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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
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SAFE DRINKING WATER BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 9 March 2011.)

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (12:22): I advise the house that I am the lead speaker on this piece of legislation and that the opposition will be supporting it. We have a number of speakers, though, who wish to highlight issues that they have in their electorates, particularly in some of the rural and regional electorates. There will be questions in committee on some particular concerns about the ramifications of the powers of enforcement of the bill, and I look forward to the minister's explanations in committee.

There is no doubt that access to clean air and clean water is a very fundamental human right. We are very lucky in South Australia that we do have very clean air 99 per cent of the time, and now we also have, in 99.9 per cent of cases, extremely clean water to drink. I remember very vividly as a child being told that the only two places in the world where ships would not take on water were Port Said in Egypt and Adelaide. That was a pretty indicting piece of information about the quality of South Australia's water, the water we drank.

In fact, it was only 18 months ago that I pulled out two water softeners from the back of the house that we have just moved out of. The house was built in 1986, and it had two extremely large water softeners and there were huge bags of salt that I had been putting in there for a while, but that is not necessary anymore. I think sales of water softeners in Adelaide are pretty close to zero.

I do note that the sales of water filters are still pretty high. You still see plenty of adverts for water filters. I do not have one of those at home. I am yet to be convinced that there is a need to have one on my household taps. I think that we do have extremely good quality of water in our taps in Adelaide and throughout the state in most cases. My colleagues will highlight some of the issues in their own electorates.

There is that history, though, having come from the old water carters with a horse and dray, of pulling water out of the River Torrens or any other water source they could get their hands on, and if you survived the typhoid and the other muck that was in it, well, you were obviously pretty tough and robust. But one of the biggest causes of death around the world today is death through dehydration because of enteric and gut diseases mainly from waterborne pathogens—the bacteria and viruses and such other nasties as some of the Protozoa, which I will talk a bit about later.

We do not have that problem in South Australia. We have cases where people get occasional bouts of food poisoning; we have a public health system that works in most cases very well. What we have today before us is a bill that will enable the suppliers of drinking water in South Australia to have a set of regulations and some obligations that are clear and able to be undertaken, hopefully not too onerously. I do not think so, reading the legislation; and they will be able to provide safe drinking water for all South Australians whether they be in the city or the country.

We should remember that Adelaide is the capital of the driest state in the driest continent in the world. Particularly in Adelaide we have a very small catchment in the Mount Lofty Ranges, which is heavily populated and heavily utilised for agriculture and horticulture, so we have historically relied on the River Murray in Adelaide for our main source of water.

I was going through some information that I have been storing away, as you do in political offices on various issues. I have some brochures here from the E&WS department, as it was then, from May 1987. It gives a bit of the history of water treatment in Adelaide. It states:

The quality of Adelaide's water has been the subject of criticism since the settlement's first public reticulation system was started in 1860.

It is interesting to note that back then there were cast-iron pipes being brought in from Germany, I think, to set up a reticulation system from the Thorndon Park Reservoir. It was recognised way back then that having a reticulation system where you could control what was in the water was important. They still had their problems, and this brochure continues:

The problems are those of turbidity, colour, taste and odour. The turbidity comes from very fine particles of clay, silt and algae suspended in the water. The colour is due to dissolved or colloidal matter of vegetable origin. Taste and odour are mainly caused by algae and plankton.

I would think that would probably include some of the rubbish, horse manure and other things that were on the roads around the catchments then, as is still an issue in some places now.

This brochure talks about the Mount Lofty Ranges being a small, closely settled, high rainfall area, but it is intensively used for agriculture. Back in 1987 they recognised that; it is still an issue now. Certainly, the Onkaparinga catchment management, the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges Natural Resources Management Board and the SA Murray-Darling Basin Natural Resources Management Board are very important in ensuring that at least the sources of water going into our catchments are going to be in some way regulated and controlled. The fact that the water then goes into the catchments and has to be treated to become potable is what this bill is about, and how it is treated and how it is being supplied is the guts of this bill.

