Grievance Debate

WATER PRICING

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:45): Today I take the opportunity to talk about water pricing in South Australia. We have seen an outrageous level of water price increases under the Rann Labor government going back to when it first came into government. The price for the lowest users of water, those who use less than 120 kilolitres of water per year, has risen from a mere 38¢ per kilolitre to, today, $1.93 per kilolitre. That is a 408 per cent increase.

It is interesting that those who use the least water face the highest increases under this government, when this government keeps pleading that it is trying to encourage people to be waterwise and use less water. But the reality is the more water you use in this state, the cheaper it gets. Those who use water at the rate of between 120 kilolitres per year and 520 kilolitres per year have seen a 193 per cent increase in the price of their water, from 94¢ per kilolitre to $2.75; and those who use over 520 kilolitres have seen the price go from 94¢ to $2.98, a 217 per cent increase. The average household water bill in South Australia has gone, under this government, from $237 a year to $661 a year, a 179 per cent increase. Inflation during that same period would be of the order of 60 to 70 per cent. So this is at least double, if not 2½ to three times the rate of inflation increase during the same period.

During the same period, the business that collects this money on behalf of South Australians, SA Water, has also contributed billions of dollars to the state's Treasury—almost $3 billion in that time—all of which has been wasted by this government, very little of which has been turned back into infrastructure to support the business.

We saw the government back in 2008 make an amazing decision to double the size of the desalination plant built in Adelaide from 50 gigalitres capacity per year to 100 gigalitres on the back of a promise of $228 million from the federal government. It was only some months later that the opposition exposed the fact that that $228 million saw an offset in the state's GST payments of $212 million. So we decided to spend another billion dollars doubling the size of the desalination plant and we got a net benefit from the federal government of a mere $16 million.

I pointed out to the house via a question on 13 November 2008 that international infrastructure analyst Global Water Intelligence had published on 10 October 2008 information that showed that desalination plants in Australia were costing more than double what they were costing elsewhere in the world. That has been exposed yet again in The Advertiser this morning. It said that the people building the desalination plant in Adelaide will be making almost $500 million profit.

I asked the then treasurer this question way back in 2008 and he dismissed it. The reality is that building desalination plants in Australia is costing more than double what it costs to build a desalination plant anywhere else in the world. I pointed out that a desalination plant which had been completed only a few years previously and which I had visited in Singapore was built at a fraction of the cost of the one we are building in South Australia. It is no wonder that old age pensioners who are waterwise and using up to 120 kilolitres of water per year in Adelaide will be paying 74 per cent more in the next year for their water than what they have paid this year.

This is because we have an incompetent government that cannot manage major projects and will continue to make the same mistakes as it moves forward with the next projects on the drawing board, the Adelaide Oval redevelopment and the Royal Adelaide Hospital. This state is being driven broke by an incompetent government, by the same people who were sitting in this house last time this state was driven broke, and we see them again. They were incompetent in the 1980s and they are still incompetent. They should be walking out of this place with their heads hanging and walking across the road and asking the Governor to call another election so that the people of South Australia can get what they deserve, and that is a decent government.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired. The Leader of the Opposition.