DESALINATION PLANT

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:24): My question is to the Minister for Water and the River Murray. Given that the minister claimed yesterday that there are no unanswered questions about the desalination plant, can he now inform the house why the government paid operating and maintenance fees for 27 months before the plant was operational?

The Hon. P. CAICA (Colton—Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation) (15:25): I can, and I thank the member very much for asking again questions that have previously been answered on numerous occasions. I do not want to be rude but—

An honourable member: Well, don't be then.

The Hon. P. CAICA: Well, what I would say is that we know that you are going to go to areas to boost your flagging position within your party—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. P. CAICA: I won't. I have answered these questions on many occasions. All these questions and assertions by the deputy opposition leader have already been dealt with by SA Water and the government previously. It is a stunt, but notwithstanding that, what I would say is that the payments that have been made to the operations and manage operator under the terms of the O&M contract, of course, are for services provided by the O&M operator during the construction period.

You would think that, to ensure the contractor could successfully operate the plant when it was ready to be turned on, there would be some type of ongoing maintenance that would occur during that period of time. Those expenses and costs included—amongst other things, as I said—maintaining the equipment on site and training, and any costs were factored into the overall project cost anyway.

I have answered it before. I am happy to keep answering questions that have already been asked but it just seems on occasions a little bit pointless, and if indeed he wants to highlight things within the press that have already been answered, perhaps the press should scrutinise the questions that are being asked.