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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
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WATERWORKS (WATER MANAGEMENT MEASURES—USE OF RAINWATER) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 26 July 2007. Page 672.)

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (10:35): I commend the member for MacKillop for raising this matter, because it is very much an issue of common sense, particularly when South Australia is experiencing the worst drought ever known in its history. I have just had a conversation with the shadow minister, who informs me that Port Augusta is, at this moment, out of water. They have had a pipe burst and there is no reticulated water operating in Port Augusta today. I certainly hope they can fix that problem quickly and without fuss so that the people of Port Augusta can have water. A lot of the houses up there, as you may or may not know, sir, do not have any water other than what comes through the pipe. This is all the more reason for this motion and how important it is that, first, we encourage people to catch the water that runs off their roof into a tank. That tank can be of galvanised iron, as they have always been, or today you can have fibreglass or poly tanks. Poly tanks are popular because they are cheap, they do not rust and you can put them anywhere—they can even be buried.

The point of this bill is to make the government encourage people to use more rainwater. That process should begin with an education program to let people know what can be achieved in relation to the water that can be saved. I think the nub of this bill, and the reason the member for MacKillop brought it in here, is to change the regulations so that people can plumb a rainwater tank into the existing plumbing in their house. There has always been some problem with this. Before I came to this house I was a self-trained expert in plumbing and I did a lot of plumbing. I am fully conversant with the equipment, particularly the device called a non-return valve, which today is almost totally failsafe. The reason they did not want to allow householders to plumb rainwater into the household system in days gone by was because they feared that rainwater may get back into the mains and therefore pollute the system.

Back then the only way you could do it was to provide an air gap; in other words, you had a pipe in the air so that it was impossible for there to be any blow-back or suck-back by somebody using a pressure pump. Over the years, whilst it was uncommon and illegal, people have put pumps onto the main in order to maintain the pressure in their irrigation system and house, particularly with multi storey houses. I believe that it is illegal or it is certainly frowned upon. When you had somebody sucking the main, it meant that somebody next door could lose water; in fact, it could suck the rainwater from next door into the main. So, that is the reason that was put in place years ago but, today, with the modern return valve, it is practically impossible.

I think the government has to look at this and say, 'It's common sense that we ask people to put in a rainwater tank' and, for the sake of convenience and to promote the use of rainwater, it has to be so that they can go outside and flick a valve or a switch to switch the house from mains water onto rainwater. As part of that, they have a triple system whereby you have your house either running on mains, or running fully on rainwater, or running partly on mains—that is, your toilet and everything else—and the drinking water and the kitchen water is rainwater.

It is not all that complicated; it just means that there are three valves outside the house and you can switch them on and off, as long as you have it so that you cannot overload or put high mains pressure into your rainwater tank because you might blow up your low-pressure lines. But that is not a problem with the government or SA Water; that is a problem with the people who own the property, because it is their facility that would break and not the public's. So, I think it is a great idea and, in these times, I think it is common sense that, first of all, the government should support this bill and then go through an education program about what can be achieved. Not only does it save water, but also it is better for your health.

All our houses are on rainwater and they always have been. You can certainly notice the difference when you are having a shower because you get a beautiful lather, it adds to our quality of life, and it is cheaper. I also believe that the government should assist people in the purchase of rainwater tanks because you could spend about $2,000 or $3,000 for the equipment and then probably another $300 to $500 just to have it installed. I believe the government ought to be looking at that in order to help people, making sure that any stamp duty that might be on it is removed. In fact, there ought to be bonuses on certain things like that, particularly when it comes to toilets. There is no reason at all in these times why, if they have plenty of rainwater, people should not use rainwater in their toilets because that would save the system a lot. I was talking to some people last night about dual flush toilets and, as I have said in this house many times, I am amazed that there are so many public buildings in this state still operating on single flush toilets. It is all right for us blokes because we don't have to flush it every time but women do. Every time they go to an old single flush toilet—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Oh, Ivan!

Mr VENNING: It is just a matter of anatomy, common sense and hygiene. I believe there are other ways to cut the expense. You do not necessarily have to buy a dual flush toilet because you can put a weight on the plunger inside the toilet which means that water will only flush while you have your finger on the button.

Mr Pengilly: You put a brick in it.

