House of Assembly Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1) 55 1 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Grievance Debate Frome Electorate Water Infrastructure Frome Electorate Water Infrastructure Ms PRATT House of Assembly Frome Ms PRATT (Frome) (15:16): At the halfway mark of the parliamentary year, I rise to review the government's commitment and investment in infrastructure and water security as it pertains to my electorate of Frome, and it will be no surprise to my side of the chamber that I find them wanting. Water should not be a luxury or an optional extra. It is, in fact, our most precious commodity and it is fundamental to our way of life. We know the environmental impact that has concerned many with the algal bloom that we have seen prevalent on our coastlines, and that is just one source of water, or watercourse, that gets our attention. But the further we go inland to the electorate of Frome, around the Adelaide Plains, the Mid North, Clare Valley and beyond, it is water that comes up time and time again as a pressure point, a cost-of-living measure, a basic human necessity, a finite source and something that really drives families to reach out in a public way where they might otherwise just get on with it. Of course, this has happened, with the water insecurity that has been taking place in the worst drought in a generation which does exacerbate a family's ability to access water. The families I talk about are not just the farming families, who are especially impacted by the drought, but also the families running the businesses in the small communities or living on hobby farms, who, without access to mains water, are dependent on the investment in their own infrastructure that they might have made with as many tanks onsite as possible, drilling bores and relying on that, and if they are lucky they might have a dam on their property. What we have known for the last six months, as the Liberal opposition has recounted in this chamber, is that those dams are empty, those bores are salty and the tanks are dry and they spend as much time booking water for carting back to their properties as they might have spent on any other important family decision. Communities like Armagh, which is just over the Spring Gully Hill where I live, have not ever been on mains, and that is an important starting point. It is fair for a community like Armagh or Manoora to look at the signals that the government is sending different communities across the state, where their first use of the word 'emergency' in relation to water was for the Adelaide Hills community, which also has salty bores and empty dams. Armagh and Manoora are no less worthy, as this government regales for the media and the mainstream public how it is investing taxpayer money in water infrastructure. I continue to flag with the Minister for Education about the Manoora Primary School, that it is reliant on electricity to run the generator, to pump the bore, to get the water up to the toilets so that they will flush. These are basic needs in a government asset in a primary school, and there should be an equitable access of services for all primary school students. As I reflect on other communities in the electorate of Frome across the Adelaide Plains, communities that I have been doorknocking, like Two Wells, have reported reduced pressure in their homes. This is echoed in Wasleys, in Templers and in Freeling. I think it extends as far south as Munno Para West in some of the government's own electorates, yet there is no compassion when it comes to their rolled gold promises about the infrastructure they promised they are rolling out and the service that someone experiences in their home where sprinklers do not pop up and where families are deciding which appliance to use first. We know that gravity-fed tanks will not ignite the gas heating. Now we look at the Concordia code amendment and wonder, as we eventually wait for a slab to be laid there, whether those communities are also going to experience low pressure. The government does not have an answer for this. The government and its representatives really do not have a plan to solve these challenges, and the way that they are spending our money means they just cannot afford the solutions. The Premier's Peter party is happening in the city and country people are not invited.