Water Meters

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY (15:13): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Water questions regarding SA Water accounts.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY: Prior to the corporatisation of SA Water, the Engineering and Water Supply department provided advice of water consumption to ratepayers via an advice slip in the letterbox each time a water meter was read. This enabled ratepayers to check their meter reading at the time the meter was read. I understand that now property owners are advised of their meter number and meter readings on their SA Water accounts.

However, this information is not provided if there is one meter which supplies a number of properties, such as a group of flats or home units. This means that those who share a meter are unable to check and monitor their consumption and unable to determine if there has been a mistake made on their bill without contacting SA Water, and this can be some time after the event—in some cases, two months later. My questions are:

1. Can the minister advise why this information is not provided for those with a common water meter?

2. Will the minister undertake to work with SA Water to ensure this information is provided on all SA Water accounts?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (15:14): I thank the honourable member for his most important question. I guess it comes down to a situation of how much people are prepared to pay, because such interventions don't come free of charge. The situation the honourable member refers to I think probably largely is encompassed by strata units, and blocks of flats (those cream brick flats that many of us might have lived in as we were moving out of home—certainly I did) where there is one water meter for perhaps 10 or more units, and the strata agreement for those blocks of flats would allocate a share of the water bill per unit. Sometimes ground floor units would pay a little bit more because they may have a back garden and upstairs units, not having a back garden, would pay less.

I certainly remember from my days in Kurralta Park that it was the case that ground floor units paid a little bit more for their backyard gardens, tiny though they were, and the upstairs units paid less. To enable individual metering, it is quite open for unit owners to have a plumber come in and put a meter on their connected pipes so they can actually monitor for themselves what is their consumption and check it against the group consumption and what they have been billed for.

But to first of all make the suggestion that SA Water should do that is probably inappropriate. I am not sure that ESCOSA would endorse it. I think ESCOSA may have done some research into this area—I vaguely recall some research being done—and coming down to the opinion (it may not have been ESCOSA, but I think it was) that it was not a cost-effective solution at all. As I say, private owners of units if they wish can engage a plumber and install their own meter to check their own consumption.

In terms of advice to the householder, my experience has been that the reading comes on your bill. I am not aware of past practice where the reading was slipped into your letter box at the time it was taken, but people who are keen to check and record their own usage and consumption can do that on a regular basis if they wish to and check it against the consolidated amount that comes in on their bill.

I have not had any representation for some time, that I can recall, where people have demanded or requested this service. Again, it will not come as a free service. All these things are costed and all these things have an impact. When SA Water go out and engage with their community through their consultation program, as they are expected to do through their ESCOSA regulation, people have expressed by and large that they are satisfied with the service they get, that they don't want to pay for an extra service and by and large they think the service they are getting is good value for money. If individuals want to do their own metering, they can engage a plumber to place a meter on their line in from the shared meter.