Mr VENNING: As soon as you move your finger off the button, the water stops—a very cheap way of doing it. That could be included in an education program so that people know that, by putting an object on the plunger, that is what will happen. Then, every couple of days, you just quickly jab the button and that is all that is required. Also, as the member for Finniss just said, you can put a brick in the system, which can do two things: first, it leaves less water in the system because the brick takes up some of the volume and, secondly, the brick can be put under the float so that the float does not fall to the bottom. That also saves water. There are lots of innovative ways to consider during these dire times of severe drought. I commend the member for MacKillop for bringing this bill to the house. This is another commonsense bill. I hope there is no politics in this because it will not grab headlines but I think it is a very commonsense thing that people are encouraged to buy a rainwater tank and to have it correctly plumbed into the house so that they can enjoy the convenience of rainwater throughout their home. I commend the bill introduced by the member for MacKillop.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY (Kavel) (10:43): I, too, am pleased to speak in support of this piece of legislation that has been introduced into the house by the member for MacKillop, the opposition spokesman for water security issues. It is a sensible piece of legislation and a sensible approach that the member for MacKillop has introduced to the parliament. As the member for Schubert accurately outlined in his contribution, it allows for the plumbing of rainwater via a non-return valve into the mains water system and the mains water lines into individual residences. I, along with most of my colleagues who grew up in the rural and regional areas, lived in a household that survived on rainwater because, in the early days, the mains system had not been laid past our property. When it was installed, it was a fairly poor quality.

I always remember my mother reminding us as young children not to waste the rainwater, because we would have to go on to the mains. It took me a little while to understand what she actually meant by those instructions. When my wife and I built our home, which is in the same district as where I grew up, the first thing that we installed after the house was constructed was a 45,000 litre concrete rainwater tank. The mains water had been laid at that time, but it had not been filtered. Thanks to the outstanding initiative of the previous Liberal government, we saw the acceleration of water filtration projects around the state come to fruition. Our particular district, I think in 2000 and 2001, had nice clean fresh filtered water delivered by the mains system to our and other districts in the Adelaide Hills.

As I said, this is a really sensible, commonsense approach to a really serious issue that the state is facing in terms of managing its water resources. It is well known and documented that, in an average rainfall year, there is sufficient rainfall on the Adelaide plain to meet all the fresh water needs of the Adelaide metropolitan area. Any initiative to utilise the water that falls from the heavens for free—no cost to the government whatsoever and no cost to the individual residents apart from installing a rainwater tank and plumbing into your home (that is a given)—is good. There is every sensible reason to utilise that free resource, given the crisis that we find ourselves in given the lack of water available to irrigators, farmers and residents alike.

I am calling on government members—and we have heard it on the side of the house plenty of times—to take a bipartisan approach to this piece of legislation, and support it through this house and through the other place to see that this measure is introduced. I call on government members to support this bill, unlike what we have seen historically when government members knocked out legislation because they had the numbers. One striking example is the very legislation that the member for Schubert introduced concerning driving while under the influence of illicit drugs.

We saw the government try to grandstand politically on that issue, and it knocked out the member for Schubert's well conceived, well thought out, and well introduced legislation. The government knocked it for purely political purposes; yet in the ensuing months it introduced a similar piece of legislation. That just goes to show how cynical government members are when it comes to turning a really commonsense approach into a political point-scoring exercise. We look to the members on that side of the chamber—the government members—to see this legislation pass through this place in an unhindered manner. We look forward to seeing what comes of it when this bill is put to a vote.

That brings me to other issues. It takes an opposition member to introduce legislation such as this—an important piece of legislation. What have we seen from the government in relation to managing our water resources? We hear a lot of talk and see no action. We have seen the opposition leader go out into the public arena and introduce a 19-point plan to manage our water resources. The most crucial issue before the state at the moment is water. What is the government doing? Just more and more talk—

Mr Pengilly interjecting:

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Yes, and it really takes us back to third world standards, where you take your bottle, your bucket, or whatever you like to the well in the middle of the township, which has been put there by some overseas Rotary or Lions club. Rotary International has put money into that village to sink that bore. The villagers have to take their buckets and their bottles, or whatever, to that village resource to get the water. That is where the government wants to take us. It wants us to line up for bottled water. It was in the paper last Saturday—headlines in the Saturday Advertiser. They have been talking to the spring water industry to supply the Adelaide metropolitan area with spring water. Is it just for drinking, or is it for washing as well?

