Taking action on Coroner’s recommendations released today will reduce the risk of young New Zealanders drowning.

Eight summer drownings of children aged five and under in 2021/2022 provides heart breaking proof that simply ‘keeping watch’ is not enough. For children under eight-years-old, adequate supervision must be close physical contact where adults can intervene immediately.

Moments of distraction or lapses in supervision remain key contributors to drowning incidents. Since 2015, a total of 54 New Zealanders aged five and under have drowned – 19 of these children in pools.

Water Safety New Zealand General Manager Gavin Walker says coroner’s recommendations must be enforced and expanded.

“Losing a child to drowning is an unimaginable pain no one should experience. Every whānau involved in that tragic summer will relive those moments for the rest of their lives.

“The heart-breaking loss of every one of these families must serve as a lesson for all of us – we must do more to protect children around water.”

Coroner’s recommendations span a range of aquatic environments. They include calls for signage at public swimming pools and beaches to be both blunt and clear, as well as designating individual adults to be at arm’s reach of individual children when in large groups around water.

Separate recommendations around sale of above-ground temporary pools have full endorsement from Water Safety New Zealand.

Many New Zealanders buy temporary pools and use them without barriers or are potentially unaware of the regulations that need to be followed.

Water Safety New Zealand is advocating for small portable pools under 1.2m in height to be withdrawn from sale in New Zealand. And for pools 1.2m and over in height to only be sold if they have an appropriate safety gated entry point.

“Mandatory pool fencing legislation transformed child water safety back in the 1980s. Before regulations were introduced, an average of nine New Zealanders aged under five drowned in home pools every year. Less than a decade later, annual drownings of young children in

home pools dropped to five every year. Now, the ten-year average is lower than two pre schoolers drowning in a home pool every year.

“This incredible success story for water safety is now at risk through the availability of cut price temporary pools. The market is flooded with these pools for sale online and at retailers. Action must be taken on the blurred lines around safety for permanent and temporary pools.”

Gavin Walker stresses Water Safety NZ’s stance is not in response to accelerating drowning numbers.

“We know drowning is a solvable problem – and every drowning is preventable.

“We simply can’t wait for more children to lose their lives and then act. If we don’t take action, we are putting lives at risk.”

Notes:

For very young children almost all water is a risk for drowning - whether that is in a bucket, bathtub, pond, or pool.

• Collective impact of New Zealand’s water safety and child safety sectors since the early 2010s has made incredible progress by targeting drowning prevention initiatives for three sub-groups of little people

• Babies (under 18-months)
• Toddlers (18 months to three years)
• Pre-schoolers.

Increasing knowledge about drowning risks, changing attitudes, and reducing risk taking behaviour continues to save lives.

• New Zealand’s experience with mandatory pool fencing is credited as one of the most effective public health policies in our history. Child pool deaths dropped over 80 per cent from an average of nine fatalities every year in the 1980s to a ten-year average of 1.6 child pools drownings annually (2015-2024).

• Prior to the introduction of the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act 1987, many drownings occurred in unfenced backyard pools.

Preventable drownings of children 2015 - 2024

Water Safety New Zealand’s DrownBase™ database categorises childhood drownings as preschool children – aged 0-4 years and school-aged children – aged 5-14 years.

Coroner’s recommendations released on 24 March 2025 relate to children aged five years and under.

© Scoop Media