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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-04-03 Daily Xml
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WATER INDUSTRY BILL

Final Stages

Consideration in committee of the Legislative Council's amendments.

(Continued from 14 March 2012.)

Amendments Nos 1 to 11:

The Hon. P. CAICA: I move:

That the Legislative Council's amendments Nos 1 to 11 be agreed to.

I would like to make a couple of general comments on these amendments. I appreciate the work that was undertaken by the other place with respect to the series of amendments that it moved up there, and the genuineness in which those matters were dealt with. I would say, in a general sense, that I think amendments Nos 1 to 11 add to the bill. I also think—and it would be remiss of me not to say this—that they were not as good as they could be, and were misguided in some areas. But notwithstanding that, I am willing to accept those amendments on the basis of the best interests of the state in getting this bill through. I am happy to inform the House of Assembly that we do agree to amendments Nos 1 to 11 made by the Legislative Council.

Mr WILLIAMS: The opposition is delighted that the government has seen the light on a number of matters. Most of these amendments were previously debated in this chamber, and I am delighted that the government has now seen that they are sensible amendments, and that they will indeed make this a better bill. Unfortunately, not all of the amendments that were proposed by the opposition were successful in the other place, but the opposition believes that it will have further opportunities in the future to address that particular matter.

In particular, I thank the minister for agreeing to these amendments. Some of them are not of great import, some of them are of a technical nature, but some of them are of significant import and, as I have said, I am pleased that they are now going to be agreed to by this place as well.

Motion carried.

Amendment No. 12:

The Hon. P. CAICA: I move:

That the House of Assembly disagrees with amendment No 12 made by the Legislative Council but makes the following alternative amendment in lieu thereof:

New clause, page 71, after line 23—Insert:

96A—Report on installation of separate meters on properties

(1) The Commission must undertake a cost benefit analysis of implementing a scheme designed to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that—

(a) all land—

(i) that is owned by the South Australian Housing Trust or another agency or instrumentality of the Crown; and

(ii) that is owned by the South Australian Housing Trust or another agency or instrumentality of the Crown; and

(iii) that is used for residential purposes; and

(iv) that is supplied with water by a water industry entity as part of a reticulated water system; and

(b) any other land the Commission determines to include in the analysis,

will have a meter that records the amount of water supplied to that piece of land.

(2) The scheme for the purposes of the analysis must address—

(a) the fitting of meters to premises existing at the time of the publication of the report (insofar as meters are not fitted); and

(b) the fitting of meters to premises constructed after the publication of the report.

(3) The Commission must prepare and publish a report on the analysis by 30 June 2013.

Mr WILLIAMS: I indicate that the opposition will be supporting the government's proposal to oppose amendment No. 12 as put forward by the other place and, in lieu of that amendment, to support the new amendment No. 12 as proposed by the minister. I want to explain the opposition's position on this matter and, in doing so, I will have to go back over the history of what has occurred.

This proposed amendment—and I think it was by the Family First Party in the other place—would have obligated Housing SA to have separate meters installed in all Housing SA residences. There are a significant number of Housing SA properties, particularly flats and units, which are quite often supplied with just one meter or, in some instances, a couple of meters, although there would be many individual residences there, and the bill is spread amongst the residences. This came about some years ago because, traditionally, Housing Trust tenants paid their rental, which also covered their water account. So, they paid their rental, which would be up to 25 per cent of their income, and that covered their water charges as well, unless they had excess water usage, and I understand there was another charge made to cover excess water.

Some years ago (probably four or five years), the government introduced a new water charge for Housing Trust tenants. The opposition's position at the time was that it did not necessarily support that new charge. This was a government which came into office in 2002 promising that there would be no new taxes or above CPI increases in existing taxes and then set about introducing new taxes and charges, and this is just one of them—it imposed a new water charge on Housing Trust.

