Community Wastewater Management System

Mr BOYER (Wright) (15:31): It is my pleasure to rise today to speak about the very significant and exciting announcement that was just made in this place by the leader and that is Labor's commitment to fix the Community Wastewater Management System in the north-eastern suburbs. The CWMS might be a completely foreign acronym to many people in this place, I suspect, but for around 4,700 households in Adelaide's north-east it is a source of almost daily frustration.

The CWMS is an archaic system. It was built in the 1960s and 1970s and is now at the end of its life and in desperate need of investment. In fact, the network of pipes has decayed so badly now that the number of blockages has increased by 100 per cent in the past four years alone. Some residents have leaks in their septic tanks so frequently now that they no longer bother covering the pits with soil, instead leaving a gaping hole in their front or back yard in preparation for it to be pumped out again.

The options available to fix the system are few: upgrade the existing CWMS at great cost by replacing the existing network of pipes but leave residents reliant on septic tanks on their properties, or transition the entire Tea Tree Gully CWMS to the SA Water main sewerage. Both these options are costly, and it is clear now that both these options are beyond the means of the City of Tea Tree Gully, which is the owner and operator of the CWMS; nonetheless, something must be done.

I have had many local residents write, call, email and even stop me at the shops to tell me about their experiences with the CWMS. When the Leader and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition have joined me at street corner meetings in the north-east, these issues have been raised with them regularly too. Well, to all those people, I say: Labor has listened and Labor will act.

Today, in this place, the leader committed a future Labor government to transition the broken and dilapidated CWMS to the SA Water network. Whilst this is something that many residents of metropolitan Adelaide take for granted every day, for around 4,700 homes in the suburbs of Banksia Park, Fairview Park, Highbury, Hope Valley, Modbury, Modbury North, Redwood Park, Ridgehaven, St Agnes, Surrey Downs, Tea Tree Gully, Vista and Yatala Vale, it is actually considered a bit of a luxury.

This process will not be cheap and it will not be fast. The rollout will require the installation of new pipework and individual connections to each household, but this work will create jobs. The timing is right for a number of reasons. Not only has the CWMS system reached breaking point now, with the number of blockages increasing exponentially in just a short number of years, but the South Australian jobs market has flatlined and is in urgent need of some kind of revival.

Labor's commitment to scrap the Tea Tree Gully Community Wastewater Management System and replace it with a connection to the SA Water system will achieve several things. First and foremost, it will give residents of the north-east who are currently on the CWMS system access to a modern, reliable and clean sewer system. It will create much-needed jobs, it will have a positive effect on house values and it will also insulate CWMS users from some of the future price hikes that are coming their way, as council moves to a full cost-recovery model that sees residents fully exposed to the cost of maintaining and repairing the current broken network.

Under Labor's plan, residents will not be slugged with steadily increasing fees just for the privilege of having a septic tank in their front yard. Under Labor's plan, residents will no longer face the ignominy of a leaking septic tank on their lawn or the backflow of raw sewage into their homes. Under Labor's plan, we will give these residents of suburban Adelaide the amenity they deserve and create jobs while we do it.

I thank the leader and the deputy leader for listening to the concerns of residents in the north-eastern suburbs. I would also like to acknowledge the tireless advocacy of the community action group and its members who, through their persistence, stubbornness and even single-mindedness, have kept this issue on the agenda and played a very big role in seeing today's announcement become a reality.