Motions

National Water Week

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (11:30): I move:

That this house—

(a) recognises National Water Week 2015; and

(b) acknowledges the importance of conserving and maintaining fresh water for drinking, irrigation and industrial purposes.

I rise to acknowledge National Water Week in this year of 2015, and I would like to acknowledge the importance of conserving and maintaining fresh water for drinking, irrigation and industrial purposes.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Before you go on, is that actually this week or was it another week?

Mr WHETSTONE: The week coming. The Australian Water Association, National Water Week begins on Sunday, and it is extremely important that we acknowledge just how important a fresh, clean water supply is to the health and wellbeing of everyone here in South Australia. It is only when we have adversity, particularly with water supply or water security, that people ever really stand up and have concern that we have a shortage or we have something that we always take for granted. When we turn on a tap we expect water to come out. I have been in a situation where I have turned on a tap and only a little bit of water has come out—not what people expect, the full stream of water.

Drought has put pressure on South Australia in the last decade. For almost 10 years we had a looming dry, and all of a sudden that was manifested into the realisation that we did not have that water security that we had always taken for granted. That water security is something that my livelihood depended on. The livelihoods and day-to-day life of the people of Chaffey in particular depended on it. That is a significant reason why I have always held water as a priority and the importance of water is one of the platforms that I come to this place on. Every now and again people do need to reflect on why we need to conserve water, why we need to understand how important it is and how important it is to use it wisely, because it is a finite resource.

Obviously it provides us an opportunity to remind ourselves of its importance, but just as importantly it is about teaching others, teaching our young, just how vital is the need and use of water on a day-to-day basis. It is about what future holds for water use and about what challenges we face in the future, particularly with El Niño events. We can look at countries around the globe, at people who do not have that continuity of supply or any water security, and that is why we need to acknowledge that National Water Week is a week on which we need to reflect, particularly with that water security.

Here in South Australia our water comes from, in many instances, quite a diverse supply range. Primarily it is rain dependent. I have had discussions with the Speaker of this place on other occasions regarding the fact that all water, bar desal water, is stormwater. It is all runoff and comes into catchments one way or another, whether we are talking about river water, surface water or our local reservoir catchments, groundwater, recycled stormwater, treated waste water or just plain local rainwater. I think particularly people in the country understand the importance of being able to capture rainwater and to be able to utilise it. In many instances it is a clean, safe product if you have your gutters cleaned, if you have made sure that there are no animals in the rainwater tank, and if you have done your due diligence.

Mr Pengilly interjecting:

Mr WHETSTONE: There are a lot of imposters that intrude in our water catchments and the smaller your catchment, the more impact those imposters have. I would like to touch on the River Murray and obviously it is the lifeblood here in South Australia for providing reliable and safe water treated for drinking but, just as importantly, it provides the lifeblood for an economy, lifeblood for the environment.

I think with the environment and the economy, it is about a balance, and for far too long we have always had interest groups that have fought for their piece of turf, and for as long as I can remember there has always been the conservationists—the environmentalists—saying that they want water for their patch, and of course the communities and the food producers are always saying that they want their water for their patch.

One thing that has become very clear over, I guess, a short number of years is that those groups have got together and worked much more closely, and they are much more aligned in trying to achieve the same outcome and that is, if we have a healthy environment, and we have a sustainable river system, so have the food producers and so have those communities that not only rely on it for their income but they rely on it for a lifestyle; they rely on it for tourism, and they rely on it for that supply that everyone takes, as I say, so much for granted.

Back in 1914 the River Murray Water Act was passed and it was passed to create a River Murray Commission and that vision was to fill a valley and regulate that water co-op that was not so much regulated back in 1914. It was to put water into that valley, and direct water out of the mountains, out of the catchments so that it could become part of productive and economic platform that would enable us to grow food and to create economies.

It brought people to those rivers and they then set up small towns. Small villages became existent and all of a sudden there was a trade—there was food growing trade, there was a transport trade, there was an environment that came with that water that was put into the valley system and that is the system that we now know today, a 640-kilometre river that flows through four states and flows out of the mouth here in South Australia and still remains one of the critical parts of the river system.

Through the drought we have learned over a number of years—and I am sure the member for Hammond would agree with me—that it is a vital part of the river system. It is the lungs of the river, it is the floodplain, it is the tell-tale, and we all know that if we have a river system in good health, we have a mouth that is open, we have an environment that is thriving, we have communities that are thriving with irrigation, food production, and it really is one big happy family.

In doing that, we have to work together and for far too long the interest groups looking after their own backyard have always played the blame game, whether it is South Australia looking upstream as to where all the water has gone, whether it is the environmentalists saying that the irrigators no matter where they are using all the water and should not, or whether it is the communities that rely on the economy that come away from the great river system, it has become clear to me that we need that balance, and I think that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is bringing that balance to the argument.

