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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-08-29 Daily Xml
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Tea Tree Gully Community Wastewater Management System

Ms SAVVAS (Newland) (15:22): It has been a little while since I have had the opportunity to speak to the house about my most significant election commitment, and that is, of course, the transition of 4,700 homes in my community (4,000 of those in my electorate) from the Tea Tree Gully CWMS onto SA Water mains.

It was just a few years ago in 2020 when it was the Labor Party who first committed—the only party who fully committed—to fully cost a transition onto SA Water mains for the 4,700 homes in Tea Tree Gully that had been on septic tanks for a very long time, some for upwards of 40 years.

A couple of days after the Labor opposition (at the time) made that commitment, of course the Liberal government of the day made a commitment. That commitment was not a fully costed plan, and they did not commit to scrap the $745 CWMS levy that residents in my community were paying for the great pleasure of being on a rural-style system in a metropolitan area.

That was a huge commitment for me, and I spent many, many months knocking on the door of every house in Tea Tree Gully that was on the CWMS, not just explaining what our commitment would be but comparing the differences between one election commitment and the other commitment that had started progressing under the former Liberal government.

We were elected, and on 1 July 2022 the Tea Tree Gully Community Wastewater Management System was officially transferred over to SA Water management and ownership, which meant that everyone in my community was paying SA Water rates for the first time, even if they had not yet been physically transitioned onto SA Water mains.

It has been a huge project. Last week, we held another community forum in my electorate at the wonderful Modbury Bowling Club for residents on the system, those who perhaps are in the process of being transitioned and some who have already been transitioned to come along and ask questions of a number of individuals. We were joined by the new minister responsible for SA Water, Minister Champion. It was a really good opportunity for him to hear directly from residents on the system. We were also joined by the SA Water chief executive, David Ryan.

We were joined by Minister Boyer in his capacity as the member for Wright, and we were also joined by Ellie. Ellie is the senior stakeholder manager at SA Water with a specific focus on CWMS in Tea Tree Gully. She gave a really comprehensive presentation about the transition project and of course was there to answer questions as well. We were also joined by Tanya, Anna and Chas from SA Water, who answered specific questions relating to the property transition. I myself of course answered lots of specific questions about commitments, about road resurfacing, about on-property works and about the staged model and why we have made the decisions that we have to stage it in the way that we have.

As I have discussed in this place before, in Tea Tree Gully there are around 76 different systems of septic all connecting into those 4,700 homes. As a result of that, we have split the transition project into 36 different stages of transition. It is incredibly complex, and a lot of the time it is nonsensical because there are streets where there is a house on SA Water, then a house on septic tank, then a house on SA Water, and so on. There are other streets where there will be one house on septic, then a couple of hundred, for example, on SA Water, and then some more septic at the end. There were anomalies where some individuals were paying the septic levy and SA Water rates because there was a main passing out the front of their home.

It has, surprisingly—and touch wood that it continues to be so—been a really successful project with huge customer satisfaction. The SA Water CE was able to present to us that we are still sitting at a 95 per cent satisfaction rating with respect to the transition of houses, which is incredible for the amount of work that is being done and, of course, the hugely invasive piece in terms of going into people's front and back yards as well as their streets, schools and sports clubs, just being out and about in the community and all the road disruptions that come with that.

At present, we have transitioned over 900 homes, and I am so incredibly proud that we have managed to get to that number in the space of about three years. It has been a really huge project, and we have learned so much from those first 900 homes that we have done. I am looking forward to celebrating the 1,000th home and continuing the transition of the next 3,000 or so homes from the Tea Tree Gully CWMS system onto SA Water mains in Tea Tree Gully.

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