The issue in South Australia has been not only having safe water but getting the water here in the first place—capturing that water, making sure we have water security. The dams were built, and I do not think we have built a new dam for many years. There was talk of expanding the Mount Bold dam a couple of years ago; that has passed. It seems to have gone the way of many government schemes.

Back in 1989—that is 22 years ago—the then Labor minister for water resources, the Hon. Susan Lenehan (a very young Susan Lenehan in the picture in the foreword here), put out this '21 options' document—

The Hon. J.D. Hill: She's forever young.

Dr McFETRIDGE: Forever young, the minister says; and I am sure she is. She is a very attractive lady here. This document was called 'South Australia water futures: 21 options for the 21st century'. This is about making sure we have the water to drink in the first place. We will talk more about the way that water is treated and, of course, today's legislation is about how that water treatment and quality is being maintained and regulated.

It is interesting to see that back 22 years ago this Labor Party document talked about additional pumping from the River Murray, the use of Adelaide's groundwater, and cloud seeding, which they talk about in Tasmania (we have never tried it here; I do not know why, I am not up on the science of that). Evaporation control was also talked about. Certainly, the Mount Lofty Ranges storage was prominent in this document, as were the options of diverting water from the Eastern States with the Clarence River diversions, which were thousands of miles away; changing the way rivers ran out to the sea from the Blue Mountains and the Great Dividing Range, to try to divert that water back down into the Murray-Darling catchments and so boost the flows in the Murray.

At that stage desalination was mainly talked about for the River Murray, because we were conscious then, as we are now, of the tonnes of salt that flow down the river every year. The desalination plants that were proposed at that stage were on the River Murray. Interestingly, although I suppose it has been pooh-poohed (to use a pun), the re-use of sewerage effluent was also talked about in here. I know that with modern technology, modern sterilisation techniques, you can actually recover that water and treat it to the extent that it is safe to drink. That is expensive and intensive, and it is not something we are looking at now, although in terms of the reuse of effluent water we now have the Glenelg to Adelaide pipeline, and we are reusing more and more of that water rather than having thousands of litres, millions of litres, going out to sea, as it has in the past.

Minister Lenehan, as she was then, even talked about towing icebergs from the Antarctic. While that was discussed in here I do not think it was ever taken seriously; there were some estimates of the cost per litre of doing that, and it was just so far out. The Ord River scheme is an old issue that keeps coming up: why don't we pump all this water down along the railway to Adelaide? There are millions of litres going out to sea and heavy rainfall up there, the Ord River is a big catchment; but the expense of doing that is not warranted at this stage and the scheme is not being considered.

Closer to home, the Eyre Peninsula groundwater scheme is talked about (this is 22 years ago)—the member for Flinders will probably have something to say about that—and the Tod Reservoir was talked about as a site for a desalination plant. So 22 years ago there was the '21 options for the 21st century' document. There was lots of information in there. There was some mention of the need to make sure that as many homes as possible had rainwater tanks, which we are all encouraging now; the bill today talks about rainwater tanks and the obligations of people who source drinking water from rainwater tanks. It will not affect people in their private homes, and it will not actually affect most businesses, provided they abide by the legislation and regulations in this bill. I notice that the minister said that cloud seeding does not work—

The Hon. J.D. Hill interjecting:

Dr McFETRIDGE: Sorry; the minister said that cloud seeding does not work in South Australian circumstances. That is disappointing, because I know that they have used it in Tasmania, and I understand it was quite successful. However, if we are half smart about reusing, recycling, retaining and detaining all that water that comes out of the sky, when it does come out of the sky—and aren't we having a wonderful early autumn so far—we will probably have enough water for South Australia's future needs.