I do note that as we speak yesterday and today about water, sadly, we have the implementation of the basin plan that we will put water back in the system by 2019. We now have these what I call 'troublemakers': Independents, crossbenchers in the federal parliament, who are now calling for the plan to be halted. Sadly, it is a group of Independents from all states—South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania. I do not know how they have any credibility, but what they are saying is that they want the plan halted because it is creating uncertainty within irrigation districts.

I would like to acknowledge South Australian senator, Nick Xenophon. He has come out again and backed the plan. He has said that we need that balance between the environment and the food production. Federal opposition environment minister, Mark Butler, said that these Independents are saying it is a choice between irrigation and environment, and he says it is wrong. I totally agree with the shadow minister. He does have a very balanced view on an outcome of the basin plan. I congratulate both those politicians.

Where the main game is, we have National minister Joyce ably aided by his junior minister, Senator Anne Ruston, from South Australia. I think that they are going to be a good partnership because I think that Senator Ruston being an irrigator, being a businessperson who understands the river and lives on the river, really does have the capacity to put a good balance into the basin plan. I think that they need to stick at task, just like I did.

Before coming into this place, I had quite good relationships with all the federal water ministers and state water ministers back then. I must say that I had good relations with the now Prime Minister Turnbull and minister McGauran, giving them an understanding or a perspective from South Australia. Back in the early 2000s, it was quite apparent that the South Australian government had very little communication or negotiation with the other states. They were always very focused on bashing the other states or playing the blame game.

Since the implementation of the basin plan has come along, Senator Wong, minister Burke, minister Hunt and Senator Simon Birmingham and I have worked constructively together, on both sides of politics, some better than others. I think along the way we have learned a lot and we have achieved a lot, but there is still much more to achieve. I wish minister Joyce and Senator Ruston all the best with the reform. Roll on 2019, keep that plan on the agenda, keep it rolling along, because it is critical for South Australia.

I made a contribution in this place a couple of days ago about the lack of environmental consideration in South Australia and the lack of will to put environmental assets on the agenda and enact work that needs to be enacted while we have water in the system. I am sure that the member for Colton would understand, being a previous minister, that when we have water in the system no-one really remembers the hard times; they very quickly forget . When we have the dry, all of a sudden people start blaming each other and we start looking over our shoulder at what we should have done.

I think now is an opportune time to remind the current state water minister that environmental works and measures are critically important for the sustainability of our river system. It is all about conserving water; it is about using water more wisely. When we need bargaining tools, to be able to twist people's arm, we have to show good leadership and we have to show that we have actually been good Samaritans when it comes to undertaking works and measures when we are through the good times so that we can actually droughtproof, or better droughtproof, this state. That is something that has gone missing.

Again, we look at diversity here in South Australia. The desal plant was built. Yes, there is a lot of conjecture over whether it was built too big, whether it was at too great a cost to the South Australian taxpayer, but it is part of diversity. We need to continue focusing on how we can diversify our water supply system, stormwater capture and aquifer storage. South Australia will need to be a much wiser, smarter, managed state when it comes to dealing with the dry. The dry is coming. We all know that. The dry is something that we seem to forget very quickly, and that is of real concern to me.

South Australia is a great state. We do need critical human needs. We do need diversity. We do need water for a growing population—2.5 million people by 2050. What are we going to do to droughtproof this state? It really does make me wonder. The future for water is innovation, it is efficiency, it is using new technology, it is about teaching our young how to deal with water to do more.

Time expired.

Ms COOK (Fisher) (11:45): I rise to speak on behalf of the government with an amendment. I will read the new motion in full:

That this house—

(a) recognises National Water Week 2015;

(b) acknowledges the importance of planning for, conserving and maintaining fresh water supplies for environmental, drinking, irrigation and industrial purposes;

(c) congratulates the state government for implementing a process which involves communities and key stakeholders to secure and diversify our water supplies;

(d) congratulates the state government for its policies which have resulted in South Australia leading the nation in stormwater capture and re-use, irrigation practices and wastewater recycling; and

(e) recognises the importance of the Murray-Darling Basin and congratulates the South Australian government, Riverland communities and the broader South Australian population for fighting to ensure a basin plan that will deliver a healthy River Murray for both productive and environmental use.

It congratulates the communities; I think that amendment is fantastic. Water is our most valuable resource. It is fundamental to our health, our way of life, our economy and our environment. Sustainable water management is particularly important in South Australia, which has long been known as the driest state in the driest inhabited continent in the world. National Water Week aims to raise awareness and involve the community and industry in protecting and conserving our precious water resources and this year National Water Week will take place next week, from 18 to 24 October.

