OLYMPIC DAM

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (15:38): Today during question time I asked the water minister why SA Water requested BHP Billiton to undertake as part of its EIS process a proposal for the extraction of water from the River Murray. I asked the question because it was stated in the EIS documentation from BHP that, as part of its EIS process, it undertook a proposal to take water from the River Murray for its expanded project, at the request of SA Water.

It surprised members of the opposition when we read that in the EIS documentation because, to the best of our knowledge (which was received via a briefing directly from BHP Billiton a long time ago), the option to take water from the River Murray was one that it discounted of its own volition right at the start.

The interesting thing today was that the Deputy Premier and Treasurer chose to answer the question instead of the water minister. The Treasurer bumbled along, making the excuse that he was responsible for negotiations with respect to the expansion at Olympic Dam. That may be so, but he is not responsible to this house for SA Water. The Minister for Water Security is. Why is it that the Deputy Premier did not trust the Minister for Water Security to answer the question? It was a fairly simple and straightforward question.

The reality is that the Premier continues to have us believe that he has instructed BHP about what it can and cannot do on a whole range of things, not the least being where the ore that it mines and converts into concentrate is processed. We heard in another question today that several years ago the Premier was most adamant that all of the processing would happen in South Australia. We know now that his latest statement is that we will have double the amount of processing in South Australia, notwithstanding that the capacity of the mine will increase about fivefold. The reality is that BHP Billiton has told the Premier where it will have the processing done and he has cowered into the corner and said, 'Well, how do I get out of this?'

I will go back to water. With regard to water, the Premier would have the people of South Australia believe that it was he who stopped BHP from taking water out of the River Murray. He would also have South Australians believe that it was he who said to BHP Billiton, 'You will not take water out of the Great Artesian Basin.' Nothing could be further from the truth.

The reality is that at the very first briefing that I had from BHP Billiton, well before the Premier made any of these statements, BHP Billiton made it quite plain to me, as the shadow minister for mineral resources, as I was at that stage, that there is no way it would contemplate taking water out of the River Murray. In fact, with respect to building a pipeline from the River Murray to Roxby Downs, the additional length of the pipeline to come beyond where it was going to be at Whyalla (Point Lowly) would cost more than building and operating the desalination plant, and that was even if the water was available, and it knew it was not.

Similarly, to continue to take water out of the Great Artesian Basin would mean that it would have to build, from memory, 600 kilometres of pipeline in the Far North. It discounted that out of hand because it was totally uneconomical. Its only plan was to build a desalination plant. That is what it told me at the first instance.

Is the government going through a charade? Has the government, through SA Water, instructed BHP Billiton to put this into its EIS statement or to look at this proposal simply to try to make the Premier look as though he has actually been wielding the big stick over BHP Billiton? I strongly suspect that that is the point. It is disgraceful that the Premier and the Deputy Premier would put BHP Billiton to the extra cost just because the Premier wanted to gain a headline a couple of years ago.