Mr O'Brien interjecting:

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: The member for Napier sees the ridiculousness of the notion. He has a grin on his face. He sees how ridiculous that initiative is. What are we meant to do? We have to set up a bit of a structure in our bathrooms where we tip that five litre bottle of water over us to have a shower in the morning. You would get a pretty good lather out of that!

Mr Venning interjecting:

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: The member for Schubert talks about a lather from rainwater in your shower. I think that you would get an even better lather using spring water as your washing water. That example highlights how absolutely out of touch this government is in dealing with the serious crisis in our water resources in this state. They are making a joke of themselves in looking to introduce such an initiative. That is in stark contrast with the approach of the opposition, led by an outstanding leader who shows some real courage, real conviction and real leadership—not like the government. He is showing some real leadership, coming up with a 19-point plan to manage our water resources, not only now but into the future, so that our children and our children's children can benefit.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (10:53): I rise to support the bill as presented by the member for MacKillop. Essentially it enables householders to access and use rainwater and be exempted from the rules that currently restrict the alteration of pipes, fittings and plumbing to dwellings. That restriction under this bill would be exempted provided the fittings that were used to allow rainwater onto the relevant land for use on the land did not interfere with those operated by the corporation (SA Water); that the fittings be the ones that are prescribed; that it be a separate pipeline; and that it have a backflow valve, to which other members have referred. Of course, that is an important initiative because it overcomes previous criticism by SA Water and those who wish to maintain its monopoly on the provision of water to South Australia, in particular its approval process and the role it plays in regulating this area. There was and has been a genuine concern that, if water were introduced along the same pipeline, it would have adverse health effects, perhaps not just for the occupants but also for anyone who accessed the water.

This is an important initiative, and it is one that I invite the government also to support. We have had a myriad of proposals made by the government which, essentially, have gone nowhere in the five years we have faced both drought and water management issues in this state that have been exacerbated by the drought. So far, we have had the proposal to build a $20 million weir, which was determined to be an ecological disaster. We have since had the proposal to expand Mount Bold, which we all know is completely useless unless there is rainwater to put in it.

We have had the announcement of a possible commitment from the Premier that we are to have a desalination plant, but it has been qualified by the Treasurer in the last week saying that we might have one but that it is reasonably certain. Yesterday, the government announced the appointment of the former premier Dean Brown. It has taken a Liberal to come to the rescue and try to assist them in this financial and human disaster. I applaud that initiative because it means that we will have someone who might know what should be done, instead of a myriad of coordinators with money being thrown at them, but they are not even on the ground yet.

The absence of any genuine proposal that has a real effect on supporting the regional community, which does not have access very often to SA Water, concerns me. Members covering the north and west of South Australia will tell us how obstructive SA Water is to allowing those services. Most of my electorate of Bragg is serviced by water and infrastructure provided by SA Water. We have very little stormwater benefit, but, through local government, detention pools have been developed for water in a number of parks, such as the Glenside Hospital campus, Hazelwood Park and Tusmore Park to give just a few examples.

Quite a component of my electorate in the Skye area, north-east of Wattle Park, does not have access to mains water, as we have discussed. They rely almost exclusively on bore water (at significant cost, I might say) and what they can capture in rainwater tanks. I think it is very important for those who do not have access to mains water, unless they pay an enormous cost (and we are talking about tens of thousands of dollars to be linked up) to have an opportunity to use their rainwater, especially as the bore water they have to pay for from a private well is not only expensive but also completely unpotable. It is simply not suitable for human consumption.

I think that this is a very important initiative and one that will genuinely assist householders, whether or not they have access to mains water. At the moment, in a genuine attempt to help with water under the restriction regimes we have had, and as critical as people have been of those, people in my electorate have been prepared to go out and acquire rainwater tanks. The fallacy of how useful that can be, or the restriction on how useful it can be, is evidenced by the fact that, when the rains come and the rainwater tank fills up, if you use it only for drinking and you cannot plumb it somewhere, other than to run it out onto your garden with a pump, the volume of water held in the rainwater tank simply reduces a tiny bit during the time that there is an abundance of water, whereas it could be used for household purposes, and toilet services, laundry services and the like, which seem the most obvious.