The desalination plant being built at Port Stanvac is very expensive and very intensive in its use of power, but when there is no other source you have to do what you have to do. As I said a moment ago, even 22 years ago desalination plants were high on the list of options to make sure that we do have a secure source of water for South Australians to drink, as well as for use in industry. The modern version, the mark II version of the Lenehan document, was the Waterproofing Adelaide document put out in January 2004 by Premier Rann, and that recycled (I am not using that word in a derogatory way) a lot of the issues and options talked about in the Lenehan paper.

We need to learn from the past and need to make sure we are actually implementing whatever we can to ensure that all the water we have at our disposal—whether rainwater, water in the catchments, stormwater or recycled sewage—is being used as much as we can. You hear the stories in Paris and London where a litre of water will go through 10 or 20 intestines before it is calculated to go out to sea, or wherever it goes in those countries. So, they are reusing and recycling the water over and again. They do not seem to have the same fear as do Australians of reusing and treating water that has been through our sewage treatment plants. I get frustrated when you push the button on the toilet, whether a half flush or full flush, as you are putting potable water down there—really expensive water. We need to think about what we are doing with all our water.

I will ask some questions about risk management plans in here. It talks about having rainwater tanks connected to mains water and groundwater sources connected to mains water. I was not sure you could actually do that, but it talks about it here, so I will ask questions about that. We also need to be aware that in metropolitan Adelaide people are wanting to connect rainwater tanks into their systems but also have the fallback position of the mains water.

The consultation that has been undertaken in the development of this bill—and I will give the government a compliment—has been extensive and over a number of months, if not years. The discussion paper is a very good document, and rather than just trying to rewrite the history and consultation process, I will just read some of this material from the discussion paper, and I encourage members to download it and look at the whole background to the development of the bill. The discussion paper starts:

Access to reliable supplies of good quality drinking water is recognised as a basic human right and is a fundamental requirement for community wellbeing. Communities have a right to expect that their drinking water supplies are safe and that there are systems in place to ensure that this right is maintained and their health is protected. The consequences—

This is so important. There are some clauses in this legislation that cause angst to some of my colleagues about the powers of the officers to be able to enforce this legislation, but I remind everybody that:

The consequences of failure to provide safe drinking water can be severe and have been experienced in countries such as Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. The Sydney water incident of 1998 demonstrated the potential cost of [then it was] $75 million up to $350 million estimates of a major water incident, even in the absence of illness. Responses to failure typically involve imposition of increased standards and regulations. This protection should be provided before outbreak incidents occur.

South Australia has avoided drinking water outbreaks associated with public water supplies and incidents have been restricted and well controlled. To a large extent this has relied on voluntary action applied by the major water supplier, SA Water, which has long worked collaboratively with the Department of Health to meet the shared goal of ensuring safe drinking water supplies.

SA Water applies the risk management approach described in the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (ADWG) for assured drinking water safety. However, the arrangement with SA Water does not extend to all drinking water providers. In South Australia it is estimated that there are over 500 independent drinking water providers.

The minister's office provided me with a concise list—not the complete list (and I did not want that)—of these drinking water providers who are in South Australia. Obviously, the biggest one is SA Water. I see that United Water will no longer be managing the delivery of the water, it will be going to another consortia, All Water, in the near future, and we expect, and from what I know of this particular consortia, that the standard of water will be maintained and delivered to even higher standards than in the past.

So, our biggest provider is SA Water. The medium providers of drinking water in South Australia are independent town suppliers, and there are about 10 of those in total. The biggest of those are: Roxby Downs, Coober Pedy, Leigh Creek and Wirrina Cove. There are approximately another 25 community suppliers in rural and remote areas of the state, including Aboriginal communities.

I will talk about the Aboriginal communities. The annual 2008-09 report of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara organisation references groundwater monitoring. Having been to the APY lands and visited the communities there, the water quality is okay, and that is about as complimentary as you can be. In the report they talk about groundwater monitoring as:

...a primary component of managing water resources in this dry land where water from underground aquifers is almost always the only source of water for human use. Groundwater monitoring consists of measurements of distance to water under the ground, and chemical and microbiological analysis of water samples collected from the groundwater sources.

