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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-10-31 Daily Xml
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Water Security

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (15:12): A supplementary based on the minister's answer.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: Well, make him earn his money for a change. The minister has just espoused the virtues of the Desalination Plant; why then was the minister's government so opposed to any desalination plant for many years and was actually doing preparation work for a new reservoir? Why were they opposed to a desal plant?

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (15:13): I don't understand the honourable member's question. We have five or six desal plants that we have built over the years. We have desal plants all over the state. Desal plants are important parts of our infrastructure, and they have to be factored into the whole water utility: how is it most efficient to be utilised?

How is it still possible—after having a Millennium Drought when we almost ran out of drinking water for Adelaide, when SA Water was seriously considering drilling down to the lower aquifers to supply drinking water for the residents of Adelaide, when it was seriously considering finding bottled water—that the Liberal Party in this state now says, 'We don't support the desal plant, we don't support the extra 8 per cent of water that has been found for irrigators in dry allocation years'? They are saying, 'No, let's have a smaller one,' which means having an impact on those irrigators' opening allocations. The Liberal Party are saying, 'Don't give them that water.' How incredible is that?

They have absolutely no clue about how much this state depends on critical management of our water system and supply to apply a sustainable water regime into the future. That is what we have in this state, managed by this Labor government. The Liberals could not even come up with a policy.

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