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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-09-22 Daily Xml
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STORMWATER INITIATIVES

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen—Leader of the Opposition) (15:24): My question is again to the Minister for Water Security. Why has the government spent $2.4 million on advertising and promoting its Water for Good report, instead of investing this money in stormwater capture and re-use?

The Hon. K.A. MAYWALD (Chaffey—Minister for the River Murray, Minister for Water Security) (15:24): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for her question, because it will point out exactly how much we are investing and are prepared to invest in stormwater projects. The projects that we put up to the commonwealth government for investment are $145 million worth of stormwater investment projects: $145 million is the total cost of the projects, of which the South Australian government I believe is investing about $45 million. So, the state government will be putting in $45 million towards these projects, I am advised, and that is in direct contrast to the opposition, which halved the amount of money it put into stormwater. I must say that the amount of money it was putting into stormwater at the time was $4 million, and it halved that to $2 million. That $45 million is on top of the $4 million that we have committed to the stormwater authority to do the planning and work necessary to assist local government to enable these projects to get off the ground.

What we have is a situation where the opposition is all talk. We are actually getting in there and doing it; the state government is actually getting in there and doing this. One of things that is really important in relation to water security is education of our community, and the state government does not shy away from the fact that we have a very strong and aggressive campaign to help educate our community in relation to water, because demand management is also a very important part of our Water for Good strategy. We want to have the most waterwise community in the nation, if not the world, and we will do that through the work we are doing in partnership with the local government and with a whole range of industry associations to ensure that we can better educate our community. We do not shy away from that. You cut stormwater funding; we are investing in it.

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