It is important that we all take this opportunity to acknowledge the state's internationally recognised approach to sustainable water management. This includes protecting and conserving our water resources and habitats, while ensuring the availability of this resource for economic development purposes. Sustainable management of water resources in South Australia supports industries that are vital to our economic prosperity. These include: irrigated agriculture worth $1.43 billion and mining development worth $4.4 billion annually.

The millennium drought highlighted the importance of planning for, conserving and maintaining fresh water supplies for environmental, drinking, irrigation and industrial purposes, but it also highlighted that many of our previous assumptions about our water supplies were changing in the face of climate change—a challenge that will only increase over time. It has been confirmed by a number of recent reports. For example, the Goyder Institute's SA Climate Ready research, released earlier this year, predicts, amongst other findings, a reduction of up to 50 per cent in annual flows into our largest reservoir within the next 100 years.

According to updated climate change projections for Australia released by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology in January, we can expect to experience an increase in the number of days above 35 degrees from 20 in 1995 to as high as 47 in the year 2090—very intimidating. This is why our statewide water security plan, Water for Good, has been so important. It outlined 94 actions to diversify our water supplies, reduce our reliance on the River Murray and other rain dependent water sources, increase efficiency and competition in the water supply sector and also establish long-term approaches to monitoring water demands and supplies across natural resources management regions.

The government, in partnership with local councils and SA Water, has ensured that South Australia leads the nation in stormwater capture and re-use, irrigation practices, rainwater tank ownership and wastewater recycling. Adelaide now has the capacity to harvest approximately 20 gigalitres of stormwater per annum and we recycle about 30 per cent of wastewater a year. Engaging the community has been critical in responding to our drought. The efforts made by households to reduce their water consumption and implement water efficient technologies in their homes are to be commended and highlights the importance the community places on our water resources. I have to confirm that up until recently even during doorknocking I see people recycling their grey water out of their washing machines, and that is something that never would have happened 10 to 15 years ago, so I am very happy that that is still going on.

By conserving water, re-using stormwater and wastewater, and diversifying our water supplies, South Australia will be more resilient in times of drought and in the future. Of course, in my own electorate of Fisher, we have a key piece of Adelaide's water infrastructure—the Happy Valley reservoir. This reservoir has a capacity of 11,600 megalitres, is fed from Mount Bold reservoir and currently sits at 91 per cent capacity. The government's significant investment in water infrastructure to diversify our water supplies and guarantee our water security until 2050 means that our taps will not run dry.

Supply from the Happy Valley reservoir is actively managed with production from the Adelaide Desalination Plant. The plant, which is currently producing approximately 30 megalitres of water per day, has produced approximately 126.3 billion litres since it first began production in October 2011. That is not a plant that is lying dormant and in mothballs. Desalinated water is pumped to the Happy Valley Pumping Station and it is then shandied with Happy Valley water before being distributed through the SA Water network—indeed, a very quaint notion that water is shandied.

The Adelaide desalination plant was a significant investment in this state's water security. The plant capable of supplying half of Adelaide's annual water consumption or a third of demand on peak days is an impressive piece of infrastructure which I recently toured. The standard of the facility certainly gives me some comfort that our water supplies are secure. Immediately walking into it, as a nurse with an interest in intensive care, I recognised that it is like a big dialysis machine and found the whole filtration system quite fascinating.

During National Water Week it is important to recognise South Australia's role in ensuring the health of Australia's longest river. The River Murray is the lifeblood of the state providing essential water for irrigation, industry, domestic and recreational use, and our precious wetlands and floodplains. The River Murray is the source of about 85 per cent of the state's drinking water and more than half of the gross value of our irrigated agriculture.

This state government strongly backed by the South Australian community fought very hard to ensure that there is a basin plan that would deliver a healthy River Murray for both productive and environmental use. We now have a basin plan that can return 3,200 gigalitres of water to the river—450 gigalitres more than originally intended. This extra water will help keep the Murray Mouth open, flush salt from the system, and meet salinity and water quality targets to protect the river, Coorong and Lower Lakes. It will provide environmental flows to the River Murray wetlands and floodplains.

Critical to our positioning around the basin plan was the independent scientific work undertaken through the Goyder Institute for Water Research. This provided the state with the evidence needed to call for a greater volume of water to be returned to the environment across the Murray-Darling Basin and again highlights the importance of basing water management decisions on robust science, not just guess work.

