SA WATER

Mr MARSHALL (Norwood—Leader of the Opposition) (14:42): My question is to the Treasurer. Does the Treasurer stand by his comments yesterday that he has no plans to write down SA Water's asset valuation, given that ESCOSA's water price recommendation today is predicated on a value writedown of those assets?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Treasurer, Minister for State Development, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for the Arts) (14:43): I thank the member for his question. We now have advice from ESCOSA which suggests that there are opportunities to reduce water prices that we will act upon. There are two elements to the draft ruling which are germane to this question of asset price regulation. The first is the regulated asset price which is not the actual value of SA Water's assets but it is the regulated price for the purposes of determining prices of water for charging of customers.

That is the matter that has been split into two components. One component concerns SA Water's water assets where there is a suggestion that they might be devalued and another section of the draft ruling talks about the sewerage assets which suggests they might be increased in value. We will take into account all that advice. It is a draft ruling. A final ruling will be made, I think, in May some time; cabinet will deliberate on it.

But all of our considerations will be governed by one principle—that is, to give the lowest possible water prices to South Australian consumers so that we can reduce the burden of cost of living on ordinary families. That is our purpose. We introduced the economic regulator into this process to look very carefully at SA Water's pricing structure. They have now given us something that gives us an opportunity to deliver on the promise we made which was to keep water price increases into the future at CPI. It looks like we are going to be able to do better than that, and we will be acting on that determination.