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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-09-20 Daily Xml
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Stormwater Management

The Hon. T.T. NGO (15:09): My question is to the Minister for Water and the River Murray. Will the minister provide the chamber with details around this government's commitment to funding stormwater management?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (15:09): What an excellent question from an excellent member; I thank him for it. The events we saw last week in Keswick and Brownhill Creeks, and indeed across the metropolitan area, demonstrated the destruction and loss that can occur—

The Hon. T.J. Stephens interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The minister has the floor.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The Leader of the Opposition. I think members, and ministers in particular, should realise that they do have a responsibility, being in the government, to ensure that question time can flow along to allow people to ask questions unabated. I do not need them to feed in to any interjections or to create interjections while the minister is talking.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: The events we saw last week in the Keswick and Brownhill catchments, and indeed across the metropolitan area, demonstrated the disruption and loss that can occur as the result of flooding. That is why, in the wake of these floods that have turned the lives of those South Australians affected upside down, it is so disappointing to see councils and the Liberal opposition blatantly seeking to grab a headline over this issue.

The opposition has provided absolutely no substantive policy, or even funding commitments, to the area of stormwater management. Mr Marshall has no plan for stormwater, and he actually has no plan whatsoever for floods, either. Even Mr Marshall's plan for 20 years does not have a commitment to stormwater or addressing flood risk, no plan for addressing stormwater or addressing flood risk. That is probably why he has not come out and stood up for South Australia when we were asking both federal parties, at the last federal election, to come out and support the comprehensive Brownhill Keswick Creek Stormwater Management Plan that we have now got councils to sign up to.

The state Liberals have been an absolute failure in the area of stormwater management. They have a very short memory; when they were last in government it might have been the Hon. Rob Lucas (who has now skulked out of the chamber) who slashed the funding for stormwater management to $2 million. We came into government and we immediately doubled it, and, because it is indexed, we are currently providing $5 million to the Stormwater Management Authority.

With this funding the authority has developed projects that benefit South Australians everywhere. I am advised that the authority has approved 112 projects across South Australia worth approximately $36 million to date. These include funding towards 33 metropolitan and 28 regional floodplain mapping and planning projects. Of course, the Liberal Party is not interested in any of these flood issues in the country; they only have an interest in the city, because that is where they need to win seats, they conclude, and they can ignore country South Australians. Well, we will not. That is why it includes, from us, 33 metropolitan and 28 regional flood plain mapping and planning projects and 37 metropolitan and 14 regional infrastructure work projects.

When we are able to have a productive collaboration between state, federal and local government we are able to achieve excellent results. Some of these projects over the last five years, where we have had this outstanding partnership, include:

Waterproofing the West, Stage 1 ($68.6 million);

the Adelaide Airport Stormwater Scheme ($9.8 million):

the Unity Park Biofiltration Scheme ($13.9 million);

Waterproofing Playford, Stage 2 ($20.5 million);

Waterproofing the South, Stage 2 ($29.9 million);

the Adelaide Botanic Garden First Creek Wetland and Aquifer Storage and Recovery Scheme ($10.4 Million);

the Barker Inlet Stormwater Re-use Scheme ($8.8 million); and

the Oaklands Park Stormwater Re-use Scheme ($9 million).

Through the efforts to deliver these projects across state and local governments, stormwater will be captured, cleaned and distributed for irrigation of reserves and parks and for other non-potable uses that would otherwise rely on precious drinking water. These projects address local flooding issues and remove pollutants from stormwater that would otherwise flow into urban waterways and the coastal environment.

That is why it has been very disappointing to hear, in recent days, the senseless politicisation of the $140 million Brownhill Keswick Creek project. Comments from the Mayor of Unley, Mr Lachlan Clyne (who I understand is seeking preselection soon for Isobel Redmond's seat, the seat of Heysen, I think) that 'The state government has very cleverly abdicated their responsibility far too much to local council,' are completely unhelpful and ignore the reality that stormwater management is fundamentally a council responsibility, as outlined in the Local Government Act, chapter 2, parts 7(d) and (f).

For many years the state government has been working to bring the five metropolitan councils together in order to gain agreement on the project. This is a complicated project—

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS: Point of order. I am very keen to listen to the minister, but his two ministerial colleagues seem to be having a conversation with each other and with other members, I might add. I would ask you to stop that so that I can hear the minister.

The PRESIDENT: I think it is not only members from this side; it is members from both sides.

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS: I said that.

The PRESIDENT: I think it is only a matter of respect that you allow people, and especially ministers answering questions, to do so in peace. I would also like to draw to your attention that I do hear some badgering from both sides. Minister.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Thank you, Mr President. As a particularly sensitive chap, I do need your support and protection. This is a complicated project. It requires all levels of government to cooperate and come to the party. I am glad that the five metropolitan councils have finally done so. Only one party during the federal election, the federal Labor Party, made a commitment to fund one-third of the project. Both the member for Hindmarsh, Mr Steve Georganas, and the member for Adelaide, Ms Kate Ellis, have been active and strong advocates for federal support and I commend them for their hard work on this issue.

Following the election, I wrote to the Hon. Barnaby Joyce stressing the importance of this project to mitigate the risk of flood, and seeking the commitment of the federal government. His response on 31 August provided absolutely no commitment on behalf of the federal government.

In what can only be seen as a total act of ignorance of our local situation, minister Joyce's colleague, Nicolle Flint, the member for Boothby, spoke, I understand, last week to federal parliament on these flood events, saying, 'Stormwater is an issue that the South Australian Labour government has ignored for far too long.' Talk about buck passing, Mr President. Talk about not knowing anything about the subject you are talking about. In reality, it is only this state government that has brought these councils to the table to get their agreement in recent times.

You can remember the Mayor of Unley and the Mayor of Mitcham going hammer and tongs at each other over whether to have a retention basin in Mitcham or culverts in Unley. How long did that protracted debate go on for? It was just not good enough. This state government brought them to the table, brought them to agreement, and now they have agreed on a plan of action. We need them now to put together their subsidiary, which will undertake these works, and our funding is committed.

The state Liberals, under Steven Marshall, their so-called leader for now, haven't committed a single cent to stormwater management in South Australia into the future—nothing at all. They haven't got a plan. They are not committing any funding into the future from a future Liberal government—nothing at all. They have put absolutely nothing out there to the public and nothing out there to the councils. Mr Marshall, as I said earlier, doesn't have a plan for stormwater management. He has been completely silent on this project that we all know to be vital to so many South Australians.

This government has a demonstrated track record in providing strategic policy and leadership for the state's stormwater. We recognise the ability of floods to devastate South Australia and have provided financial commitment to mitigate these risks. Mr Marshall's stony silence and policy void on this issue clearly demonstrates he is totally ignorant of these risks. As we have heard earlier, the Liberals don't care about country South Australian flooding either.

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