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

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (15:32): I rise on this matter of interest to place on the public record my disappointment and frustration to the Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation and Minister for Water. I am fairly thick-skinned these days, and you have to be when you keep getting responses that are half-baked, such as those we get from minister Hunter. The reality is that we have an obligation to ask questions, sometimes difficult questions, and in response the ministers have an obligation to answer the specifics of our questions. Unfortunately, that rarely happens with minister Hunter.

Today, when I asked minister Hunter questions about the people in the northern suburbs we all feel very sorry for and our hearts go out to—the 40 owners, and their families, of flooded homes—I asked those questions with genuine intent because those people are suffering hardship and I believe that what we have at the moment, with respect to the act and the attitude of SA Water, is totally unacceptable to those people. You would have thought that every effort should be made by SA Water and the government to support those people.

We have heard those people crying out in frustration. We know how difficult it is for them. There is quite an extensive story in the paper today about someone involved in another flood event from a burst mains with SA Water who seven weeks later is still not back in their own home. Those people should not be out of pocket. Even at home, and we do not like it, at times as an irrigator we get burst mains on our farm, and the fact is that we have to deal with them because we are the owner and we have to meet the cost and fix them—and that is the case with SA Water. If a main bursts between the meter and the home or within the home, that is a different situation and, clearly, it should then be the responsibility of the property owner and their insurance company.

For this minister to turn around and say that, because I advocate reconsidering what the act currently says and looking at the negligence issue of SA Water, what I am doing is advocating for an increase in costs to every water consumer is incorrect and unfair. That is not what I am advocating: what I am advocating is a fair go for these people.

The fact of the matter is that the reason our water costs are so high now is that this government has taken too much money out of SA Water over the years and actually artificially inflated the overall value of SA Water's assets. Therefore, every consumer is paying more money for water than they should, because of this government not managing its overall global budget but using SA Water to top up their budget at the expense of consumers.

Whether it is about NRM water levies or the issues around compensation, support, due care and consideration for these people we really feel sorry for in these affected homes at the moment, as a member of parliament, I will continue to ask the minister questions and I ask the minister, instead of just using spin and rhetoric from his advisers and from his departments and agencies, to actually listen to the questions.

There are normally only two or three questions at the end of an explanation. I ask the minister to listen to those questions and actually respond to the questions. I asked the minister whether or not they dropped the ball on pipeline maintenance and repair and replacement when they changed providers for the day-to-day management for a year. I know they did drop the ball. I asked that question and he just ignored it.

I do not think it is appropriate for ministers to ignore questions simply because it might embarrass them, or put the government under pressure or expose the facts. That is what question time is about. It should not be about Dorothy Dixers: it should be about questions without notice and we should be entitled to decent answers on behalf of our constituents.

I ask all ministers, and particularly minister Hunter, to listen for once to what we are trying to do in a fair, proper and democratic Westminster parliamentary system as legislative councillors: to put the ministers under scrutiny and have the ministers respond wherever possible with specific answers immediately and, if they do not, to bring back an answer to the chamber or to the individual member or both within a short period of time, not leaving questions unanswered from 2014 until today, as the Hon. John Darley had to cope with yesterday.

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