URBAN GROWTH BOUNDARY

The Hon. DAVID WINDERLICH (15:09): Do I take it from the minister's answer that the government has started the process of identifying water supplies but does not yet know whether there will be enough water for the projected increase in Adelaide's population?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Small Business) (15:09): We know that we will in the sense that one only has to look at the consumption of the current population. As I said, the water that is used in urban living for residential use is significantly less than that used by industry and irrigation in particular. However, we can make it a lot more efficient and, clearly, in our development of new suburbs we will have to use water more efficiently. We can do that—we know how to do that—and it is a matter of building that into all our new developments, as well as, where possible, retrofitting it within our existing suburbs to ensure that we use water more efficiently. In comparison with other capital cities, I believe that we are at the upper edge in relation to water efficiency. So, we should be able to use it more efficiently.

We can make more use of treated water, and this government is now spending tens of millions of dollars, in terms of using that recycled water, in particular, for parks and gardens and the like. So, we can use water much more efficiently and we will increasingly be using other sources, not only desalination and, with respect to industry, we can make greater use of treated water and water stored in aquifers.