Indeed, South Australia boasts some of the best research and training institutes in water management, both nationally and internationally. It is really important that we get this message out. These include the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training, our outstanding three public universities, the International Centre of Excellence in Water Resources Management, the Australian Water Quality Centre, and Water Research Australia. Our research and training capabilities, our dynamic water industry through the Water Industry Alliance, as well as our demonstrated water planning and policy capacity, can make South Australia a strong partner for international jurisdictions who are tackling similar water management and water quality issues.

In fact, our expertise is being sought by various jurisdictions in the United States, including California that is facing an unprecedented drought and is looking to learn from our expertise. The strong partnership we have across state and local government, industry and the broader community is a key element of our approach to water that is often remarked upon by visiting overseas delegations. National Water Week provides an invaluable opportunity to continue to strengthen these relationships and advocate for our great work. This will remain critical for ensuring the supply of water across South Australia for generations to come.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (11:55): I rise to support the motion brought to the house by the member for Chaffey and congratulate him on his contribution. Chaffey encompasses all of what we know in this state as the Riverland, and the member for Chaffey has spent a good deal of his adult life in that part of the world and spent some time as an irrigator so knows the river all too well. The River Murray has been a significant part of this state's history and development, and I have no doubt that the member for Hammond will also make a contribution and talk about that stretch of the river that traverses his electorate which is the lower part.

The motion is to recognise National Water Week 2015 and acknowledge the importance of conserving and maintaining fresh water for drinking, irrigation and industrial purposes. I feel sorry in a way that the government feel the need to try to amend this motion because National Water Week ultimately should not be a political issue. It is simply celebrating the week itself which is being held from 18 to 24 October—so coming up very soon—and providing us with the opportunity to speak about one of the world's most important resources.

My own opinion is that it is not the most valuable resource in the world and it is not the most valuable resource in Australia, but it is certainly the most precious and we are fully aware of that in the driest state, in the world's driest inhabited continent. It is often said that we live in the driest state of the driest continent, but Antarctica is drier, supposedly, although it is covered in ice. A good deal of the world's fresh water is bound up in ice, both in the Antarctic ice sheet and also Greenland and various snow-capped mountains. A good portion of our fresh water is, in fact, unavailable for use.

A fresh, clean water supply is critical to the health and wellbeing of everyone and it is vital that that resource be protected and managed. With drought always the elephant in the room, it has placed pressure on Australian water supplies over the years. The most recent significant drought in Australia has been known as the millennium drought. It really stretched our resources, particularly the mighty Murray-Darling catchment basin, of which Adelaide and South Australia is at the end.

National Water Week is about highlighting the need to conserve and maintain fresh water for drinking, irrigation and industrial purposes, and all those uses are critical to our wellbeing. National Water Week has been held annually since 1993 and the 2015 theme is innovation. A lot of South Australian irrigators, in particular, have been incredibly innovative and I have no doubt that that innovation will continue. There are more improvements that can be made. There are always people who spend time thinking and developing mechanisms by which more efficient processes can be put in place.

In fact, I saw one very recently. I will not talk about it too much, but a constituent of mine has developed or invented a particular piece of plumbing which he thinks will be of great value to water users, not just here in Australia but around the world, so it will be interesting to see how that progresses.

National Water Week inspires individuals, communities and organisations to work together to build community awareness and understanding around water issues, and opportunities for growth and innovation. There is no more topical subject in Australia than water, there is no more topical subject in this state than water, and there is no more topical subject on Eyre Peninsula than water.

National Water Week provides an opportunity to remind ourselves and teach others that water must be used wisely if there is to be enough to meet the needs of our future generations. It is a finite resource. There is exactly the same amount of water on this planet as there always has been, and much of it is unavailable. We often talk about water recycling, and it bemuses me somewhat because all our water has been recycled many times over some billions of years. What we have is what we have got and what we have always had. It is a precious and finite resource that must be used wisely.

National Water Week is dedicated to encouraging communities to take action to protect vital water resources. We are becoming more and more conscious of that environmental responsibility to protect and manage our resources. Ultimately, we have to use our resources, but we have to manage them so that they are sustainable in the future. National Water Week is also a celebration of water achievements that have contributed and will contribute to Australia's sustainable future and economic prosperity. We cannot exist without water, our agriculture cannot exist without water, and obviously our irrigated agriculture would be impossible without water.

South Australia is home to some of the most efficient irrigators in the world, and National Water Week is an opportunity to acknowledge the hard work done by our irrigators to assist in putting food on the table of South Australian families. It is also an opportunity for us to consider other options. There are many things we can do better, and I believe that one of those is stormwater harvesting. Many of the smaller towns in my electorate have harvested stormwater. Many of our bowling greens, town ovals and such are watered by those stormwater harvesting solutions. The human body consists of about 80 per cent water, I think, so ultimately it is imperative for our survival that we have a good and potable water supply.

