WATERWORKS (TIERED PRICING) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction and First Reading

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (10:33): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Waterworks Act 1932. Read a first time.

Second Reading

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (10:34): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The bill I bring to the house today is quite a simple one, but it is aimed at resolving quite a serious anomaly caused by the change to quarterly billing for consumers of water—clients of SA Water here in South Australia. We have been in quarterly billing mode for over a year now. The government, when we moved to quarterly billing, made a number of grandiose statements about the benefits of going to quarterly billing. What it failed to do was tell consumers that they would be stung in the tail by quarterly billing, particularly if they were trying to curtail their water use.

What we see now is that those who bend over backwards to save water, particularly those who put in rainwater tanks, etc., to lessen the amount of water that they are utilising, are actually paying more than they should, and paying at a higher rate than those who do not necessarily do the hard yards with regard to saving water. I will explain what has happened.

The water rates in South Australia are set on what we call an inclining block tariff system. A few years ago we moved from a two-block inclining tariff to a three-block inclining tariff. Currently, we have three tariff rates and the more water you use the higher the rate goes. When we had annual billing, or annual meter reading, water consumers would pay at one rate for the first 120 kilolitres of water they used per year and then pay at a higher rate when they went over that annual consumption, right up to 520 kilolitres per year; and at a third rate when you went over that 520 kilolitres per year.

With the move to quarterly billing, those volumes of water that can be used in any period have been split up in a daily rate, but ostensibly with quarterly billing they are split into a quarterly rate and, obviously, if you have 120 kilolitres at the lowest rate that has been split down to 30 kilolitres per quarter; nobody has a problem with that. However, when consumers are endeavouring to do the right thing and help out the government—putting in rainwater tanks, re-using their greywater and reducing their consumption of water, particularly during the winter months when there is plenty of rainfall and they are not needing to use much water outside their home—it has become quite common for people who utilise those practices to use less than 30 kilolitres of water in those winter quarters.

Those consumers would have expected that the unused balance of that 30-kilolitre allowance would be rolled forward into the next quarter, and so on, for the entirety of the year. They would have expected that they would still be able to get the benefit of the lowest rate for 120 kilolitres of water per billing year. The reality is that that is not the way it works. It is hard and fast that at the end of each quarter you lose any benefit, so if you have used less than 30 kilolitres in any one quarter you lose the benefit of that unused portion at that rate and it is not able to be carried forward into the next quarter.

People who have put in the best efforts to reduce their water use are paying a higher rate, and a considerable number of people have sent to me copies of their water accounts, which demonstrate that over a 12-month period they are paying at the second tier rate well before they get to 120 kilolitres of use across the year. I have raised this matter publicly, as have some other members of this and the other place, over a fair period of time.

There is huge sympathy in the community for this anomaly to be corrected. I have debated the current minister on radio on this issue. The minister expressed some interest in the matter. I have given the minister ample time to address the matter—it was many months ago that we debated it on radio. From memory the minister said he would look into it. It is pretty obvious that the minister has decided, no doubt on the advice of SA Water, that sleeping dogs should be left to lie.

The reality is that not only is there strong community support for fixing this anomaly, but it is just the right thing to do. We are trying to send pricing signals to the community to be waterwise and we spend a lot of money on programs to promote that sort of ethos within the community, but we have an act which mitigates against the people who do the right thing.

Quite simply, what my bill does is ensure that any unused portion of the 30 kilolitres—or whatever the allowance is, whatever is set—is allowed to be rolled forward into the next billing quarter if it is unused in the initial billing quarter, and rolled forward again and again, but only to the end of the full 12-month cycle. I am not attempting to give consumers something that they did not have before. It has always been the case that, if they did not use the 120 kilolitres in the full year, they lost the benefit of any unused portion. I am not trying to change that. All I am trying to do is to re-establish the fact that consumers will get the benefit of the full 120 kilolitres per year at the lowest rate, whether they are waterwise or not. Currently, only those who are not waterwise get the benefit of the full 120 kilolitres per year.

Again, quite recently, the minister said that, when I introduced it, he would have a look at my bill. It is here for him to look at. I hope that we can get back to this matter before the end of the year. I am hoping that the minister and the government will see fit to do something practical to reward those who do the right thing with regard to their water usage and that the minister and the government will see fit to do the right thing by the people of South Australia. I commend the bill to the house.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Sibbons.