk. These include infants, children, youth, Māori, Pacific Peoples and specific male groups. Our work with partners to influence these groups is detailed in this report.
To achieve a reduction in drownings in New Zealand, people’s attitudes and behaviours around water needs to change. A culture of under estimating the risks, over estimating ability and lack of water safety knowledge and skills is a contributing factor to New Zealand’s high drowning toll, especially among New Zealand males.
This year we implemented the sector’s shared data strategy. This work forms our evidence base and is critical to our ongoing understanding of who is getting into trouble in the water, when, where and how. Insights will inform drowning prevention strategies, initiatives and social marketing campaigns.
An immense amount of work went into the sector capability review and plan with the focus being to address the water safety sectors’ capability, capacity and effectiveness in drowning prevention. From this there are four main priority areas as I see it;
Some of this work is already underway. We are engaging positively with Government, both at central and local level and have established an MOU with a Water Safety Sector Maori Advisory Group.
We remain an evidence based organisation. All we do must be underpinned by robust data, insights and applied research; all areas we are applying additional focus and resource into. A Cross Sector Reference Group (CSRG) reset and the development of specific Water Safety Regional Plans are other areas of continued focus.
Thanks to our core funders; Sport NZ, NZ Lotteries Grants Board and ACC, as well as our partners, delivery agents and members. Special thanks to our generous commercial partners;
Thanks to our Board for their support and guidance, and our staff, who all add so much value and are so passionate about the cause and what we do.
We continue to build great relationships and a strong foundation to deliver on our strategic goals.
My future focus is simple; deliver positive social change in attitudes and behaviours in, on and around the water. We are not the fun police. I want all New Zealanders and visitors to enjoy the water in whatever way, shape or form they choose.
I believe we are implementing the step changes required to meet our targets and effect positive change in Aotearoa, New Zealand. However, we now need to be focusing beyond 2020 on what a world leading water safety sector needs to look like for Aotearoa New Zealand.
Naku noa, na
Jonty Mills, CEO
Water Safety New Zealand works to raise awareness, educate communities, and promote preventative measures.