As recently as yesterday, I talked about the water supply on Eyre Peninsula. I will not go into detail again, but our water security is not guaranteed at this point in time. We have much work to do to resolve that issue. It is not going to be a single issue but, rather, a suite of solutions, I would suggest. We will continue to use water from the underground basins. We will continue to harvest rainwater which, for many rural properties and country towns, is a primary source of water for their households and gardens. It really is common sense to me to catch the water off the roof into a tank for further use.

In my contribution yesterday, I had planned to discuss, but did not get to but will touch on it now, a decision by this government not too long ago not to allow school students to drink rainwater and compel them to use reticulated supplies coming from SA Water. In my part of the world, on Eyre Peninsula, even though the reticulated supply is potable it is not particularly palatable. Certainly, rainwater tastes much, much better and it is drunk in preference to the reticulated supply by almost everyone. It was a ludicrous situation, and I really do not understand what brought it about, but schools and hospitals made a considerable investment putting in rainwater tanks, thinking they were doing the right thing, but now, unfortunately, the children are not able to use it. It is a bizarre situation and one that beggars belief.

I will not spend too much time now on the Eyre Peninsula water supply because I am going to continue to pursue water security issues on Eyre Peninsula. It is a task my predecessor, Liz Penfold, the previous member for Flinders, took very seriously, and it is one I will continue to pursue. I think that ultimately it will be about managing the resources we have in a sustainable way that ensures long-term supply of potable water to Eyre Peninsula.

However, I believe that until we secure what I would call 'new water', a new supply, or at least extra water, the pressure is not going to come off the Uley South Basin, it is not going to come off the southern basins, and we will continue to put great pressure on those basins far and away above what they can withstand.

The Hon. P. CAICA (Colton) (12:05): I will be brief in my contribution. I too would like to congratulate the member for Chaffey on bringing this motion to the house, and also I particularly congratulate the member for Fisher for significantly improving, through her amendment that, motion. I stand today to recognise National Water Week and certainly to reflect upon some of the advances that have been made here in South Australia.

I guess if there was any positive at all that came out of the worst drought in anyone's living memory it was the impetus to properly address the sustainability of the River Murray. It actually compelled everyone to understand that this resource (that resource being water), unless it was used effectively and conserved appropriately and used sustainably, was not going to last during that period of time. We were very lucky. We dodged a bullet. But, again, a positive aspect of the drought is the fact that people got a better understanding about how they themselves can ensure that they use their water more wisely than they have in the past, and that goes for the people of metropolitan Adelaide as much as anywhere else.

The other positive that came out of it was, of course, that we needed to diversify our water supplies here in South Australia. We needed a source that was not dependent upon climate because we know that we can continue to improve on our record in South Australia as being the leader amongst all the states in Australia for the collection and the re-use and the harvesting of stormwater. But stormwater is only available when it rains, and what we had during that period of time was a significant lack of rain over an extended period of time that put stress on our resource to the extent that those resources, including the River Murray, were on the verge of ecological collapse.

Another positive that came out through the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and the involvement of people here in South Australia was, as I think the member for Chaffey acknowledged, a consensus that was reached amongst all South Australians to know that we needed to ensure that the plan was a plan that returned the River Murray to a proper level of sustainability and ecological and environmental health, and that we also came to the conclusion that the idea of a working river, one that South Australians—indeed, Australians—rely on for so much primary production, is not mutually exclusive to having a healthy environment.

In fact, the future of the means of production in horticulture, and other uses of primary production, is about it being able to be undertaken in a healthy environment. So, that was a good thing. That was a good outcome as well, and it galvanised the people of South Australia to say, 'This is not an argument about the environment and primary production.' They are both inextricably linked to each other and dependent, and the health of both the environment and our primary production is linked to the health of the environment in which that primary production is undertaken.

So, there were some real positives out of the drought. I hope we do not have to go through one again, but I am pretty confident, unfortunately, that we are heading in that direction again. It may be a bit premature, but those who understand better than I the measurements of the Indian Ocean Dipole say that we are heading for a fairly significant drought event the like of which we had those 10 or 12 years ago.

One of the other things I want to focus on quickly in water week is to acknowledge those people who work in the water industry, those who irrigate and the methods of irrigation they use that have shown South Australia to be a significant leader nationally all throughout the Murray-Darling Basin with the innovations we have undertaken over the years to make sure that our small extraction from the River Murray supply is used to the greatest effect and the most, I guess, efficient effect comparable with anywhere else within the Murray-Darling system.

