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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-04-08 Daily Xml
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WATER RESTRICTIONS

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. M.C. Parnell:

That this council—

1. Notes—

(a) the increasing frustration of South Australians with the inequity of household water restrictions that limit outside use, whilst allowing unlimited use within the home;

(b) the significant potential for abuse of water restriction rules and the reliance of householders dobbing in their neighbours as an enforcement strategy;

(c) the increasing need to reduce water demand in the face of the declining health of the River Murray which supplies up to 90% of Adelaide's potable water during dry years; and

(d) that those with access to the quaternary aquifer that underlies the Adelaide plains are able to extract unlimited amounts of water for domestic use; and.

2. Calls on the government to—

(a) replace the water restriction regime with a household allocation based on occupancy and quarterly meter readings to allow citizens to choose where and how they use their water;

(b) prescribe the quaternary aquifer beneath Adelaide and include domestic bore extraction within the household allocation, whilst continuing to exclude water sourced from rainwater tanks to encourage the uptake of domestic rainwater collection systems; and

(c) change the water pricing structure by increasing the volumetric costs and reducing other charges to provide more incentive for water users to reduce their demand.

(Continued from 26 November 2008. Page 936.)

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY (17:56): I rise to support the motion of the Hon. Mark Parnell, although I would like to make a few comments regarding the particular terms he has raised in his motion. I am one of the very frustrated South Australians referred to in the text of the motion who just do not understand how the current regime of water restrictions encourages people to use less water. It is ridiculous that a person can be penalised for watering their garden, yet can use their washing machine or dishwasher or leave the tap running all day without penalty.

I have some concerns regarding the idea of replacing the water restriction regime with a household allocation based on occupancy. I refer to the absolute disaster created by the Thatcher regime in the UK in the early 1990s, when she tried to use a poll tax based on the occupancy of dwellings. There were mass riots and political commentators attribute Thatcher's resignation eight months later to the uproar over the tax. It would be difficult to keep track of who was living in which dwelling at any one time.

A better way of working out how much water households use was outlined by Professor Mike Young on radio earlier this year, using the quarterly billing cycle we are now subjected to in South Australia as a means of determining an accurate reading of household water usage. His idea (and I paraphrase) was, first, to work out the true household water consumption by taking the average domestic water consumption per day over the winter quarter, when presumably people are not watering their gardens, and multiplying this by 365 to give an average household daily water usage figure. Any water over this amount could be bought at a premium cost for watering gardens. If people did not use their full household allocation they could sell it to someone else who wanted to use more water. This seems to be a commonsense approach to water usage, one that encourages people to think about how much water they use.

On the issue of including bore extraction, any charges for water extraction should exclude the cost of installation and maintenance of infrastructure paid for by the owner. I am supportive also of the suggestion of changing the whole water pricing structure by increasing the volumetric cost and reducing other charges to provide more incentive for water users to reduce their demand, so long as it is based on the actual cost of supplying and maintaining infrastructure and the cost of supplying water. I hope this motion prompts a more commonsense approach to water policy that does not take into account the drought situation that we are experiencing now but, rather, the water situation well into the future.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. B.V. Finnigan.

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