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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-05-13 Daily Xml
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Question Time

SA Water Bills

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:13): My question is to the Premier. Will the Premier reverse his government's increase to South Australian water bills? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: The former Liberal government slashed water bills by more than $200 for households and $1,350 for small businesses. At the last state budget, this Labor government announced an—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: Sorry—I do have leave.

The SPEAKER: The Minister for Education is warned.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: At the last state budget, this Labor government announced an increase of 3.5 per cent above CPI would be applied to all South Australian households and small businesses, costing the average household an extra $85, and the average business $350.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:14): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. The Leader of the Opposition references the decision that we have made as a government around water pricing that reflects the challenge that exists within the community around a major housing crisis and shortfall of housing. The Leader of the Opposition would be well familiar with how urgent this need is.

We have one of the lowest rental vacancies in the country, if not the lowest rental vacancy of any mainland capital city. The reason for that is that we need to build more homes. We need to build more homes for more South Australians, and I am particularly thinking about young South Australians who should be entitled to have the same aspiration as so many of their parents.

One of the reasons why we have a shortage of housing supply though in South Australia is because we just haven't been getting enough water to the places where homes can be built. The reason in South Australia why water hasn't been getting to the places where homes can be built is because, under the leadership of the former government, of which the Leader of the Opposition was a member of cabinet—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: Mr Speaker, they have asked the question and I am trying to give the answer in the most sincere and honest terms. The former government had relegated investment in water infrastructure to $150 million. So they ran around to South Australians and tried to make a virtue of lower water prices and were simultaneously failing to explain to anybody how they were paying for it. They were paying for it by only delivering $150 million of new money in new water infrastructure.

Now, in the parliament today we see a lot of young faces, and I would have thought it would require a degree of courage and honesty on behalf of the opposition to look those young people in the eye and say, 'We were chasing votes while denying you the ability to own a home.' That is not something that this government is willing to contemplate. We are going to deliver the water infrastructure.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Members on my left will come to order.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: We are going to make sure that the land that we release, the record amounts of land that we are releasing, in conjunction with thoughtful code amendments and in conjunction with the Housing Roadmap, also sees a plan to deliver the water infrastructure, because you can't build a home without sewer and water, so we are going to deliver both. That, of course, means it needs to be paid for.

We sat down with industry and other representatives of various groups around the state and crafted a thoughtful policy to make sure that we can take that $150 million that you were spending on water infrastructure and take it up to over $1.5 billion, a tenfold increase. We have done that by assuming some of the cost within the budget, assuming some of the cost on developers and then assuming some of the cost on a $20-odd increase to the average quarterly water bill.

We do that because this is a government that isn't going to kick the can down the road on the tough decisions that need to be made to make sure that young people have the prospect of owning a home. You talk about the housing crisis and have blind indifference to actually doing anything about it, and we won't.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: I remind members on both sides that interjections are disorderly.

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