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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-06-20 Daily Xml
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SA Water

The Hon. J.S. LEE (14:38): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Water and the River Murray a question about SA Water.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: A resident of Moonta Bay was provided a land development and connection invoice by SA Water to extend a water mains by 10 metres to service his property. It was found to be an expensive exercise. The total cost of the extension was $9,682.16, to be exact. The invoice specified that the cost directly associated with the 10-metre extension of the water mains was $7,907.86.

The resident confirmed that other property owners on his street have been provided, upon request, with quotations from SA Water for a mains extension service and yet SA Water has not made collective efforts to consult property owners on the same street about undertaking the work on a share-cost basis. The resident believes that if a share-cost structure was implemented by SA Water the quote would be potentially $4,000 to $5,000 less. My questions to the minister are:

1. Why is SA Water quoting a resident of Moonta Bay over $9,000 to provide a water service that involves extending the mains by just 10 metres of piping?

2. Does SA Water have a policy of proposing water mains to multiple property owners on the same street to ensure a sharing of costs does actually occur and, if so, why has it not been implemented in Moonta Bay?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:39): I thank the honourable member for her most important question. If she would like to raise that correspondence with me in my office, I would be happy to look into it. Of course, without having any information before me about the location and the services that are nearby—as she says, 10 metres away, but potentially the mains that needs to be extended may not be that one—and without knowing what the geology of the area is and what other services are in that area that might need to be taken care of once mains replacement or extensions are undertaken, I can't give any informative advice to the chamber about the specifics.

But it is always the case when a landowner wants a service provided to their land that they are responsible for paying for the service to be extended. The corollary, otherwise, is that all other SA Water customers would have to subsidise the extension of, in this case, a mains water extension to private property. This is no longer the case; it hasn't been for many, many years. There is cost recovery now for new participants, and they will need to pay for their own mains extensions, if that's what they are seeking.

The honourable member is asking, 'Well, why don't we go out proactively and canvass the whole area?' That's not the job of SA Water, unless it is approached. Normally, that approach would come from local government, in which case SA Water would then work proactively with the local government and the residents in the area to explore what services are required in the area in terms of current but also future population growth or future subdivision, as the case may be, depending on the site and where it is placed, and explore that with the community, as they have done.

For instance, I am thinking in terms of recent correspondence at Wirrina in terms of community wastewater treatment services, where we still have yet to land an agreement with all of the unit holders there who want to go onto SA Water wastewater services, yet they can't agree on a price because not all unit holders want to agree to that service being extended. These are some of the reasons why I can't give a detailed answer—as the honourable member can probably well expect—to the chamber today, but I am very happy, if she would like to provide me with the communication she has from her constituent, to have a look into the individual matter for her.

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