DESALINATION PLANT

Ms THOMPSON (Reynell) (15:25): During question time our Premier mentioned how important it is in South Australia that we work together in this state to make things happen. I want to draw the attention of the house to a project where this, indeed, has happened with many long-term benefits, and I am talking about the Adelaide Desalination Plant which is in my electorate.

During the construction of this plant there were 600 local South Australian companies involved with more than 10,000 people working on the project, with many South Australian companies now on the map in terms of being able to work with international firms. Through the desal plant they started to work with companies such as ACCIONA, Trility, Abigroup, McConnell Dowell, Memcor, Schneider and others and are now bidding with those major international companies on projects worldwide.

This is something that could not have happened without the cooperative work that occurred during the construction of the desal plant so that not only has this plant protected us for many years against lack of water, the impact that has on our lives and the impact that has on industry, but it has been a boost to the long-term capacities of our local industry and created a lasting legacy for the community and business in terms of the skills that our state now has.

At this stage I want to pay tribute to two people or organisations. Milind Kumar, who was Project Director, obviously worked night, day, weekends and any other time to create a cooperative and effective workplace on that site. I met him several times during the construction of the plant. He was always enthusiastic about the project, always ready to respond to our questions—and of course representing my local community which was affected by it, some of those questions were quite challenging. He always responded in full.

The other group to which I want to pay tribute is Fibrelogic (now RPC Pipe Systems), a local business in my community which provided much of the pipe work for the desal plant. On my recent tour I was very proud to be able to have my photo taken alongside Fibrelogic pipes. This is a new system and, in many circumstances, it can replace the old fashioned steel pipes. It uses glass compound to produce a very flexible long-lasting and strong easy-to-meld-together system of piping.

They are having trouble explaining this new concept to some of the potential contractors; however, they have been now put in touch with relevant people in DTED to assist them with this process. They were major players in the construction project. At that time, they put on 400 staff—unfortunately, now they have under 100—but there were 400 people working around the clock to provide the piping for the desal plant which is less than two kilometres away.

During this process of the desal plant, more than 10,000 staff were inducted and trained at the site with more than 200 specialised welders trained at a dedicated local facility. The 'megaproject' was delivered within the original approved budget of $1.824 billion with the handover for operations milestone achieved within the original approved time line of end of December 2012.

Many people do not realise the extent to which we have been drinking and using desal water lately, but at times 50 per cent of the water used throughout metropolitan Adelaide has come from the desalination plant as it is tested to ensure that everything is working according to specification before the warranty period expires. As I mentioned previously, so far things are working better than expected. The examination of the environment indicates that the environment has not been damaged.