Grievance Debate

WATER FOR GOOD

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (15:21): Today I want to take the opportunity to talk about the government's recently released Water for Good plan. It is the government's plan for where it wants South Australia to be not this year or next year but, rather, in 2050. I want to read out one of the key actions which highlights the sort of government we have in South Australia. One of the key actions states:

The South Australian community will have an enhanced level of awareness of water issues and people will instinctively take action to save water, such that we are regarded nationally as a water sensitive state.

That is what this government wants to achieve in relation to water by 2014. By 2014 it wants the community to know that we have an issue with water. We have had a water issue in this state for at least six years and the government has just put out a 190 page document. There is nothing new in it, just a lot of words. The really important thing the people of South Australia need to know is that the government is so embarrassed about the document that it does not want anyone to read the document. It is spending $2.4 million worth of taxpayers' money trying to sell it through advertisements on television and in the print media.

The sum of $2.4 million could be put to good use in South Australia. There is one project that $2.4 million could complete, that is, the Urban Trees Project in the West Parklands. Because the government has used another $45 million worth of taxpayers' money to do out a building in the centre of the city, SA Water is vacating an area off West Terrace in the West Parklands, and the government asked the city council to build an urban forest and put in some wetlands.

Guess what the shortfall of funding is to complete that project? It is $2.4 million—just the amount of money that this government is spending on advertising a new water program which does nothing new for South Australia. It even fails to recognise that we have a problem. It sets targets. It talks about stormwater harvesting and it states that by 2014 we might be able to harvest 20 gigalitres of stormwater in South Australia.

Colin Pitman at Salisbury tells me that he could harvest 18 gigalitres of water next year. The only thing holding him back is that he cannot distribute the water. Once he extracts it from the aquifer it is difficult for him to distribute the water. Why? The reason is that he does not have access to a pipe network—one that is already there. The government says that it will open access to SA Water's infrastructure, that it will give open access to the pipe network by 2050—over 40 years away.

Colin Pitman could supply most of the stormwater next year that this program targets by 2014, if he could have access to the pipe network. However, this government refuses to accept that treated stormwater can be brought up to potable standard, notwithstanding that, after four years (it would probably be five years by now) of conducting research into the water that Salisbury council has been storing in aquifers to the north of the city, CSIRO has found that it is at least as good a quality as the water supplied out of our dams in the Adelaide Hills.

The government having appointed a Commissioner for Water Security almost 12 months ago—a supposed expert—to come up with a plan to provide water security for this community and the greater South Australian community, I for one am deeply disappointed. It is 190 pages of waffle and there is nothing new; it tells nothing we did not already know. Principally, the only thing it does tell us is that this government does not really want to achieve anything certainly today and certainly not next year, and it wants people by 2014 to be aware that there is a water issue. And it gets worse. By 2025 it wants people to be really aware that we have a water issue.

Time expired.