The government is being urged to make major investments in water safety education, with advocates concerned about last year's high death toll.
Water safety training. Photo: Supplied
Water Safety New Zealand's 2021 Provisional Drowning Report claims 74 drownings occurred last year - the same as in 2020 - and 20 of them were in December.
Swimming New Zealand chief executive Steve Johns and Drowning Prevention Auckland chief executive Nicola Keen-Biggelaar want to see water safety made compulsory in the New Zealand Curriculum.
At present, it only states it is "expected that all students will have had opportunities to learn basic aquatics skills by the end of Year 6".
Johns said "I certainly think it is time for the government to look at what is happening as a result of not funding aquatic education and maybe it's time for them to start putting some money into that space".
There were multiple factors at play in the water safety area, including learning to swim being best through private lessons, which could be expensive, he said.
But Johns also thought primary teachers were not necessarily fit to teach kids to swim at school - if it was happening at all.
It would cost tens of millions of dollars a year to get every school aged child into formal swimming lessons, he said.
Swimming New Zealand chief executive Steve Johns. Photo: Supplied
"But when you look at the amount of money, for example, the government puts into road safety strategies and initiatives to try and bring down the road toll, you know, comparatively what they put into water safety is just a minute amount."
It was also not just New Zealand's tamariki that needed water safety education.
The Drowning Report showed most fatalities were men, more than half of drownings were aged 45 and over, and more Māori than any other ethnicity died.
Johns said there was great community-led work happening to educate Māori, Pasifika and migrants, but none was government-funded.
"So the people that are providing those courses are always having to think, every month or every year: 'Where am I going to get the money to continue this next year?'," he said.
Keen-Biggelaar said water safety education needed to span across a lifetime, pointing out what an eight-year-old needed to learn in school was different to that of a teenager, a parent looking after a child, or an older person out boating.
Drowning Prevention Auckland chief executive Nicola Keen-Biggelaar. Photo: Supplied
Ultimately, education also needed to cover different situations, she said - just because you could swim the length of a pool did not mean you were prepared to swim in the surf or a fast-moving river.
It was a "complex" situation and would take years for the annual drowning toll to drop, with those working in the space having "done all that we can" with the investment they got, she said.
Authorities and water safety advocates needed to look at the situation "bigger, more broadly" and look at how agencies could work together better instead of making funding available that "we all need to fight for", she said.
RNZ asked Minister for Sports and Recreation Minister Grant Robertson and Minister of Education Chris Hipkins if the government should front foot water safety improvements.
Hipkins said the drowning toll was tragic and referred to previous Budget funding made available to services but made no comment about future action the government might take.