House of Assembly Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1) 53 1 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Question Time Question Time SA Water SA Water Mr MARSHALL House of Assembly Dunstan Leader of the Opposition SA Water Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:09): My question is to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer outline why he stated yesterday that SA Water assets are based on replacement costs, when former CEO of ESCOSA, Dr Paul Kerin, has said previously that contributed assets should not be included, as they have already been paid for? The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS House of Assembly West Torrens Minister for Finance Minister for State Development Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy Minister for Small Business SA Water The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, Minister for Small Business) (14:10): Whenever you are upgrading infrastructure, it is important that you factor in profits to make sure you can replace those assets, otherwise you just run them down and have an asset that doesn't function. For example, let's say you are running a Wokinabox. It is important to keep things like the door locked, fixing a door or paying your staff wages. You have to budget for all these things. It is important to always keep in place a level of return on investment to always upgrade infrastructure. The idea that you pay for infrastructure once and it lasts forever without any reinvestment is silly. Everyone from the private sector knows that whenever you have any private infrastructure you always value that asset on the basis of eventually one day upgrading or replacing it. Is the Leader of the Opposition really trying to tell us that once you invest in SA Water, or in a road or any other piece of public infrastructure, that's it? Is that what he just said? Did he just tell the parliament that he believes for all infrastructure, once you invest in it, that is the final cost? Well, of course it isn't, and SA Water is no different.