Question Time

DESALINATION PLANTS

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:20): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Urban Development and Planning a question about the proposed Port Stanvac desalination plant.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Last week during question time, and in response to a question from the often tongue-tied Hon. Mr Wortley, the minister spoke about a number of facts in relation to the $1.1 billion desalination plant—and, in fact, the considerable investment of up to $2.5 billion in water infrastructure to secure South Australia's water supply, which includes doubling the storage capacity in the Mount Lofty Ranges at the Mount Bold reservoir. I then asked a supplementary question regarding where the water would come from to fill Mount Bold, and at that point the minister indicated that it would come from the local catchment, the very stressed Onkaparinga (which I doubt), and from the River Murray, the other most stressed river in the nation. He said it would also come from the desalination plant, because that is where you would need to store it. Does the minister still stand by his statement that the government will be desalinating water and storing it in the Mount Bold reservoir?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Police, Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning) (14:21): As I indicated in my answer last week, I am not the Minister for Water Security. The honourable member asked where water would come from to fill a reservoir, and I said that there were three possible sources—and those are the three possible sources. I am not the minister responsible for how the desalination plant will operate, but I know from discussions that there is certainly a need for greater pipe connections throughout the Adelaide network. As I understand it, the way Adelaide is organised in terms of water resources is that there are a number of independent systems and, for security, these do need some interconnection.

Obviously, one needs to store the desalinated water somewhere, and reservoirs such as Happy Valley, which are fed from Mount Bold, are the distribution points for the southern parts of Adelaide. Water is distributed to other areas from the Little Para reservoir and others. However, how it operates is really a matter for the Minister for Water Security in another place. My responsibilities relate to planning approval for this proposal. It has now been granted major development status, so we are at a stage where all those issues can be examined.