Water-related Matters

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (15:15): I rise to speak on a number of issues, all water related, and I am going to start off with the former minister's legacy, particularly with SA Water, and the grave concerns I have with the way South Australia, particularly regional South Australia, has been the loser when it comes to decisions made through the minister's office, particularly in relation to floods but also in understanding the cost-of-living pressures that every South Australian is experiencing at the moment.

I hope that the Treasurer will have some form of relief for the cost of SA Water bills. We have seen a significant rise in water bills. As history would tell us, bills rose by 232 per cent when the former Labor government was in power, so I am hoping that this Treasurer will be able to bring some relief to South Australian households.

In recent times, we have seen serious water outages. The southern suburbs have had significant outages over the last year, with 5,000 connections affected and five schools seriously affected and ongoing issues with burst water mains. I had a conversation with the member for Hartley, the Hon. Vincent Tarzia, and he said that he had to go out there on a weekend and get his shoes wet because of a pipe break in Hamilton Terrace that he described as like an earthquake. That is a good local member going out there to look after his constituency.

If we look at the Murray River floods, we saw that the department got floodwater modelling wrong. They described river heights and got that wrong. They used historical data and didn't use modern-day reporting. The 23-gigalitre flow was actually higher than what was reported. With drinking water, the river corridor residents lost capacity to store water. With potable drinking water, particularly with rainwater tanks and the like, they lost those rainwater tanks in most instances in those floodwaters. My office was inundated with calls asking why the government had stopped subsidising potable water and then SA Water moved to a case-by-case approach. In case anyone did not notice, it was at the height of summer when the flood came through and so we had no rainfall. These people had no potable water and that really did leave them stranded.

We look at the Murray-Darling Basin Authority's push to have the environmental water put back in through water efficiency programs. As an example, the department purchased water from the Marion council at over $21,000 a megalitre. That is almost three times the market value of water. That is a risky move that has the opportunity to distort market prices. There are also similar projects in the works for Salisbury, Playford and Charles Sturt councils at the same cost.

I urge every South Australian to understand the priorities that this minister and this government have when it comes to buying water from irrigators and buying water from local government. I think it is very much distorted. Food producers were offered well below market price in the most recent findings, particularly in a survey put out by the state government and by the federal government.

We have a water commissioner, Beasley, who is an absolute mouthpiece for the minister. He lives on the North Shore of Sydney and gives advice to South Australians on water infrastructure and on how the basin plan should be rolled out. I think it is an absolute disgrace that we have someone who does not even live close and who does not understand the impacts of what water buybacks mean because he is saying that water buybacks are the only mechanism that should be used to recoup for the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

I also wanted to remind him that I was an irrigator and I experienced the swiss cheese effect when the federal government used water buybacks to recoup water for the basin plan, so please watch this space.

As to the Cobdogla Steam Museum, the minister has seen fit to defund it. It has the only working Humphrey pump in the world, yet we have a department that has locked the gates and walked away. It is not only home to the Humphrey pump but some of the great traction engines, steam cranes, and it was once an iconic Riverland tourist attraction. I urge the now minister for SA Water to come and look at how he can fund and keep this museum piece alive. There are many more issues with water-related issues, but what I must say is we have a new minister: please be kind.