SCHOOLS, WATER AND ENERGY CONSUMPTION

Mr PICCOLO (Light) (14:39): My question is to the Minister for Education and Children's Services. How are school communities working with the state government to reduce their water and energy consumption?

The Hon. J.D. LOMAX-SMITH (Adelaide—Minister for Education and Children's Services, Minister for Tourism, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (14:39): I am quite confident that no-one in this place would deny the need to conserve both energy and water resources in our current environment, both drought wise and in terms of carbon footprints. It is true that, whilst every part of our community has a responsibility to conserve these resources, schools cannot be outside these issues. South Australia has, of course, a very large percentage of our energy produced by wind and solar power, but we still have much to do in order to make our energy footprint smaller and conserve water.

I am very pleased to inform the house that South Australian schools have reduced their water use over the last few years, with 602 state schools having slashed their use from 5.06 million kilolitres in 2000-01 to 3.8 million kilolitres in 2005-06. This is a 25 per cent reduction over a five-year period which, for those of you who cannot imagine the scale of this water, is equivalent to 1,200 Olympic sized swimming pools saved over five years. Schools and preschools have been working hard to reduce their impact on the environment, and from 2008 all schools, district offices and state office consumption of water must reduce by 10 per cent, and energy by 25 per cent, based on the targets in the South Australian State Strategic Plan. I am pleased to inform the house that already almost half of individual schools have met their water targets, and a large number of schools have met their energy targets as well.

We will continue to work with schools to help them achieve these targets by introducing a range of measures and continuing throughout the next few years to reach these goals. We are releasing 'green kits' with tips on saving energy and water within all schools in term 4. We are having energy audits in a number of schools to help them assess where and why they use energy and to come up with practical solutions to reduce their consumption. In addition, $1 million of annual Green School grants were issued in June and will continue to be issued each year to help schools become greener; and 624 grants have been awarded over the past five years. In addition, we are continuing our Solar Schools program, with 112 schools already signed up to this initiative.

Reducing water and energy use not only helps the environment but also frees up extra funds to be reinvested in our children's education. I am extraordinarily impressed by some of the projects being run through our schooling system to impact on this reduction in energy and water usage. I name particularly two schools that have had an extraordinary success in this area. The Pines Primary School has reduced its water consumption by 40 per cent, and it purchases stormwater stored in an underground aquifer, a system developed through the Salisbury Council. In addition, Gawler High School (in the member's electorate) has had a massive reduction of 63 per cent in its water use by replacing its manual irrigation system with an automated system and installing five 50,000-litre tanks to capture and reuse stormwater run-off. There are many different initiatives around the state, and each of these has the added advantage of not just taking us further towards sustainability but also acting as pilots and great indicators for children to learn about sustainability and take those measures home to their families.