Adelaide Desalination Plant

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (14:54): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Environment and Climate Change a question regarding the 100-gigalitre desalination plant.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: Recently, the minister foreshadowed that there could be quite significant reductions in high-security water allocations for our Riverland irrigators come 1 July this year for the next irrigation season. We have a 100-gigalitre desalination plant that is in mothballs and has cost the taxpayer—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: It's close to mothballs.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The honourable member has every right to stand up and ask his question in silence, as do members of the opposition, so just respect that right.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: Thank you for your protection, Mr President. We have a desalination plant that is in close to a mothball situation. Given that we need to stimulate our economic activity, I ask the minister what business planning has he done when considering the fact that critical human needs come first with the River Murray and that irrigators accept that?

What business case has the minister done with SA Water to see whether the desalination plant could be cranked up to offset the cuts to the Riverland and Lower Murray irrigators, and would he consider a reduced profit for one year from SA Water, rather than using the excuse that he would have to hit those critical human needs SA Water customers or charge directly the irrigators?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:56): He's always worth a laugh, this bloke, isn't he? I thank the honourable member for his most inaccurate question and his explanation, but I have to ask him: where is he when we give information to this chamber time and time again, when we tell the chamber and the honourable member that in fact the desal plant has been operating continuously since it was turned on, except for some brief periods when the membranes have been cleaned and maintained?

I think that at this point in time 130 gigalitres of water—it may be even more now—has been produced by the desal plant. That is 130 gigalitres of water flowing through the honourable member's taps. If the honourable member is drinking out of that glass in front of him, there will be desal water in that glass right now. The honourable member does not seem to understand the first thing about water production in this state.

The desal plant is a key component of this government's investment in water infrastructure, which he has no comprehension about, which has guaranteed our water security to 2050. When we have another drought, which we undoubtedly will, we will have water supplies for the city of Adelaide, unlike during the millennium drought when we were absolutely facing having to give SA Water customers bottled water; that's how serious it was.

The Hon. R.L. Brokenshire: That's not my question.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Well, I don't care what your question was, Mr Brokenshire, because your question was totally, totally inaccurate. There was not a scintilla of accuracy in your question, Mr Brokenshire, and that's why I am correcting your question and giving you the answer you should have.

Another example of the Hon. Mr Brokenshire's complete absence of understanding about the water market—and he is emulating the Liberal Party here—is that he says, 'Why don't you just turn the SA Water desal plant—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: That's right. He was a Liberal Party minister of course—no wonder they think exactly the same way. Thank you for reminding me. 'Turn the desal plant on and crank it up,' and then he says, 'Take a haircut on the profit.' He does not understand that the profit is used for several things; one is to supply cheap water in the country.

We have postage stamp pricing for SA Water in this state. If you think about it—and the honourable member may not have been listening yesterday when I explained this to the chamber—the cost of delivering water to remote and regional areas of the state is much more expensive than delivering it to a big city because you have longer pipes and fewer customers to put that cost across.

But we think it is fair. We think it is fair that the city should be subsidising the country in the price of water so everybody can have access to that water if they are on the reticulated system at the same price. That means it is a subsidy, a big subsidy, taken out of the SA Water profits that the Hon. Mr Brokenshire wants to do away with.

The other subsidy, of course, that is provided is the pensioner concession. Is the Hon. Mr Brokenshire wanting to get rid of that as well? Is that what he wants to get rid of? Get rid of the pensioner concession, Mr Brokenshire says, and give the water to the irrigators instead. What he does not understand is that water costs money. The cheapest water we can get is in our catchments, the next cheapest is in the river and the most expensive is the desalination water. Someone has to pay for it, Mr Brokenshire. You tell me who. Do you want to give water to irrigators for nothing? Someone will pay for it. Is the pensioner from Christies Beach going to satisfy your vanity so you can say, 'Here's some water'?

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: Point of order: for the record, the minister is misleading the house. I did not suggest cutting concessions. I want answers to my question.

The PRESIDENT: Minister.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: I should start again, Mr President. Unfortunately, every time I stand up in this place and put some facts on the table, he ignores them. He is not interested in facts. All he is interested in is a good story. He makes his facts up on the wireless all the time—that one is for you, Kimberley Rowney. He makes his facts up on the wireless all the time, and he is not interested in actually understanding how the water system works. He may have heard but discounted—and I have said it publicly already—that the government is undertaking an independent cost-benefit analysis of the potential to use the Adelaide Desalination Plant to offset reductions in allocations.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: Why didn't you say that to start with?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Because it was a stupid question based on a fallacy, and I am not going to let that go through the keeper. Also, if the Hon. Mr Brokenshire had been paying attention to Bureau of Meteorology predictions, DEWNR staff on the wireless—the wireless the Hon. Mr Brokenshire should surely listen to—give analyses every month of the projections for the season. They give analyses of inflows every fortnight, (I think it may even be weekly), of inflows across the border, the River Murray. They update the community at all times, and as we all know, we are facing a very dry season.

The honourable member suggests turning on the desal plant and magically making that water come through the plant for no cost at all. He thinks there is a bucket of money that is taken out of SA Water profits that is just sitting there underutilised. That money goes towards, as I said, postage stamp pricing. It goes towards pensioner concessions. It goes towards what little is left—and it is around about the $40 million to $60 million mark—after you take out those community service obligations. It goes towards paying for police officers on the beat. It goes towards paying for teachers in our schools. It goes towards paying for nurses in our health facilities. Which of those does he want to cut?

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins interjecting:

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Yes, like the Hon. Mr Lucas was all his life before he came into this place—a staffer, just like him. When you take the point that almost everything in the honourable member's question was absolutely wrong, based on incorrect statements, fallacies in fact, or at least at the very kindest, a gross misunderstanding of how the government and SA Water work in terms of delivering a safe product to the community in a reliable way, there is not much left to answer.