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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-09-24 Daily Xml
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STORMWATER RE-USE

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (15:18): On 15 July this year, on 891 radio, David Bevan was interviewing the Minister for Water Security and pointed to an article in that morning's paper—I presume it was The Advertiser. David said:

…Robyn McLeod your Water Security Commissioner. She says that South Australians are adverse to the idea of adding stormwater to the drinking water supply.

Ms Portolesi: Averse, not 'adverse'.

Mr WILLIAMS: 'Adverse' is what it says here. David Bevan continued, 'How do we know that?' Karlene Maywald's response was, 'Well, we've done extensive research in this regard.' When I heard that comment, I thought, 'Hello, I have never seen such research. I wonder where that came from and when it was done.' Later in the house that day, Adrian Pederick, the member for Hammond, asked:

What research has the government undertaken on community acceptance of the treatment of stormwater to drinking standards; who undertook the research; what scenarios were included in the questions; and will the government release it publicly?

By way of explanation he said:

On radio this morning the minister said that the government knew what the community wanted to do with stormwater because it had undertaken extensive research.

Amongst other things, the minister said:

We have also undertaken work with SA Water internally, and SA Water has also undertaken some work internally and I will get the details of that and bring that back to the house.

Again, I was somewhat bemused by the minister's response. In spite of what the minister said today—and continues to say—I keep a good finger on the pulse of what is happening, so I filed off a freedom of information application to SA Water, asking for any documents, any reports, any memos or any minutes, etc., which would point to any research it had done. The response I received earlier this week states:

After consultation within SA Water and pursuant to Schedule 1 of the Freedom of Information Act I have determined that SA Water does not hold any documents relating to your request in relation to research undertaken by the SA Water.

So much for the minister's claim in the house that it had done internal work. I do not know what internal work it had done, but SA Water does not know about it. The response continues:

SA Water was, amongst others, a funding partner of the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Quality and Treatment.

My attention was drawn to a couple of research papers. I asked the minister a question about this yesterday but the minister could not answer the question. Mind you, in response to the question I asked in July, she did say that she would come back to the house; 'I will bring that back to the house.' She never did that. Yesterday she said that she could not answer the question but she would come back to the house.

This morning in private members' time she came into the house and pointed to the document that SA Water in the freedom of information application had brought to my attention. Amongst other things, she said:

The centre conducted a national survey of community views on drinking recycled water in 2007…Recycled water was defined in the report as stormwater or waste water, treated to a suitable standard for use in homes and industry.

Recycled water was not defined in the report. There is an appendix to the report—and I will come to that in a moment—but recycled water was not defined in the report. In fact, the report states:

Fear of the unknown, combined with a natural association of recycled water with sewage and waste, may work in combination to make people reluctant to use recycled water and support recycled water schemes.

The report is about recycled water and people believing the report was referring to recycled wastewater. The report is about a survey that was done in two parts. People were asked about their attitude and one part of the group was sent information about recycled water. Both groups were again asked the questions later.

In the material they received there were confusing definitions. On one page it defined recycled water as wastewater or stormwater, so they were treated as the same thing by the people being questioned. In the appendix—it is not in the report as the minister would have us believe—it states:

Water sources such as recycled water, desalinated water, rainwater tanks, stormwater, groundwater and water trading.

In fact, that part of the information clearly states that stormwater and recycled water are separate.

Time expired.

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