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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-10-31 Daily Xml
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Allwater Joint Venture

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (15:18): My question is directed to the Minister for Water and the River Murray. Has the minister now checked—if the Labor government or the Labor Party was re-elected in March 2018—on what the length of the Allwater joint venture is, and what is the first date on which the government would have the option, if it chose to do so, to end the outsourcing contract without penalty and ensure the function is delivered by staff within its proposed E&WS department?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (15:19): I thank the honourable member for his most important question, which gives me another opportunity to stand in this place and point out the gaping hole that exists in the Liberal Party's plan to privatise SA Water. Here we have a party that trots out a spokesperson on the weekend who says, 'If the Liberals get elected to government, we are going to have a review and have a look at SA Water and see what it can tell us.'

We know what reviews mean for new governments: they are looking for an excuse—Liberal governments in particular—to get out of the promises that they have made in the lead-up to the election. This is what we see with the Liberals time and time again and this is what we see foreshadowed just this last weekend. They are actually going to go to the election promising the electorate, 'No, no—trust us this time. I know we promised last time when we said we will never sell ETSA that we won't sell ETSA and then we did four months after winning the election, but trust us this time. We promise we will be different. We have learnt our lesson. We are not going to privatise SA Water—hand on our hearts—you can trust us this time,' and, of course, they will be leading the electorate along.

Then they are going to have a review in which, surprise, surprise, they will handpick their reviewer and the review will say, 'You should privatise SA Water.' That's what they will do. We know the Liberals, when they were last in government, corporatised SA Water. They set it up for privatisation. They know they don't have to bring it back to the parliament. They are just sitting on this because they know, should they win the next election, regardless of the promises that they made to the electorate, they will have a review that throws up something new—it will be some great black hole or something or other. We can predict it now. We can predict exactly what they are going to say and because of that they will say, 'We have to go back on what we said. I am very sorry about that. They made us do it,' and go off and privatise SA Water. That's what their plans are. We know and it has been flagged now by the spokesperson on the weekend.

Again, we have the architect of privatisation over there, the Hon. Mr Lucas. Besides being the architect of closing down schools in this state—I have forgotten, the Hon. Mr Lucas: was it 71 schools you closed when you were last in government? It was also the Hon. Mr Lucas who privatised ETSA as Treasurer. We have this honourable gentleman in this place now trying to say to South Australians, 'Trust us. You can trust us this time.

We have learnt our lesson about privatisation. Remember when we told you that when we privatised ETSA prices will come down?' That's what the Liberals said, 'We will privatise ETSA and prices will come down because the private sector can run utilities much better than the government.' That's what the Liberals said. Lo and behold, have our prices come down for electricity, Mr President? Have they come down, I ask you? You can nod if you like, or shake your head in disbelief—because of course they haven't come down. Yet, compare and contrast that to SA Water in government hands, and what has happened? Bills have come down through two ESCOSA—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Are you saying ESCOSA is wrong? Are you now attacking ESCOSA?

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Let's have a look. In the first regulatory period bills came down, an average bill by $44. In the second regulatory period, how much did bills come down by? Hon. Mr Wade, you know this answer? $71 on an average bill.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Then we took the Save the River Murray Levy off businesses and households. On households it was about $40. So just with those three figures, you know the bills have come down. Average bills on water and sewerage have come down over the last two regulatory periods by $171, in government control. Contrast that with ETSA when the Liberals privatised it, and prices went through the roof—ask anybody. I think I have an answer for the honourable member, in fact, in here. 'We blame the ETSA sale' in the Advertiser on the front page—the majority of South Australians say that 'privatisation is at fault'.

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: Point of order, Mr President: the minister should know better than anyone else that you can't display materials in the chamber. He is out of order.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! Will you allow the minister to finish his answer? There are a number of people here who would like a question. Allow him to finish his answer. Will the Leader of the Opposition and the Hon. Ms Lensink try to calm down their interjections?

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Calm down your interjections. Minister, have you finished?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: I apologise to the chamber if the Hon. Mr Brokenshire thought I was using a prop. Of course I was just reading the front page of the paper where it says, 'A majority say privatisation is at fault. We blame the ETSA sale.' Who was the architect of the ETSA sale?

Members interjecting:

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Indeed, Mr President. We can all point to the Hon. Rob Lucas across the chamber. That is probably unparliamentary. Perhaps we can just glance in his general direction. Not only did this bloke, the Hon. Mr Lucas, close 71 schools when he was last in government—I think was 71; I will stand to be corrected on that.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: It is wrong, is it? Okay, it was about 61 then.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. K.J. Maher interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Will the Leader of the Government please desist?

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: I would like to hear him answer the question. The honourable minister.

An honourable member: Start again.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: I will start again. We have the Hon. Rob Lucas come in and ask about contracts from SA Water, which was exactly the corporatisation of SA Water that the Hon. Mr Lucas's government put in place. It was to fatten the calf for sale. We all know that. If you take away a government instrumentality, which was the E&WS, and you corporatise it and you set it out there, and you take away any power of parliament to have a say in its privatisation, you know what was on their minds.

You know that was what they were going to get to next. They had already privatised ETSA and they had on their minds, 'Let's corporatise SA Water and get it ready to sell it off to our mates in the big business who will let it go off to the big banks and borrow some money.' Of course, they borrow that money at interest rates so you have to go back to the population and say, 'I'm sorry—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: —we now have to put our prices up because we have to pay ourselves fat director fees and pay the bank interest rates as well.' That is what privatisation gets you—increased prices, increased bills and worse services to the point where people in South Australia blame the ETSA sale on all the problems we have in the energy sector. Of course they blame the Hon. Rob Lucas and the Liberal Party for delivering that outcome to our state. Why on earth would they trust anything the Liberals have to say about promising about SA Water?

Why on earth would any South Australian absolutely trust the Liberals when they say, 'Hands on our hearts, we will not privatise SA Water.' We know that is exactly what they intend to do. They've got their own private plans. They are not producing them. We know they've got them in their hip pocket, ready to roll, after they have David Speirs' review.

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