I also want to acknowledge people from the Goyder Institute and others who are continuing to research other ways by which we can continue to improve the efficiences in which we apply water in South Australia. I have always said that being the driest state in the driest-inhabited continent is the perfect reason for us to become world leaders not only in the way we irrigate but with respect to the research on the application and improvement as to how we apply water to the extent that it becomes an export industry for South Australia. We export our skills, our expertise, our research, our innovations to the rest of the world and make it a good export earner for South Australia, and I have no doubt that we will continue to go down that road, and we will find great success in that area.

I also acknowledge the work that is being done in the Riverland, and I look forward to the research that is being undertaken at the Loxton Research Centre and also at Minnipa and other research centres around Australia which have a particular focus on how we can improve our primary production through innovation. We have a great history here in South Australia, a history of which we can be very proud, that underpins our way forward with respect to the role that South Australia will play in providing to the rest of the world the learnings and the evidence of the research that we undertake in South Australia.

With respect to the amendment, I finish off by recognising not only the importance of the Murray-Darling Basin but congratulating the South Australian communities along the river and even beyond the river that got behind the call for a sustainable Murray-Darling plan. I temper that by saying that, like the member for Chaffey, I have been somewhat concerned by recent rumblings that are occurring in the federal government in relation to paring back, if you like, or at least revisiting aspects of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. I know that we, as a state, need to combat that. I am pleased that we have people like Senator Birmingham, like Anne Ruston, like Mark Butler and like Nick Xenophon, who understand the importance of the river not just in South Australia and of not just looking at our section of the river in isolation but of the entire catchment area.

I am confident that, if it is required, again there will be a rally call to the people of South Australia to make sure that those people who want to take the Murray-Darling Basin back to operating unsustainably will be defeated, and comprehensively defeated, not just through the support that would be provided by the people I mentioned but the South Australian people who lived through the previous drought. I congratulate both the member for Chaffey and, indeed, the member for Fisher on the original motion and the amendment, and I commend the motion to the house.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (12:12): I rise to support the motion by the member for Chaffey:

That this house—

(a) recognises National Water Week 2015; and

(b) acknowledges the importance of conserving and maintaining fresh water for drinking, irrigation and industrial purposes.

It is interesting to hear everyone's view on history, and I note the amendments that have been pursued by the government in relation to its actions in regard to the health and wellbeing of the River Murray. When you have lived through it—as I did, as a member and a shadow minister on the end of the river—you can see the reality of what happens, or happened.

It was only when there was a meeting with John Howard on Melbourne Cup Day 2006, that people became really alarmed. I became alarmed a lot earlier in 2006 that we were heading into a very, very dry time for not just our dryland farmers but also our irrigated farmers. It was out of that time that exceptional circumstances funding was granted for the very first time in Australia for irrigated properties, and it was a great thing to support people who were in dire straits.

The real issue came when it was perceived that Adelaide was under threat. The river level was dropping and it got to a level of two metres below where it usually sits at 0.75 AHD (Australian Height Datum). Three-quarters of a metre above sea level is where it is kept; where the barrage is normally. That is the aim: to keep it at that level for access, whether it is industrial, irrigation or for critical human needs.

As I have indicated in this house many times around the discussion about the Wellington weir, that was a proposal that was put in place with no environmental outcomes. The only good that would have come out of that weir is it would have cleaned up a heap of limestone—many hundreds and thousands of tonnes—off paddocks in the region. That would have been the only good that came out of it and that stone would have been sent to sink in the riverbed for many metres, probably up to 50 or 100. But, no, the government pursued that plan to put that weir in, which would have totally destroyed the environmental outcomes and the outcomes of industry, agriculture and the needs of people in the lower end of my electorate, which has around $500 million of agricultural production. I lay that on the record as a matter of history.

I also want to commend a reporter who took note early in the piece. It is very hard sometimes with a regional news story to get excitement until you have something that affects the populace of the city. It was Emily Rice, who was working for Ten at the time; she now works in Melbourne. I upset the leader at the time, Iain Evans, because Emily Rice said, 'I want to come down and do a story,' she brought the helicopter down and did a story, and I think I knocked off what was supposed to be our lead story of the day. I got a message from someone about that, but that was alright. I thought it was quite good that a reporter actually realised when there was a story unfolding and got on board, came down and saw what was going on.

It has always intrigued me when, near the end of the drought in 2010 and certainly in the years since, the government has made out that it has done so much work in securing up to 3,200 gigalitres of water when it took so long to get any recognition on a state and national basis of what the drought was doing to the River Murray, not just in my electorate but also in the member for Chaffey's electorate where, at one stage, irrigators were restricted to 18 per cent of their water use. It was a real tragedy, and it was not just irrigators.

It was things like the leisure industry with houseboats, who were having to build new mooring facilities and keep building them down and down. Certainly there was interest from some of houseboat people who spoke to me about putting in a lock 0 to restore their water level. I said, 'We can't go down that path, because we will destroy the very being of the river.' If you cut off a life source like that where it meets the sea, no good will come of that at all.