At the time, the opposition argued that was going against one of the promises of the government. Notwithstanding that, it further argued that it was unconscionable to impose this charge on a tenant where it could not accurately be determined how much water the tenant actually used. Our argument was that, if the government was going to impose this charge, there should be a program to install separate meters on all Housing Trust tenancies. So, that was the situation and my understanding is that is the policy the opposition took to the last election and expressed in its election manifesto. The opposition believes that if you are going to charge somebody for water that you should be able to accurately measure how much water they are using.

I move on a little bit further. The Water Industry Bill before this parliament, amongst other things, repealed the Waterworks Act and a number of other acts, set the powers necessary to manage water supply, created a new series of identities called water industry identities and set up the whole management regime. As I said, the bill went through this house with a number of amendments proposed. Family First, in the other place, also proposed a number of amendments, and I think the Greens and other Independents and minor parties might have proposed other amendments as well.

The amendment Family First proposed reflected, very closely, the position the opposition has had for some years. It reflected this notion, or principle, that if you are going to impose a new charge on somebody you should actually put a meter on their dwelling to collect that charge. The government approached the opposition last week and argued that, notwithstanding that this matter had been through the other place and it reflected the opposition's policy, the cost of imposing this could be—and the figures given to me were—at the low end, $18 million, and at the high end possibly over $40 million.

It is a little disappointing that I do not have more accurate figures than that, but these are the figures that were given to me. Some of those figures are historic, they in fact go back to 2007, which probably indicates when this whole matter occurred; that is, the matter of new charges. I understand that Housing SA pays to SA Water several millions of dollars more for water than it actually collects from its tenants. There is already a deficit there and this amendment, if it were accepted here, would impose a further significant cost. At the end of the day, that cost would be borne by the people of South Australia, they would be the ones who would bear it. The individual tenants, obviously, are, by and large, low-income families. Their rental is capped and it is probably arguable that a substantial amount of money running into tens of millions of dollars would not be recouped from the tenants themselves and the cost would, in fact, fall back to the general taxpayer.

The opposition, in light of that further evidence, has rethought its position and certainly agrees with the proposal put forward by the government that ESCOSA be charged with preparing a report on the installation of separate water meters on Housing SA properties. The opposition believes this is a fair and reasonable compromise.

At the end of the day, we still support the principle that, when this new water charge was imposed, there should have been metering to go along with it, but we also support the proposition that a proper cost analysis of the proposal would better inform us. I guess we would then be in a better position to debate whether it was worth going ahead with the proposal or, if there was going to be a substantial cost to the taxpayer, whether we may well be better off spending that elsewhere.

That just gives a little bit of the background. The opposition, as I point out, still hold the principle that we disagreed at the time with the new charge. We still disagree with that, particularly where there are no meters to accurately measure it, but we support the government's proposal as a compromise so that we can move ahead with this particular piece of legislation.

The Hon. P. CAICA: I thank the honourable member for his contribution. I am not going to recap some of the comments that were made earlier about his perception, many years ago, about what was being done for what reason and whether or not they supported it at that point in time because it is completely irrelevant to this particular amendment.

What I would say is that the government does understand the importance of this issue and acknowledges that meters have the potential to offer better feedback about customers' water use. However, the government also believes that any assessment of metering and any final decision on how to proceed must take place within a more explicit cost-benefit framework. Therefore, that is the very reason that we have filed this amendment to clause 96A.

As was pointed out, under this particular proposal there would still be a report by ESCOSA published by 30 June 2013, but there would be a more explicit emphasis on the cost-benefit analysis. I am very pleased that, to that extent, the opposition—notwithstanding the position that it previously had and, as the member states, still has—has agreed to a report being compiled by ESCOSA that will assess the costs and benefits of installing meters in the cases outlined in Mr Brokenshire's original subclauses (1)(a) to (d) but would also assess any other case that ESCOSA determines to include in the analysis.

