Tea Tree Gully Community Wastewater Management System

Ms SAVVAS (Newland) (15:40): It is always a privilege to stand in this place and talk about what was, in fact, one of the largest commitments that I made in the lead-up to the 2022 election which was, of course, the transition of 4,700 septic tanks from the Tea Tree Gully Community Wastewater Management System to SA Water mains. It is something that I am incredibly proud of.

It was Labor who first committed to transition the tanks and only Labor who committed to transition all three stages of the tanks to SA Water and of course, also, only Labor who committed to scrap the $745 levy that ratepayers in Tea Tree Gully were paying for the great privilege of being on a septic tank in favour of selling that system over from the council to SA Water and taking it over into SA Water ownership—and, let me tell you, it has been such an incredible project. I cannot think of anything quite like this happening in terms of the level of on-property works that is happening in my electorate at the moment, and of course we expected there to be a number of challenges.

There are so many homes impacted by this, and so many people's lives impacted by such a transition, but overall it has been so incredibly positive. I am very pleased to tell the house today that in the last few weeks we have hit our thousandth home, which is a huge milestone for the SA Water team, for the contractors at BTR and, of course, for us as a government who committed to transition these individuals' homes over to SA Water after some people being on the system for upwards of 40 years. I thought I might explain to you all a little bit about the system because it is, of course, incredibly complex and was actually stated in one report when I was a councillor as being the most complex system of sewerage in the country.

The Tea Tree Gully CWMS is, of course, not one system but 76 different systems of sewerage septic soakage trench, and the like, all connecting into each other with again roughly 4,700 properties when that transition commenced a few years ago. It is incredibly complicated, and the placement of those tanks is particularly complicated as well. We have examples of septic tanks being in people's master bedrooms, we have examples of septic tanks being under people's swimming pools and, of course, that was because for many years not only were the easements not listed on SA Water title searches but there was no central management of the system until the Tea Tree Gully council took it over some years ago.

It was, of course, a project way too big for a council to manage and a project way too big for the council to take on in terms of transitioning those individuals to SA Water. The right decision not just for the community and not just for the council but for each and every resident in Tea Tree Gully was for SA Water to take over that project and be responsible for putting our residents on SA Water mains.

We live in a metropolitan area in my community, and we have situations where on some main streets there is a house on SA Water, a house on septic, a house on SA Water and a house on septic all in a row; it is completely nonsensical. It has been such a privilege to see the progression of this project and be part of the progression of this project. I am so incredibly proud of the work that is being done, and I do want to give a shout-out today to the contractors, of course, at BTR who have been undertaking most of that work, and also our SA Water team who have been incredible.

We have a dedicated community engagement team in SA Water responsible for our Sustainable Sewers Program led by Ellie Ridgway, who is a local on the septics herself, and she has been absolutely incredible in driving the community engagement up in my electorate and has been a real source of knowledge as someone who is going through it herself with a septic tank at home and knows the system well and truly.

I would also like to acknowledge the Tea Tree Gully Community Wastewater Management System action group that did have around 200 residents. They are now defunct because we are doing what they asked us to do, but they continue to get in touch with me with questions, thoughts, concerns and comments about the process. We know that we would not be in this position and would not be bringing people into the 20^th century—not the 21^st century but the 20^th century—if it were not for these community advocates led by Rose Morton, Adla Mattiske and others and if it were not for that incredible action group.

I am very pleased to be announcing today that we have hit that 1,000 tank milestone. I am incredibly proud. We are still doing a wonderful job and people are happy with the transition. I look forward to seeing thousands more tanks being transitioned, hopefully as I continue to be the member for Newland.