I am concerned that it is stated in the annual report—and it is the 2008-09 annual report, so it may have changed, but I have not seen any evidence of that, so I will be interested to see what is happening in the APY lands—that funding has been cut by $100,000 to the water monitoring processes, or people. I do not know what the total was. I would be interested to find out what that total was. The need to provide water to the whole of our state is so important and the need to do it through whatever means we possibly can and provide it safely is something that, hopefully, this bill will assist.

The small drinking water providers in South Australia are mainly the bed and breakfast and farm stays, and I will have a bit more to say about those in a moment. There are approximately 200 premises, many of which are members of the SA Division of Bed & Breakfast Farmstay and Accommodation Australia. So, we have umbrella organisations which are helping them with the provision of not only quality B&Bs, farm stay and accommodation, but also making sure that the services that they are delivering are as good as we can possibly expect.

Certainly, we all recognise that tourism, particularly in our rural and regional areas, is a very important industry. What I refer to as the 'experience industry', that is, tourism, the arts, sport and recreation, is one of the biggest industries that we have, and certainly the B&B, farm stay and accommodation sector of that is very important for our rural and regional friends.

The other small providers are: hotels and holiday accommodation, caravan parks, camping facilities, recreational parks and the trails that have been developed, the Heysen Trail and other walking trails, around South Australia. There are small providers there. Some of those will be exempt from this legislation inasmuch as the expectations of people who use the supplies of water at these particular locations—which normally is not fit for drinking in the first place—would have other sources of drinking water.

I was interested to see, amongst the small providers, that there are approximately 10 schools utilising bore water and/or rainwater which do not have access to mains water. I lived at Kangarilla for many years and we had rainwater there and we had a small bore that we used for the garden and stock. The irony is that the Mount Bold reservoir is probably about five kilometres away, but we had to use our own sources of water, whether it was bore water or, in most cases, tank water, and in other cases there was some dam water.

There are 10 schools utilising bore and rainwater. There are approximately 25 providers for hospital/care facilities. I would not have thought that hospitals would be in any way exempt from this, and I do not believe they are, because having to provide the highest quality of water in hospitals is something that we would—

The Hon. J.D. Hill interjecting:

Dr McFETRIDGE: The minister is saying, no, they are not, and that is what I would expect, that they have to provide potable water of the highest standard.

Some of the small suppliers, the water carters, are on this list that has been given to me, and there approximately 25 providers who are water carriers. They will have obligations under this legislation. If they are taking water from a licensed supplier of water they are exempt, because the organisation they are getting it from is already complying with this legislation. It is not duplicating existing regulation and legislation just for the sake of it.

I should also point out that there are a number of examples where non-drinking water is being supplied around Australia and I think the main one is the Murray Bridge-Onkaparinga pipeline where water is coming straight out of the Murray into our catchments. That is supplying water but it is not intended to be potable water straightaway, although I know a number of people living along the River Murray would drink water straight from the Murray. I would choose not to.

The Mannum-Adelaide pipeline is in the same category, and then there is a number of small communities that I know my colleagues will speak about but I will name them. They are: Blinman, Cockburn, Hammond-Willowie, Manna Hill, Marla, Marree, Olary, Oodla Wirra, Oodnadatta, Peake Springs, Saltia Creek, South Creek, Terowie, Woolshed Flat, Woolundunga and Yunta. There are other examples further north. We have heard some issues about the Mintabie bore and the provision of water there and, also, at Glendambo.

There are some expansions of residential facilities at Meadows, just south of Adelaide, and East Wellington at the Wellington marina development. There are water reticulation systems there which are not meant for drinking. Also, and I know the member for Morialta will talk about this, in and around the Adelaide Hills at Skye there is a unique example of a number of small reticulation schemes that are of particular interest to us all.

The discussion paper on this piece of legislation continues, having highlighted the fact that we have over 500 independent drinking water supplies:

It is likely that the number of providers will increase in response to pressures associated with climate variations.

