SA Water

The Hon. J.S. LEE (14:35): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Water and the River Murray a question about SA Water.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: A business owner on the Norwood Parade contacted me recently advising of a disruption caused by SA Water. The complaint was in relation to the lack of advance notice and the lack of courtesy by SA Water. On 9 October, when the business received a notice from SA Water advising of a temporary disruption to water supply from 7pm until midnight on Wednesday 11 October, the restaurant owner wrote to SA Water requesting to change the time of the maintenance because it was deemed to be unreasonable and unsuitable for a restaurant operation.

The restaurant owner explained to SA Water that dinnertime is their main source of income. Carrying out maintenance work by SA Water during those times would have a financial impact on the restaurant, which relies on water for its effective operation. SA Water did not mention that it was a matter of emergency, nor that it was a public safety issue. The notice said that the water disruption was mainly for maintenance purposes. After raising their concern with SA Water, the restaurant owner did not receive any response, so had no choice but to close the restaurant on 11 October and give his kitchen staff and other staff the night off.

What made him very unhappy was that he went into the restaurant on 11 October, which was the same day that the maintenance work was scheduled, and he was at the bar counter when he saw a worker slip a piece of paper under the door. That paper happened to be a revised notice by SA Water to state that the water maintenance work had now been rescheduled. Whilst it was good news, the notice came a bit too late. The restaurant and a number of businesses on Norwood Parade had already rostered to have their staff take the night off and the businesses were affected because they had closed down their businesses and been impacted. My questions to the minister are:

1. When the situation is not of an emergency nature, can the minister explain why SA Water would undertake maintenance work during business trading hours?

2. With businesses experiencing financial loss due to water disruption, can the minister explain why there was no consultation from SA Water to affected stakeholders in order to provide adequate advance notice?

3. Will SA Water implement a better customer service and better communication policy to address these problems?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:38): I thank the honourable member for her most important question relating to her constituent on the Norwood Parade. Of course, there are some broad issues that need to be contemplated when considering SA Water upgrading or doing maintenance work in general on its infrastructure, be it water pipes or sewerage, indeed.

One thing that is important to understand is that SA Water does attempt to give adequate notice to all impacted persons, whether they be natural persons, householders or businesses, and they do take into consideration feedback that they get from businesses in terms of scheduling their works, but we need to understand that not all businesses operate at the same time. I think the honourable member was referring to a time period for SA Water maintenance between 7pm and 11pm. I imagine that was set to try to minimise the disruption it causes to businesses on Norwood Parade.

Of course, businesses that operate into the evening will be impacted but they may have been the minority of businesses on the Parade. Nonetheless, I am aware of situations where SA Water does reschedule its works to different times or staggers it over a longer period of time so that it has as little disruption to the community as possible.

The counterfactual is this: if SA Water doesn't do this work, if it doesn't maintain its pipes, then we are into the situation where people are complaining that pipes are bursting all the time and interrupting their business and their home life and their travel and commuting life, because there has been no warning of an emergency burst. Of course, when there is an emergency, SA Water can't, generally speaking, give notice that they are going to interrupt supply to do that work because it is an emergency. That is pretty much common sense, really.

As I say, in terms of scheduled maintenance or renewal of pipes or laying of new pipes, SA Water generally gives the community an extended period of notice, sometimes up to 30 days and sometimes more, depending on the location and the prominence of the location. There are longer periods, I expect, for busy main streets and roads, particularly those that have a large business or even restaurant sector, as compared to a normal street in a suburb where the interruption will be much less generalised, I suppose.

That is just the basis of the work. SA Water goes out of their way to consult business. It is unfortunate, and I am unhappy to hear, that the honourable member's constituent had an unhappy situation. She didn't really explain the claims that she made about lack of courtesy. That would very much surprise me, as SA Water has put in place a customer support team and one of its prime considerations is courtesy, speaking to people and looking after their needs.

I would be very surprised to hear if there was a lack of courtesy shown by staff in this instance, particularly to a business owner who was being impacted. I am not quite sure what she meant by that. If she meant simply that the lack of courtesy related to a sense that the customer was not being responded to, well I can understand that, but if it is more than that, if it was someone being rude directly, then I would like to hear that and ask for reasons about it.

It is unfortunate, but SA Water has to balance its maintenance program. As the honourable member said in her question, this one was scheduled between 7 and 11. Probably doing that has a minimal impact on most businesses, but certainly it would have an impact on businesses trading in the evening. That can't be avoided. It, generally speaking, can't be avoided and we do ask for patience from our community, because in fact what SA Water is trying to do is provide a better service. By re-laying pipe, doing this pipe maintenance, clearing out pipes or clearing out sewers, they are trying to provide a better service and we need to understand that that will sometimes inevitably mean there will be disruptions to day-to-day life for residential customers or business customers.

Having said that, my expectation is that SA Water will provide the best level of service in giving customers advance notice, trying as best they can to juggle all the competing interests of different types of businesses along a road to try to minimise the disruption, but at the end of the day, disruption there will be. The key is to get the job done as quickly as possible and minimise that disruption so that we can provide the best service to our customers.