Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-05-06 Daily Xml

Contents

SA Water

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (14:34): I have a supplementary question. Does the minister concede that it was his government, his ministers who actually employed and paid, with taxpayers' money, for a secret consultancy prior to the last state election with the specific purpose of looking at the privatisation of SA Water?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:35): I will tell you what I concede, and that is the fact that the Hon. Mr Lucas, when he was last treasurer in this state, ripped $170 million out of SA Water, and the comparison for us is just 70. That is what I will concede. He gouged SA Water and SA Water's customers for everything that he could get. Mr President, as you understand, this state Labor government puts that money back into concessions and statewide pricing—statewide pricing which the Liberal Party wants to get rid of.