DESALINATION PLANT

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:49): My supplementary to the Premier is: why then, Premier, are you allowing your government to increase the take from the River Murray over the next few years?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Treasurer, Minister for State Development, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for the Arts) (14:50): This is the difficulty when shadow ministers comment outside of their area of expertise. We are not increasing the take on the River Murray over the next few years. Not only are we not increasing it, we are decreasing the amount that we are taking from the River Murray.

The first thing is that water licences are fixed, and the only thing that's going to happen to those water licences is that they are going to go down. We are putting six gigalitres of our existing licence back into the river—that is the first point—and we are also accumulating an environmental reserve over a period of time, which will also underpin the long-term security of the River Murray.

So, in two important respects we are reducing the take on the River Murray, quite apart from not increasing our take on the River Murray, as the growth in our population and the growth in our industrial demands would otherwise have required. This is the point that those opposite fail to appreciate: not only are they wrong—just simply wrong—about increasing our take, they also fail to take into account that we have ambitions to grow the state, but we want to grow this state sustainably in a way that does not put pressure on our precious natural resources.