We fought through for a freshwater outcome, and there were tough times. There were some tough discussions, I must say. I am big enough to hold my own, but I had more than one finger poked at me—poked into me actually—saying, 'What are you doing?' But that was fine. It caused a lot of discussion amongst my colleagues and we all had different needs. The boaties at Goolwa were quite happy to float on raspberry cordial if they could have got it in there, because they were suffering hugely at that end of the electorate, which I picked up in 2010 from the member for Finniss.

A lot has been done, but I think the majority of what has happened, especially with the health of the River Murray, is a result of a greater being than anyone in this place when the water reflowed in 2010. That murky Darling water that so often has said about it, 'There's not much of it, it's not very relevant,' was the first water that came down with the floods that came down through Queensland and New South Wales. As I said in this place only two days ago, that was a magnificent sight as the river reclaimed its place when so many people, including many so-called experts, who really are not river experts—they have degrees in other things—said that it would never happen again. I note that some of those people still have their jobs. There is a saying, and it is a bit of a joke, but it always does rain after a dry spell, and it did. A lot of us thought it may never, but it certainly did.

In regard to other issues regarding water use, I am assuming the member for MacKillop will talk about his stormwater capture and re-use policy from several years ago, with 400 gigalitres of water that could have been captured and re-used for the city, which was a fantastic policy and would have alleviated a lot of the draw on the River Murray. I certainly note that we have to manage groundwater and our surface water, but I really do get distressed when I see what the natural resources management boards do in regard to this and the levies that are being imposed. Now, the levies are being imposed to just raise extra money for government coffers, because I am sure they have had a direct line from the Treasurer to say, 'We need to raise these funds to boost the Treasury coffers because we are in such a bad state in this state.' It is just terrible, when you think about it.

I know there is a vast amount of people who work in these NRM offices. I know, in Murray Bridge, there are some good people there, but there are so many people that you wonder what the outcomes are of all the work that gets done and all the re-doing of reports every four or five years because it is part of the legislation. The legislation needs a major rework so that people out in the community can see real work being done on the ground instead of this bureaucracy that just buries natural resource management.

It makes people out in the field very angry and, certainly, with the rising fees in the Eastern and Western Mount Lofty Ranges. This is an area where a lot of these places are not under threat. From what I understand, there is probably about one place in the whole area that needs a little bit of management, but there is plenty of water flowing through the rest of it. People out there will just ring me and say, 'Adrian, I am not going to pay the levy.' I say, 'Well, that's your choice. The gaols are full. You can do what you like.' That is the thing they are dealing with.

The government talks about its water management. Through NRM, they were going to introduce these low-flow bypasses. They have certainly caused a lot of angst but, at the end of the day, they would have been no-flow bypasses with the original design because they would have been blocked up with leaves. There has been a competition run recently to devise a similar system. All this carrying on and to and fro just frustrates people. Why do we not come out with some real outcomes and really work with the locals?

I note that the contribution from the member for Flinders talked about the issue of rainwater at schools. I know there is at least one school in my electorate where there is a tap in the staffroom with a sign that says, 'Don't drink rainwater.' That is where they fill the kettle for the coffee because they know it is rainwater and that is where they get their nice drinking water. It is just mad policy set up by bureaucrats who are so frightened of some sort of kickback if there may be a bug in the water—it is unbelievable.

I would just like to end my contribution by saying what a white elephant the desalination plant has become. I note that the government only came on board well after Iain Evans' policy in 2007 of having a 50-gigalitre desal plant, and it is a tragedy that I have to stop.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (12:23): Let me start where my colleague the member for Hammond just finished with regard to drinking rainwater in schools. This is a nonsense. I have done a bit of research on this topic because I was approached by a number of my schools, I think even last year. The director had come out from the department saying that schoolchildren could not drink water from their rainwater tanks in the yard.

I feel very confident that I can tell the house there has never been, in the history of this state, a case of a schoolchild becoming ill from drinking rainwater. I understand that there is one case of suspicion interstate, but there has never been one in South Australia, and we have been drinking rainwater from rainwater tanks ever since white settlement.

In my electorate in the South-East, where we get a fair bit of rain, at the Lucindale Area School there is a ban on the students drinking water from the rainwater tanks. At the Bordertown Primary School, north of Naracoorte, there is a ban on students drinking rainwater from the rainwater tanks. At Naracoorte, there is there is no ban. There is no ban on students drinking water from the rainwater tanks in Naracoorte.

Mr Pederick: There will be now!

