Happy Valley Reservoir

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (15:57): On 11 December 2021, South Australia celebrated its most recent reservoir reserve opening for public access at Happy Valley. It was an immensely popular opening, with around 6,000 people attending that day. Young and old alike enjoyed walking, riding, kayaking, fishing and picnicking.

The member for Hurtle Vale, Nat Cook MP, was down along the banks with many others, including the Minister for Environment and Water, for the official proceedings. I am told she appeared to be friendly, cheerful, and anyone who was watching could have easily been forgiven for thinking that Nat Cook was right behind the opening of Happy Valley Reservoir to the public, that she wholeheartedly supported the opening of this fantastic publicly owned space that has been locked up behind closed gates for decades and which the former minister, the Hon. Ian Hunter, vehemently opposed.

However, outside this event the member for Hurtle Vale's attitude towards the opening of this reservoir has been far from supportive. In fact, it could be best described as hostile and oppositional. She has written to the minister on multiple occasions with false claims of kangaroo welfare issues, including apparent culling at the reserve, which is simply not true. There has been no population control, including culling at Happy Valley, since the Marshall Liberal government was elected. Furthermore, there are no plans to control the population in the future.

People visit the reservoir several times a week and there are many hundreds of kangaroos in the site. They are not bothered by visitors, as they have been occupying what is effectively an industrial site for many years. The member for Hurtle Vale also tabled a petition in parliament seeking to stop the opening of the Happy Valley Reservoir. She regularly complains on social media about the volume of traffic around the reservoir in an apparent attempt to generate angst and negativity about the reservoir's opening. The reality is the member for Hurtle Vale, Nat Cook MP, has been against Happy Valley Reservoir's opening every step of the way, which is typical of the Labor's approach to the Marshall Liberal government's Opening up our Reservoirs program, a program that has been immensely popular.

There have been over 450,000 visitations to date, including over 50,000 in Happy Valley alone since it opened a few weeks ago, but there has been plenty of opposition from Labor—plenty of opposition. We have even seen Labor make spurious claims linking reservoir recreational access to apparent drinking water quality issues, which is nonsense. The managing of our reservoirs can be considered as being world-class best practice.

Last year, an independent audit found that this government has applied international best practice in risk assessment planning for opening our reservoirs to recreational access, putting water security and quality at the heart of the process, yet Labor is happy to try to get behind the successes when it suits them. Indeed, the Labor candidate for Davenport has boasted that, if elected, Labor would connect the Minkarra Park and Happy Valley Central Link trails, which requires access through the Happy Valley Reservoir Reserve. It would be nice if there were some consistency.

Labor are two-faced and cannot be trusted when it comes to our reservoirs. Publicly, they pretend to back the program when they have seen it is successful, pretend that they support the activation of these recreational reserves, but the reality is there is no commitment from Labor and the people of South Australia should be very worried about what Labor would do to the Opening up our Reservoirs program if they were to be elected.

I would like to quote from the former minister, the Hon. Ian Hunter, in response to questions prior to the election about his views about opening our reservoirs. He said:

Well it just costs millions of dollars to disinfect the River Murray and if you're going to add that extra layer of disinfection for reservoirs in the Adelaide Hills that have people swimming and boating in them then you’re going to have to pass that cost on to SA Water customers. This is what David's—

which is David Speirs—

not being upfront about. Whenever you have a risk-based system it’s cheaper to disinfect the reservoirs at the moment because we keep them clean and we keep people away from them. The River Murray costs a huge amount of money to disinfect that water. Now if David's proposing to put people into our drinking water supplies then he's going to have to also tell us how he’s going to pay for it and of course his bottom line will be that SA Water customers will pay the increased costs of disinfection.

What has actually happened to SA Water bills under this Marshall Liberal government? There has been an average saving per household of $200 per annum and, for businesses, $1,350. A Liberal government means you can have your cake and eat it too. You can have your reservoirs and you can have lower water bills. Labor wants to keep people out of reservoirs because it is ideologically opposed to them.