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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-09-08 Daily Xml
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WATER SECURITY

Ms CICCARELLO (Norwood) (17:05): Benjamin Franklin once remarked that, when the well is dry, we know the worth of water. More than 200 years later, as our country and state weather one of the most severe droughts on record, I am pleased that the Rann government has always recognised the importance of those words and acted decisively to ensure that that figurative well never runs dry.

Without question, water is one of the most debated issues in South Australia today. Whether it is a desalination plant, water restrictions or the fate of the Lower Lakes, it seems that everyone has an opinion on how best to secure the water future of this state. Whilst I welcome and encourage debate on these important issues, I take enormous issue with those who claim that the government is not doing everything it can to find practical and effective solutions to our water needs.

One simply has to read our recently released plan, Water for Good, which guarantees South Australia's future water security to 2050 and beyond in order to realise that we are 100 per cent committed to ensuring that our state remains a world leader in water management. Of course, all of this is anathema to the opposition and, given the fact that they have nothing to work with, I am particularly interested though hardly surprised that they seem hellbent on attacking our stormwater harvesting credentials.

It is an easy target, given the recent heavy rains and the perception that all that water simply flows away, but as usual it is way off the mark and simply highlights the opposition's total lack of any viable alternative policies. You only have to look at our record to know that the Rann government has always been totally committed to investing in stormwater projects, and there is no better evidence of this than the fact that South Australia now leads the nation in stormwater capture and re-use.

Five years ago, as part of our Waterproofing Adelaide strategy, we pledged to increase our annual stormwater re-use to 20,000 megalitres. I am very pleased that we will soon exceed that target, but importantly we will not rest there. That is why we set up the Stormwater Management Authority in 2007 and tasked it with the important mission of maximising our stormwater potential. That is why we are committed to implementing the findings of the Urban Stormwater Harvesting Options Study, which recently determined that it was technically feasible to capture 60 gigalitres of stormwater in the metropolitan area and a further 15 gigalitres in regional South Australia. That is why we revised our original water blueprint to commit this government to doing everything it can to achieve this by the year 2050.

As I have already said, we are already well travelled on the road to this ambitious target. We have already committed to harvesting more than 1.2 billion litres at Cheltenham Park and we have given support to many smaller projects such as the green village of Lochiel Park and implementing stormwater reuse on metropolitan golf courses. In July this year, we submitted a bid to the commonwealth valued at $145.1 million for a further seven stormwater projects across the metropolitan area. These include projects at the Adelaide Airport, Riverside Golf Club, Old Port Road, Adelaide Botanic Gardens and Barker Inlet wetlands as well as further stages of Water Proofing Northern Adelaide and Water Proofing the South. These projects will harvest up to eight billion litres of stormwater for treatment through aquifer storage and recovery schemes.

This is just the beginning of our stormwater plans, and I am excited about what we will be able to do in the future. However, we cannot do it alone and, to this end, I would like to pay tribute to the many stakeholders involved in ensuring that successful stormwater harvesting becomes an increasingly viable reality. I am sure that everyone is aware of the pioneering work done by the Salisbury council in this field, and I thank it and all the local councils around the state for coming on board and playing their part.

I was also heartened to see recently that the NRM board gave some funding to inner suburban councils, including Norwood Payneham & St Peters, to do a study on how stormwater could be collected in inner suburban areas. There is no question that the target we have set is ambitious and expensive, but with continuing collaboration between all levels of government and the private sector it is definitely within reach.

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