Mr WILLIAMS: No, there won't be. The reason is that the SA water supplied to the township of Naracoorte, as is my understanding, fails to meet World Health Organisation drinking water standards. So, the students in that town are allowed to drink from the rainwater tank because the government acknowledges that the town's supply does not meet the guaranteed standard.

What I find amazing about this fact is that the community has never been informed of this. The Naracoorte community has never been informed by this government that the water supplied to them does not actually meet the standards. I think it is a nonsense that the children in the town of Naracoorte can drink water from the rainwater tank in their schoolyard and those up the road at Lucindale, or further up the road at Bordertown, or at any other school in my electorate, are banned from drinking water from rainwater tanks. All of those students drink water from a rainwater tank when they go home. Their parents drink water from the rainwater tank. It is a nonsense.

It just shows how out of touch this government is with the community. That brings me to the amendments, which seem to suggest that this government is in touch. The irony is that the amendment was moved by the newest member of the house, who was not here to see the matters that unfolded during the millennium drought that others have mentioned, and this government playing base politics.

I remember on Melbourne Cup day 2006, John Howard called together the basin state premiers and had a meeting. South Australians were represented, but the Labor Party across Australia ensured that the Victorian government held out, because they knew that there was a federal election coming up (which was subsequently held in November 2007) and they did not want a solution prior to that election.

Politics came to play, and solutions which were eventually put in place which would have been implemented in a much better way and given us much better outcomes, were delayed for at least 12 months because this government, in conspiracy with the Labor Party in other states, chose to play politics. Give me a break about congratulating this government on its water policy.

Let me talk about some of the things that happen in my electorate. We know that the government built weirs around Lake Alexandrina. They dumped tens of thousands of tonnes of material into the lake in various places. One was Narrung, which connects the narrows that connect Lake Albert to Lake Alexandrina. I remember going down there—it was a bit of a stunt—with a shovel and a high-vis vest and a TV crew to try to get the government to get off its backside and remove that material before the high water flows arrived. Did they do anything? No.

Most of that material remains in the narrows. That is why the water quality in Lake Albert has not recovered. The salt levels in Lake Albert are still at a level where the water is virtually unusable. This government wants to congratulate itself, but it has actually messed up its application of water policy in this state in a number of ways.

It wants to congratulate itself over stormwater harvesting. My comment to that is: imagine what could have been in South Australia with the plans largely promoted by local councils, particularly here in metropolitan Adelaide, to have an integrated, interconnected network throughout the east, north and west to harvest, treat and reuse stormwater. Some parts of them have been done, but most of those schemes never got completed. The vision that many of us had of Adelaide becoming virtually self sufficient with regard to water supply died because this government did not want it to happen. The real shame of it is that a lot of the money was spent. A lot of money that was given by the commonwealth government has been spent on consultancies and studies and these sorts of things, but most of the actual on-the-ground work has not been completed.

Just look at Lochiel Park, for instance. I think the stormwater harvesting and recycling project there still is not working. I remember going out there with a TV crew—it poured that day and we all got wet. The poor people who invested and built homes in Lochiel Park invested in rainwater capture, rainwater tanks. They gave money to the state government, the developer, to build a stormwater harvesting and recycling project and they have plumbed their homes and gardens to have this recycled water. They still do not have access to it, years and years later. The government only has interest in headlines, not in actually getting things done on the ground, and they want to congratulate themselves.

I asked the minister yesterday, or Tuesday, I think, about the pipeline that was built at great expense, again mainly from the commonwealth—some $72 million or $73 million to build a pipeline from the Glenelg Wastewater Treatment Plant to the CBD. I asked the minister how much of the capacity of that system was being utilised. The minister could not provide the answer. I suspect that a very small part of the capacity is being utilised, because this government has demanded that anybody who taps into that water pays 75 per cent of the cost of potable water to utilise that water.

That water is a liability to the state. It is currently being poured into the Gulf St Vincent, where it is doing untold environmental damage. That system should be utilised and we should be encouraging people to use all of the water that can be pumped up that pipeline, rather than dumping it into the gulf and doing the damage that is occurring out there.

As I said, when we were in government and we built a similar system to provide water to the Virginia horticulturists I think they paid 14¢ a kilolitre, and we have a good, strong, viable industry on the back of that. That is the difference between having a good, strong, proactive policy and having no understanding of how to drive the state's economy and look after the environment at the same time.

I have given just a few examples of mismanagement by this government. Fortunately, at some time in the not too distant future we will have a change of government in South Australia and we will have people controlling water management. I hope that at that stage the insights that have been developed, certainly on this side of the house, will come to the fore and South Australia will not necessarily find itself in 20 or 30 years being described as the driest state in the driest continent, because we will have managed our water much more effectively.