As to the question of financial support, reimbursement or rebate as a result of making a contribution, I think that there is some merit in that. I say this: SA Water charges a very significant fee for sewerage rates based on the value of property. It is something that has come under criticism by a number of consumers, especially in my electorate, particularly those who are retired or on fixed or pension incomes, and they are looking for some relief. They are prepared to help—they have always been prepared to help. We have a very high level of commitment in the electorate. Hundreds of people turned up to a water forum held at the Burnside Town Hall. Subsequently the Burnside council has promoted ways that water can be saved and measures that will assist in this area. I have an electorate that is keen to run with this, use this opportunity and access this position to enable us to reduce the demand on the general public water, if I can describe it as that, that is currently harvested and distributed by SA Water, some of it via its contractual partner, of course, United Water.

I urge the government to support this. I see this as a much more important initiative, if there is any funding or rebate to be offered, than spending $40 million-plus on the refurbishment of a building in Victoria Square, which of course will be the new rented headquarters of SA Water. In my view that would be a much better application of funding than to have this huge upgrade. I notice that even the Attorney nods at that, because when you visit the Supreme Court you understand the frustration they have at the lack of their development.

They look out and see the brand new building, which is going to be $43 million worth of fittings for SA Water, and then they watch the new tram drive past, which cost another $30 million, while they are sitting in squalor. It would be little wonder if they are not really questioning why this government's priority has to be for fittings for a new headquarters for SA Water when pipes are bursting, or why we have to have a new tram up to the casino when they are having to work in circumstances which are not only shabby but also third world.

So, I ask the government, if it is generally serious about adopting measures that are going to be helpful dealing with this issue of water management in South Australia, to take this legislation, adopt it, implement it and ensure we have access to it across the board as soon as possible.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:02): The lack of water supply is certainly a very serious issue in this state and I do not think it has really hit city dwellers, especially after we spoke about the drought for a considerable time on Tuesday and it was not picked up at all in the city media. I think the only time Adelaide really realises we have a crisis is when the water is salty or just not coming out of the tap. We will see emergency measures, because nothing has been done, of trucking in water or contracting it all to spring water companies.

I applaud this legislation, but I believe it should be taken even further in the longer term and it should be legislated down the track that every new dwelling should be built with a 45,000 litre tank or bladder under the house as part of the construction site. Plenty of people want only a courtyard dwelling, and it could be put into the original proposal. Certainly, the state government could make the incentive scheme a lot more worthwhile and give a lot more incentive for people to put in rainwater tanks. I think the rainwater should be plumbed right throughout the home. I was brought up on a property with over 300,000 litres of storage, and we never ran out of rainwater. It was plumbed right through the home. We would drink it, and it obviously did not affect my growth.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: What about your teeth? Come on, show us your teeth.

Mr PEDERICK: No, I have ground them away with all the stress, Attorney. People are concerned about the so-called health risks of rainwater. What do they think the birds do in the dams? They do not exactly fly over the top and not drop anything into the dams and river, etc. There have been studies done where people have worried about nutrient build-up in the river—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: But we can treat that.

Mr PEDERICK: Yes, you can, and you can also put carbon filters on your rainwater tank for a couple of hundred of dollars. If the Attorney-General really likes his water super-filtered, he could put in two or three filters.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: I like to have a bit of earth.

The Hon. R.B. Such: He likes a shandy.

Mr PEDERICK: Okay, we might top up his tank when we put the kerosene on the top to kill the bugs. We might put in an extra dose, just for a bit more taste.

An honourable member: Paraffin.

Mr PEDERICK: Paraffin, okay. But you certainly need to be careful when you are killing the bugs in your tank because you only have to overdose it a little bit and you get that taste. I urge other members, if they wish to speak to this motion, to do so in a little while. There is plenty of advice on what we can do with our rainwater.

I think after 24 November when the Howard federal government is elected for a historic fifth term we could really move this further and lobby to have rainwater tanks in the city included as a tax deduction, as you can on a farm in country areas. I think we need to work right across the board. I know that, in the scheme of water use measures, when compared with things such as desalination and pumped supply from rivers, rainwater is about the third most expensive system. However, in reality, people need surety of supply, and there is nothing better than having your own tank or tanks plumbed into the house.

I have recently heard of some other water-saving initiatives in Japan concerning cisterns, and they have had them for 12 or 24 months now. They have the hand basin built into the top of the cistern so you have instant reuse of your handwashing water. That is an fantastic development, and I think it should be instigated world wide. This beats what even dual flush can do by far, because you wash your hands and the water goes into the cistern and is reused instantly. It is a fantastic design. I saw it at the Greenhouse 2007 conference in Sydney the other day.

Mr Venning: You went, did you?

