SA WATER

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (14:47): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Water and the River Murray a question regarding SA Water recruitment.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: Last month people who may have been looking at the Seek job-seeking website would have come across the recruiting advertisements for executive positions within SA Water across several of Seek's locations, including Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne. On the Hender Consulting website, which is SA Water's consultancy for recruitment, three separate positions were advertised: General Manager, Customer and Community Relations; GM, Commercial and Business Development; and, GM, Business Services. Each of these advertised positions states within their position description that they will be looking at recruiting three individuals due to a reorganisation of their leadership team, stating:

Following a recent reorganisation of the executive leadership structure, this important SA entity now seeks to appoint three high calibre executives to help take the business to the next level.

My questions to the minister are:

1. Can he confirm how many executive jobs SA Water is currently looking to fill?

2. Can he explain the restructure of SA Water's executive leadership team?

3. Can he explain whether, as within the SA Water annual report it shows that there are 220 of over 1,600 people earning over $106,000, these three individuals will fit into that category or be above that level?

4. At a time when DEWNR has announced yesterday that it is reducing its executive positions from 34 to 26, why is SA Water on a recruitment drive?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation) (14:50): I thank the honourable member for her very important questions and her most diligent traipsing through Hender Consulting's website and other unknown websites. She may be seeking future employment because I think she has been dropped down the ticket on the Legislative Council preselection, but I am sure, given her hard work and diligent support for her community, that she will probably leapfrog some of the other members from the Liberal Party on the Legislative Council ticket and may come in ahead of some of them, but that is for the voters and we will wait to see how that transpires.

With regard to SA Water's transformation of its business model and its executive team, I will take those questions on notice and take some advice from SA Water on exactly how they are remodelling and transforming their business and bring back a response for the honourable member at a future time.