I should have said that, 22 years ago, Susan Lenehan was already talking about climate change and its effects on the water security of South Australia. So it is not new, but we seem not to learn from the past and the alerts and alarms that are being put out on a whole range of issues. The discussion paper continues:

Most of the independent suppliers are very small, but internationally it is recognised that small suppliers represent the greatest challenge—

and this is very important and what we were talking about previously, that is, the consequences of failure. So, the independent suppliers represent the greatest challenge and cause a disproportionate number of drinking water outbreaks.

I was pleased to read this legislation and see that it is not going to be too onerous. There will be risk management plans in it and model risk management plans and assistance will be made available. There will be some fees associated with it, and we will talk about those in committee. On first impression, I do not think that the fees will be too onerous because it can be worn as a badge of pride—and, also, a safety factor—that you are providing water that is not only monitored but also regulated, audited and inspected. The discussion paper continues:

It is important that mechanisms are in place to ensure that safe water is delivered and that the likelihood of failure is minimised for all suppliers, irrespective of size and location. These mechanisms need to provide clear direction to water providers to support implementation and be transparent to support public confidence in drinking water supplies. Australian drinking water regulation has been criticised as being light-handed and providing 'less certainty of compliance and less transparency and accountability'.

However, this has changed over the years. We see in Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales that legislation has been enacted to strengthen and protect the supply of fresh drinking water for the population. The discussion paper continues:

Currently, drinking water safety is regulated in South Australia under the Food Act 2001...and Food Regulations 2002...While this legislation includes a broad requirement for assuring that drinking water is fit for purpose it does not provide direction on how this requirement should be achieved or how it should be measured.

That is what this bill is all about. The discussion paper continues:

A Safe Drinking Water Bill would have two primary functions. The first is to strengthen the protection of public health by providing a robust and transparent regulatory framework for drinking water supplies. The second is to provide clear direction to drinking water providers on how to achieve safety. A Safe Drinking Water Bill would address the lack of clarity in the Food Act and Regulations and provide a consistent approach to assuring drinking water quality.

We seem to enact a lot of legislation in this place and not repeal a whole lot, but this is another piece of legislation which, I think, is very important and which will not add to the legal regulatory burden of those supplying drinking water. The discussion paper continues:

A Safe Drinking Water Bill should be based on implementing good practice as defined in the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines, including the implementation of risk management plans (RMPs) to assure safety before supply to consumers and compliance with guideline values that define drinking water quality.

Other features of the bill are:

auditing of risk management plans to make sure they are adequate;

establishing regular monitoring programs with risk management plans;

reporting results to the Department of Health;

reporting incidents, including water treatment failures and non-compliance with the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines to the Department of Health and implementing responses as agreed with the department; and

providing consumers with quality water information by publishing water quality results.

Most of these features are currently undertaken by SA Water, so this legislation will make it more open and transparent for everyone. It is proposed that the Safe Drinking Water Bill will apply to drinking water providers that are currently subject to the Food Act. It does not apply to domestic use of rainwater tanks or other private supplies. It does not include packaged or bottled water which, by international convention, is normally administered through food codes and legislation.

Businesses or others that supply water delivered by another drinking water provider (for example, accommodation premises or restaurants providing reticulated water supplied by SA Water) are not included in this. It is measured, it is targeted, and I would expect that it will deliver not just safe drinking water but also the results that we want, that is, public confidence that the drinking water is safe at all times. The consultation paper continues:

The primary benefits of the Safe Drinking Water Bill are:

protection of public health through assurance of drinking water safety;

protection against drinking water outbreaks;

provision of clear direction on how to provide safe drinking water;

improved consistency across the state for both urban and rural supplies;

increased transparency and accountability; and

improved communication and confidence in drinking water supplies.

It is a comprehensive piece of legislation. It is a good piece of legislation. I will be interested to get some clarification on some of those issues in committee. I do need to talk about some of the history of the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines which define the requirements for safe drinking water in Australia and which have a similar scope to the World Health Organisation's guides for drinking water quality.