Mr PEDERICK: Yes; absolutely. I think the state government would be better off investing in some of these schemes such as providing incentives to install rainwater tanks, than all the millions of dollars that have been spent investigating whether a weir can be built at Wellington.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (11:07): I also support the very sound commonsense and practical bill put forward by the member for MacKillop. I think that this goes across the chamber and it is a commonsense solution. It has been mentioned before, but I am quite serious in saying that we should take the politics out of this and think of it as a lateral solution to an endemic problem in South Australia. After all, it is a simple matter to put a back-flow valve in the mains and allow rainwater to be plumbed into the house. As other members have said this morning, we have also used our own supplies of rainwater on our properties over the years. We have never had to rely on other sources of water. You learn to use water carefully; you learn to be smart about water.

Many a good lady, a farmer in the bush, or someone living without water services has saved the water from the daily washing and put it on the garden. You save water all the time. If you are fair dinkum about doing something about this problem in South Australia, we should be moving ahead on it. I support the member for Hammond who suggested putting large rainwater tanks or bladders in new developments. It is commonsense to me. It is as simple as putting in wide verandahs, instead of all this nonsense we have in architecture these days where you have houses with no verandahs and limited eaves which do not generate energy savings. It is too easy these days to put up a house with no eaves and verandahs and have a thumping great airconditioner which you can turn on whenever it is cold or hot. It is just silly.

I am not being self-righteous about it, but we live in a house which has 18-inch thick stone walls. We shut up the house in summer. We shut up the house in the morning and open it up at night, and it stays cool for four or five days. We do not even have to have an airconditioner. Likewise with water, we have about 250,000 litres of water containment on our place that we use regularly. The member for MacKillop is suggesting putting in this system whereby people can gather the water falling from the sky—and heaven forbid that the government should start taxing it. It has been talked about in various places, but I have never heard so much nonsense as taxing what falls from the sky in all my life.

I believe that we should be supporting the honourable member's bill and putting it into place so that, in the future, we return to practices of the past of saving rainwater and plumbing it into houses. The fact is that we are rapidly running out of water in the metropolitan area and all the areas serviced by the River Murray—from the Mallee to Whyalla and all places in between. Quite simply, you cannot keep dragging off the Murray all the time. We do have to put in a desalination plant. It is an errant nonsense to suggest that we do not need one—and there would appear to be some sort of war in the cabinet about whether or not we will get one, and I guess that will take its course.

Through the leader, we have put forward a program to ensure South Australia's water supply. What the member for MacKillop is suggesting is a sound, practical, commonsense solution and it should be picked up and supported by the government. I urge government members to speak on this matter. We have heard various rantings coming from the other side of the chamber, but this is the opportunity for members opposite to get to their feet and support the member for MacKillop's bill. Get on with it. Do something sensible for South Australia and something that future generations will respect. Unless you happen to be the member for Stuart—most of us will not be here for that long—I think it is important—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: I do not know about that. Certainly not you.

Mr PENGILLY: We will see about that, Mick. The Attorney can interject and carry on, but since 2002 he has failed to get Barton Terrace opened. He cannot even get his cabinet colleague the member for Adelaide to assist him on that. He sits there and rants and raves and throws interjections across the chamber. I could not give two hoots about his interjections. Quite frankly, if the Attorney is fair dinkum about the future of South Australia, he will support this bill and do something useful. He can practise the conservation of water. He cannot practise law apparently, but he can practise the conservation of water. He can speak to this bill and support the member for MacKillop. I will support him all the way, if he speaks on this bill next and backs this bill.

Mr HANNA (Mitchell) (11:13): The Liberal opposition is bringing forward a bill to facilitate the plumbing of rainwater tank water into houses. I think it is a very good idea. This is against a background where we have a privatised water corporation which is in the business of making a profit like every other business. There are limits to the way that SA Water can charge, and the government has just recently approved another round of price increases, but I think it is very short-sighted not to look at the structuring of water pricing. Take away the supply charge and introduce something more like a proportional water charge or, in other words, something closer to a user pays system, with increased percentages of payment for those who use excessive volumes of water in the household context.

These sort of reforms are part of the solution. The initiative of facilitating rainwater use in the home is part of the solution. The problem is that it will not be driven by a corporation which has the profit motive, and the government needs to divorce itself from that. It needs to back reforms which will mean that less water comes through the mains. This is one way of doing it and that is why I support this legislation.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.

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