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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-03-09 Daily Xml
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SA Water Infrastructure

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (15:11): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the minister responsible for SA Water some questions regarding compensation and support.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: What we have seen in the last few days has been obviously devastating for up to 40 property owners in the northern suburbs. The media have indicated that they are also now questioning and challenging just what is happening in SA Water when it comes to burst water mains and the care of the victims. SA Water again today in the media called these people 'customers', but they are not 'customers', they are victims. They are victims of flooding as a result of two or three possible scenarios regarding SA water pipelines—400 millimetre pipelines in this case running alongside one house in particular.

Both the minister and SA Water continue to say that under the current act they are not responsible for compensation and support to these victims unless it is proven that negligence has occurred. Clearly, that is unacceptable and it is a cop-out that was put into the act so that SA Water and the government of the day can walk away from their responsibilities and leave these people in absolute despair. My questions therefore are:

1. Will the minister agree to bring the act into parliament so that a proper debate and restructuring of the act can occur to ensure that these victims are properly compensated as a result of, through no fault of their own, having their homes and their lives disrupted?

2. Can the minister assure the parliament that when the changeover occurred between United Water and the current outsource managers for SA Water of the day-to-day operations that there was not a dropping of the ball in relining pipes, maintaining pipes, replacing pipes and doing survey work on pipes and as a result now we are in catch-up?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (15:13): There are a number of things to be said in response to the honourable member's question for which I thank him. Of course, our immediate concern is with assisting those affected residents who are our customers—of course they are. The SA Water customer liaison team has been doorknocking properties today and will be working with residents and their insurers to ensure speedy assistance is provided where it is requested.

I reject outright the assertions made in the so-called explanation made by Hon. Mr Brokenshire. It is just a tissue, a fabrication that he uses to go out into the media and use as a platform for himself. Don't run down these people. Don't run these people down. They are incredibly resilient people. An unfortunate episode has happened in their lives and they just want to move on and get on with those lives and do the job of clean-up and get back into their homes. That is exactly what we are helping them with.

The first port of call of course is always with their private insurance companies. What the honourable member is supposedly proposing, if I am hearing him rightly, is that we should be bailing out private insurance companies that have taken the money of these residents who have booked in their insurance policies. The honourable member is here saying, 'We should be providing that relief instead of insurance companies.' He wants SA Water customers to pay more money to bail out private insurance companies. That's what he wants. I just think he has got the wrong end of the stick.

Our customers are, of course, the people we are trying to assist in this situation. We are working with them very closely and they are indeed working with their insurance companies, as I said. Two of the households I visited were very pleased with the actions of their insurance company in getting out so quickly, and the third household that I spoke to was very pleased ultimately that their insurance company came out that day as well.

It is important to understand that when a customer or an affected householder is impacted by these water mains bursts, the first response is to assure community safety. That is why there is sometimes the view that someone who may have reported a leak or a break hasn't seen someone in their street or in their driveway attending to it. It may well be because they are up at the mains, which could be one or two streets away, trying to shut down that mains in a way that means there is no further disruption to the service or, indeed, no further breaks further along that mains. It is important that we actually let people know that.

Coming to the issue of customers who may not be insured—and I have no information before me as yet as to that status; it may well be that everybody impacted has insurance, I don't yet know—as I said previously, if people find themselves in that position, we will not leave them in the lurch. We will make sure that we assist them as best we possibly can to get through this traumatic period in their lives, to clean out their homes as quickly as they possibly can, to get them reinstated so that they can go back into them.

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