Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources. Would the minister advise the House how the government is helping to secure Australia’s water future—in particular, Adelaide’s water future? Are there any alternative policies, and what is the government’s response?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Boothby for his question. I recognise the very great concern he and his constituents have about the way in which water has been managed in Adelaide. The Australian government, in 2004, established the $2 billion Australian government water fund and this year established the $10 billion National Plan for Water Security, supported by the historic Water Act 2007.

The Australian government water fund has invested in the better management of more than 75 billion litres of South Australian water through projects worth, in total, $620 million. They include $38 million for Waterproofing Northern Adelaide, $2.3 million for the metropolitan Adelaide stormwater reuse project, $34 million for Waterproofing the South and $20 million for a statewide waste water recycling project, among others.

I note that in 2004 the Prime Minister offered to fund half the cost of the Glenelg waste water recycling project to save 3.8 billion litres. Three years on, the National Water Commission is still waiting on written confirmation of co-funding from the South Australian government. The problem that Adelaide faces is that it has in its Mount Lofty dam storage capacity for only about a year’s worth of water—a little less, in fact. It is dependent on the Murray every year, and in dry years dependent on the Murray for up to 80—sometimes 90—per cent of its water.

Last year we got a wake-up call in terms of the Murray River. Inflows were a little more than 50 per cent of the previous all-time low. Those inflows were literally off the charts. It became obvious then that Adelaide needs a non-climate-dependent water source and, plainly, desalination must be part of that solution.

When the Prime Minister called for iconic water projects last July from state and territory leaders, South Australia did not put forward an option to secure Adelaide’s water future. While a year later no such proposal has been put forward to us, in the five years of the Rann government, they have managed to take over $800 million of dividends out of SA Water—$800 million that should have been invested.

I was asked whether there are any alternative policies. The alternative policy is this, and it is one which is vital to the water security of Adelaide: Adelaide needs a new, non-climate-dependent water source. It needs a desalination plant, and it needs it now. I have been calling for the South Australian government to act on this for more than a year. Yesterday, Premier Rann issued a statement titled ‘Future directions in water security’, which did no more than say that it is likely that a desalination plant will be built, and that he hopes his government will make a decision before the end of the year. There is a Labor track record in water neglect. The best example of that was the Labor government in Queensland—in which the Leader of the Opposition played a leading role in 1989—which cancelled a new dam proposal for south-east Queensland, the Wolffdene Dam, crossed its fingers and prayed for rain. It rained for a few years and everything was fine. And what has happened? We find that, lacking that long-term investment, south-east Queensland is running out of water, and it is building infrastructure in a great rush and a great panic.

The lesson is clear: to secure the water supplies of Australia’s cities, we need to plan a long way ahead. All of these projects take a long time to plan and to build. We learnt this last year; Adelaide got its wake-up call last year when it saw how low those inflows from the Murray were, and they are not very good this year either. The fact is that Adelaide was given a signal from those inflows that it had to act, and Premier Rann is dragging his feet. I fear that that Labor complacency, no doubt copied from the complacency of the Leader of the Opposition when he was involved in state government, will put Adelaide in the same position in years ahead as Brisbane is in today. We need action; we need vision. We have set the example at the federal level, and the South Australian government should get on with it.