Adelaide Hills Water Supply

The Hon. D.R. CREGAN (Kavel) (14:58): My question is to the Deputy Premier. Can the Deputy Premier please update the house on measures the government is putting in place to support residents in my community who are not connected to SA Water during record dry conditions, particularly at Woodside and Brukunga?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Kavel will come to order!

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Workforce and Population Strategy) (14:58): I am pleased that a follow-up question has been asked about this very important situation with the challenges for people who are not on mains water who have realised that they are running short, or may, in some cases, have already run out of supply of water and are waiting for the water carting to be able to deliver to refill their storages.

There are a number of other areas that have experienced this. The Barossa and Mid Murray already have arrangements via their councils to have standpipes made available to sell water. It's the kind of model that we are hoping we will be able to work through with the councils in this newly affected area through the Adelaide Hills and down the Fleurieu, where the councils take that intermediary role of being responsible for the standpipes to assist in emergency while, of course, what we are expecting is relatively quickly that the water carters will be able to step up and fulfil the role that is, after all, their business model.

Part of the options that we have been working on is to look at ways to assist those water carters to have access to additional tankers and drivers. We have been put in touch with a transport company that has those kinds of tankers available and we are working on whether the carters are able to accommodate having additional suppliers. They are important elements. So, too, is making sure that SA Water is able to be clear with the water carters where the pressure is sufficiently high that they are able to fill up their tanks more quickly. One of the challenges has been the slowdown in the turnaround in the lower pressure areas.

There is another challenge that has been raised with me recently that there are households in the northern Adelaide area that are on both mains and storage, that they are often able to rely for many months of the year on storage alone and only use the mains as a backup, but because it has been so exceptionally dry they are now starting to be under pressure and so they are all starting to use the mains which means that the pressure has dropped in those areas. There are many challenges for people in the context of a very, very dry year, which, of course, we all hope comes to an end shortly, but we have to prepare for that not to be the case.

Specifically in the seat of Kavel both the Woodside and the Brukunga areas are going to have people from SA Water staffing the bulk water supply areas both at Ridge Road in Woodside and Peggy Buxton Road in Brukunga from 7am Thursday. We have had to be careful in selecting the locations because, as you can imagine, if there are a number of households all at once that want to get in early and start filling up with water the impact on road safety could be potentially very difficult, particularly through the Hills with constrained roads, and so we have selected those sites in the member's area to be very mindful of the best security for people being involved in that water collection.

There will be a charge. I think that's only reasonable. People on mains water pay for access to water. The people who are not on mains water are aware that occasionally carting will be necessary, so we will be having a user supply charge. It won't cover the cost of that model of providing water, but it's only fair to also not undercut the water carters whose business this is, and usually a family business, to help supply water in drier times.

I thank the member for his interest and for his inquiry. Any feedback that he has over the next couple of weeks as this rolls out will be very useful and be taken into account in how we design the program.