In line with Mr Brokenshire's original subclauses, the report would also have specific regard to the costs and benefits of installing meters in new properties or developments as well as the costs and benefits of retrofitting existing properties. In the government's view, its alternative proposal for clause 96A is consistent with the spirit of what was proposed by the Hon. Mr Brokenshire in another place, but does not in any way seek to pre-empt or, indeed, to suggest an outcome. I thank the opposition for its support of this proposed amendment.

Motion carried.

Amendments Nos 13 to 16:

The Hon. P. CAICA: I move:

That the Legislative Council's amendments Nos 13 to 16 be agreed to.

Just to conclude my comments in this regard, the same applies as I said before. I was very interested to hear the Deputy Leader of the Opposition say that he is pleased that the government has seen wisdom in the amendments that were proposed by the Liberal Party. I do not think I said that. I think what I said is that, in some areas, some of those amendments were an improvement and we accept that, but in the main, we are accepting all those amendments en bloc in the interest of getting this very important bill through on behalf the people of South Australia.

Mr WILLIAMS: I thank the minister and the government for agreeing to these amendments. I think I am right in saying that this block of amendments is the one which changes the application of the River Murray levy. I am very pleased to have the government agree to that. Again, this was another of those measures introduced by the government early in its term in spite of its rhetoric that it would not impose new taxes—indeed, what it did was impose new taxes and call them levies.

The River Murray levy I think has been reasonably well accepted by a number of people in South Australia who understood, particularly during the millennium drought, the dire situation of the River Murray, but it was never accepted particularly in parts of South Australia that had no connection with the River Murray. We will be debating the River Murray in the house shortly, according to the Premier's desire.

About 90 per cent of South Australians are, in one way or another, connected to the River Murray and rely on it for water supply. There are a small number of South Australians obviously who do not, and some of those live in places—indeed, some of those places are in my electorate in the mid and Lower South-East—where the pipeline that heads in that direction from the River Murray goes as far as Keith but no further east or south. There was a huge outcry from and much chagrin felt by the people of the City of Mount Gambier over the measure to impose the River Murray levy on them. The Far North of the state, and I have always thought of it as—

Mr PEGLER: I have a point of order. The member for MacKillop is debating amendments 13 to 16 and the amendment was actually No. 11 which has already been passed.

The ACTING CHAIR (Hon. M.J. Wright): I ask the deputy leader to return to 13 to 16.

Mr WILLIAMS: Thank you, and that is a very important point of order. I can always come back at the third reading and make the same comment, but I think it will probably expedite the matter through the house—

The ACTING CHAIR (Hon. M.J. Wright): There is no third reading on amendments.

Mr WILLIAMS: —if the committee will indulge to complete my comments now. I was just about to say that it has always seemed an absurdity to me that people in the Far North of the state were paying the River Murray levy when they were being supplied by SA Water with substandard water, or water which was not of a potable standard, which obviously never came from the River Murray. It always fascinated me—

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: I am fixing it up, we are fixing it up—Paul and I are fixing it up right now. Again, there are citizens of the state in places like Kangaroo Island which have absolutely no connection to the River Murray and could not, even by modifying their water use, have any impact on the amount of water taken from the River Murray. I am delighted that after a significant number of years we have some sanity back into that little part of this legislation, and I commend the amendments to the committee and thank the government for supporting them.

The Hon. P. CAICA: I thank the member for Mount Gambier for highlighting what it was that I would have referred to after the honourable member had finished—that he was debating an amendment that was previously passed. I cannot let it go, given his comments there, without at the very least responding to them, sir, so I would ask that you indulge me.

The government believes this amendment to be untimely and short-sighted and that it sends out completely the wrong message to upstream states about our commitment to restoring the Murray-Darling Basin to a sustainable level of health. As I said earlier, having said that and said it previously, and knowing the numbers are against on this in the other place, the government reluctantly accepts the amendments in the interests of getting the legislation through.

Motion carried.

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