WATER BILLING

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Leader of the Opposition) (15:06): My question is to the Treasurer. Does he stand by claims he has made publicly in recent days that cabinet was unaware of the flawed SA Water charging plans, that the government has only this week decided to change SA Water billing systems and that the details of the now abandoned billing system were not advised to him or cabinet before the opposition raised this issue on Thursday 17 July last week?

The Treasurer signed off on the document 'Transparency Statement: Water and Wastewater Prices in Metropolitan and Regional SA in 2008-09'. The document was released in February this year, and it states: 'The government is intending to introduce quarterly rather than biannual meter readings and further improvements to billing information.' Financial detail in the document reveals a $47 million increase in revenue as a result of these changes. In the same document, the Treasurer stated: 'It is proposed that SA Water move from biannual to quarterly meter readings from 1 July 2008.' You did not decide it last week: you decided it months ago—and you know it and you are not telling people.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Treasurer, Minister for Industry and Trade, Minister for Federal/State Relations) (15:08): He is a very excitable chappie, isn't he? I talked about this on radio. The transparency statement, which follows on from a procedure put in place by Malcolm Turnbull, from memory, in the last government (or certainly the last government), was about encouraging state governments—are you listening or are you not interested in the answer?

Mr Hamilton-Smith: We are hanging off every word, Kevin.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Good on you. It is good.

Mr Pengilly: Come on; go for it, Kev.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Oh, Mr Bean—the great factional ally of the deputy leader, who was going to poach the member for Newland into their party, and the great factional ally who was going to get the farmer up in Mayo last week.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: How did the farmer go in the vote, Iain?

An honourable member: Third.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: The farmer came third. Why did you want to get stuck into Iain? Haven't you done enough damage to his—

The SPEAKER: Order! Members on my left will—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Members on my left will cease interjecting. The Deputy Premier will get to the substance of the question.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Thank you, sir. But I say: hasn't the Leader of the Opposition done enough damage to the member for Davenport's career without trying to knock him off? As I said, the transparency statement, amongst many things, when referring to customer impacts on water says:

In order to further improve the pricing signal to customers, the government is intending to introduce quarterly, rather than biannual meter reading, and further improvements to billing information. The minor adjustment to the volume of water consumption between the first and second tiers would facilitate future quarterly metering.

This document released in February to this point has not been acted on by SA Water or the government, but it is—and was up until yesterday—an intention. The quarterly process does come with a degree of complexity that has to be worked through, and SA Water had not reached a point where it was yet ready to recommend to government that it implement that system.

What happens with quarterly billing—and a further move even from what the transparency statement indicates—is a point at which we cannot have backdating of readings in our water billing. That is a very complex proposal, but we are working through that. This was and had been for some time an intention, but had not been acted on. When we met yesterday, one of the first things we talked about was how we get a different system. SA Water made it clear that one option is a quarterly billing system, but it had not yet moved to that point.

The minister and I made it very clear that we wanted them to move to that point. Some of the senior public servants from SA Water did acknowledge some concerns and difficulties in it, but the CEO and the senior people, despite the logistics of that exercise, believe it can be done and are now working on that. It was an intention—and the bureaucracy does not move at rapid pace, let us be honest about it—and I can tell you that, between February (when this was released) and now, they had not in any way significantly advanced the issue as it related to government making a decision on quarterly billing. The minister and I made it very clear yesterday that we want it done.