The central component of the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines is a preventive risk management system called a 'Framework for the Management of Drinking Water Quality'. Risk management approaches are recognised nationally and internationally as best practice and essential for assuring drinking water quality. The framework is flexible and has been designed to apply to all drinking water systems irrespective of size and complexity. It has been successfully applied to communities varying in size from fewer than 20 people to capital cities.

The Department of Health has prepared generic RMPs for small groundwater and rainwater tank supplies, and the National Health and Medical Research Council has developed a software tool—the Community Water Planner—to assist operators of small community water supplies in developing risk management plans. There is assistance there for owners, operators and potential suppliers of drinking water.

I know that, a few years ago when we had the hiccup with public liability insurance, we looked at all sorts of legislation and ways around providing reasonable value for consumers of public liability insurance. We had codes of practice, we had legislation, we repealed legislation and we introduced more codes of practice. It was all over the place. What we have got here is a piece of legislation which is quite clear and which should achieve the aims, namely, ensuring public safety and safe, good quality water.

The Department of the Premier and Cabinet manages water supplies in the APY lands. They have undertaken consultation there. I know there are still some issues in the APY lands with the quality of water. That is being worked on and hopefully will be resolved. The Bed & Breakfast & Farmstay Association have been consulted extensively and they are comfortable with what we are seeing here today, and certainly the Outback Communities Authority, which includes some of the local progress associations, was included in the consultation, and I know the member for Stuart will have a bit to say about that.

The need to consult is something that we are all aware of. We did hear about the 'announce and defend' attitude of this government, but in this case I think there has been adequate consultation. You have to have adequate consultation, because the consequences of not getting this right, the consequences of an outbreak of disease through not being able to guarantee safe water, are too dire.

Can I just talk about some of the main nasties in the past. The reason I particularly want to talk about this is because as a very young high school teacher I went to Port Augusta in 1972. I arrived in a very hot summer. The water came up through the pipeline past Port Pirie and you could never get cold water out of the taps. There was always warm water in the taps. A particularly nasty little bug is an amoeba called naegleria fowlerii, and this is the cause of primary amoebic meningoencephalitis.

I had been in Port Augusta for two weeks when two young kids died from amoebic meningitis. One was a seven-year-old girl and the other was a five-year-old young boy. This was in February 1972; I had only been in town a couple of weeks and it is still quite vivid in my mind how much this affected the town. It was not the first time amoebic meningitis had been a real issue, but it really hit home, and it reminds me now of how important it is to get this right, to make sure that we do have good legislation, good regulation and good implementation of this legislation.

Can I just give a bit of an accolade to our South Australian medical researchers here. We have SAHMRI being built down the road, and I have some issues with that, but you cannot ever detract in any way from the quality of our researchers in South Australia. The amoeba naegleria fowlerii was first recognised by a clinical pathologist at the Adelaide Children's Hospital, as it was then, Dr Malcolm Fowler, in 1961. Because of the work by Dr Fowler back then, the cause of this amoebic meningitis was discovered. It was isolated and steps could be taken to try to reduce the incidence of amoebic meningitis.

It was an issue particularly around Port Pirie, Whyalla and Port Augusta, and, as I say, I certainly have vivid memories of my first month in Port Augusta in 1972, when those two young people died. You were very conscious of what you did with the water and whether you got water up your nose then, because the main source of infection was up the nose, into the nasal passages and then into the brain.

Naegleria fowlerii: I did notice that there was a type 1 incident report on the SA Water website, probably 18 months ago, when there were low flows in the River Murray. They were reporting some of the incidences there, some of the outbreaks of the algae, and in this particular case naegleria was detected around the Riverland towns. It was type 1 because it is a nasty bug, but their reaction to type 1 incidents is well documented and there was no harm caused. It is another example of how important it is to monitor. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.


[Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00]


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