WATER POLICY

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (14:56): My question is to the Minister for Water Security. Why are call centre staff at SA Water relying on The Advertiser to find out what water policies are being applied in South Australia? Yesterday (that is, Monday) a constituent rang my office to complain about the lack of detail available to consumers regarding their eligibility for a rebate on some water-saving appliances. When my staff rang SA Water to find out why there were no details on the website, SA Water staff members said 'We don't know anything other than what is in The  Advertiser.' When asked if he had any information about what rebates were available he said:

We've only got a photocopy of The Advertiser and we're going by what's in that article. It has the headline 'At last some water-saving rebates'.

The Hon. K.A. MAYWALD (Chaffey—Minister for the River Murray, Minister for Water Security, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Small Business, Minister Assisting the Minister for Industry and Trade) (14:57): As announced by the Premier on Sunday, and also in the statement I made to the house today, these new water incentives will start from 1 November. There is a very extensive booklet being developed that will be available, and SA Water staff are currently being educated on the new incentives. This is a terrific scheme that will provide lots of opportunities for South Australians to become more water wise in how they use their water. The scheme extends the incentives available to people to save water by $24 million over three years. It is a great initiative and will result in $5 billion worth of water savings per annum by 2010. That is a large amount of water.

South Australians are already responding incredibly well to the water restrictions as a consequence of the drought; we also know that they responded very well to water conservation measures that were put in place back in 2003 as result of legislation in this parliament. In fact, we saw somewhere around a 15 per cent reduction without restrictions—which is, I think, a great credit to the South Australian people. Under restrictions currently in place we have also seen 23 billion litres of water saved since the beginning of this year, and we should be congratulating the South Australian community for their efforts. Any attempt by the opposition to undermine the good work of the South Australian community should be abhorred.