David Fawcett (Wakefield, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to talk about the issue of water and the concern that is rightly in the community around water. Adelaide is about to move to stage 3 water restrictions in January. After a very promising start and a good early break this year, many of the growers in Wakefield—the area that I am privileged to represent—have seen the devastating effects of a lack of rain and a failure of the season. Whilst many will get their grain back, there are some that are facing crop failures. With the ongoing discussion on water, the River Murray et cetera, there is an increased awareness now as perhaps never before in the community. One of the things I have noticed, though, is that people are often still looking for a silver bullet—some single solution or policy which will fix the problem, preferably overnight. The reality is, as this House would understand, there is no silver bullet but, through taking positive steps, the issue can be addressed.

Constitutionally the federal government does not have responsibility for water, so that gives two options: you can either throw stones and blame those who do or you can take the initiative to lead and provide incentives and a way forward. That is the direction that the Howard government has chosen to take through the National Water Initiative. This is something that was signed as a blueprint for national water reform. Most governments signed it on 25 June 2004 at the Council of Australian Governments, although Tasmania and Western Australia only came on later and some as late as April of this year. The thing I would like to highlight is that this is an initiative which is having real impacts and real results on the ground.

To give you a couple of examples, Waterproofing Northern Adelaide is a $90 million project with some $38 million from the Australian government, a contribution of $21 million from local government, $16 million from state government and also $14 million from private funding. This is going to look at integrating stormwater, groundwater, wastewater and drinking water systems in northern Adelaide and the Northern Adelaide Plains region, and it includes the local government areas of Tea Tree Gully, the City of Salisbury and the City of Playford. It is going to look at capturing and cleansing stormwater in urban wetlands, aquifer storage and recovery and distribution of water for the irrigation of public spaces and industrial use, as well as innovative things like trialling a system to utilise domestic rainwater tanks to harvest water and later release it for public reuse.

Significantly, whilst this is not doing anything to put more water into the Murray, it is reducing the amount of water we are taking out of the Murray. It is doing that because we are harvesting and using stormwater that would normally be pumped out as quickly as our infrastructure could do it as ocean outfall into the Barker inlet. Waterproofing Northern Adelaide is predicted to reduce this outflow by some 20 gigalitres per year. We have already seen companies such as Michell’s, the wool processors, taking the opportunity through these schemes to replace water that they would have drawn from the Murray with stormwater. This is a very real initiative that is having outcomes on the ground.

I was pleased this week to announce over $600,000 of community water grants funding to 14 community groups within the electorate of Wakefield. Nationally the Community Water Grants program is expected to save over 9,500 megalitres each year. It comes down to local groups who have put their hands up and said, ‘We’d like to participate and make a difference to water in our community.’ Craigmore High School, for instance, have received a grant of $49,000. Through upgrading their irrigation system and using a range of innovative technologies, this project will save nearly 1.5 million litres of water a year from a school based group in the electorate of Wakefield.

Elizabeth Park Primary School, with a similar concept, is going to save over a million litres of water. In Greenock, a country town in Wakefield looking at different kinds of irrigation systems, they will also save 1.5 million litres of water. At Kapunda High School, for a grant of only $19,000, they will be installing rainwater tanks and other water harvesting schemes that will enable them to irrigate some of their school projects, as well as do things like cooling the roofs of the animal sheds in summer. This will save some 153,000 litres of water.

Lastly, I will talk about the Virginia pipeline extension, which is funded under the National Water Initiative with some $2 million from the Australian government. We are still waiting for matching funding from the state government, which will see an alternative source of water for horticultural growers in that area—

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