Legislative Council: Thursday, February 19, 2009

Contents

OLYMPIC DAM

The Hon. C.V. SCHAEFER (15:20): Sir, I have a further supplementary question. Can the minister explain to me how, as he has suggested, the industry can prepare itself to comment on an EIS that it has not seen?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Small Business) (15:20): The answer is that, if members of the industry are concerned about the impact that a desalination plant may have within Spencer Gulf, I think the basic parameters for that have been well defined as to what that project will do. Presumably, they will do their homework and will know exactly what they will be looking for, in terms of whether the EIS adequately addresses any increase in salinity, and so on. I assume they will have done their work to know what impact is tolerable and what is not. They will have to await the printing of the EIS, of course, but they will know exactly, one would think, what issues will need to be adequately addressed within that EIS, and that will be levels of salinity, diffusion, and so on.