DESALINATION PLANT

The Hon. M. PARNELL (14:34): I have a supplementary question. Why wasn't the licensing authority for those sewerage works, namely the Environment Protection Authority, consulted before the government settled on the location of Port Stanvac for the desalination plant?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister Assisting the Premier in Public Sector Management) (14:35): The EPA was of course involved during the consideration of the environmental impact statement for the sewerage plant.

The Hon. M. Parnell: Before you decided the location, not afterwards.

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Mr Parnell will cease interjecting.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: You actually have to sort of start somewhere. There were a couple of sites, as I understand it. It was a long time ago now since this was considered.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: Well, it appears that you don't want to build it now either. My understanding was that several sites were looked at. There are not exactly a huge number of sites on which one could put an operation of this scale along the Adelaide coast. There are not that many sites available, and I am sure wherever we put it—if it had been up north on the mangroves or something up there—the Hon. Mr Parnell would have objected to that if we had used such a site.

Clearly, it makes more sense to have the desalination plant closer to the open water and near deep water. The Port Stanvac site was formerly zoned industrial. It has deep water. It was a port because it had fairly deep water relatively close to the shore which, of course, is important in relation to the operation of it.

Given that it had sufficient land available with buffers from residential areas it was, I would have thought, a pretty obvious site. I challenge anyone to suggest a better site for it in relation to its proximity to the Adelaide metropolitan area. The fact is the EPA, of course, have been involved in consideration of the environmental impact statement.