LOCAL GOVERNMENT (STORMWATER HARVESTING) AMENDMENT BILL

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: I thank all members for their contribution. There are three bills, so I will speak on the second reading closure to the first bill. I am disappointed that the lead speaker for the government basically straight out said that it will not support this bill, even though he admitted that it was well intentioned.

There is nothing more important for South Australia's future than a water supply, and one which allows us to wean most of Adelaide's water supply off water from the River Murray—not all of it, because that is not possible, and it would not be in the best interests of the state, because we would probably end up not getting sufficient irrigation water or environmental flow, either. However, as my colleague the Hon. Mr Parnell said, we could be almost independent of the River Murray if we were to get serious. We have to do a lot more.

Both of the major parties have a drought proofing Adelaide policy. One party rebadges it with a slightly different name, but both the major parties are saying, 'Hey; we've got to do something. We've got to have a waterproofing Adelaide and metropolitan area strategy.' We have introduced something in this place, and I am happy to see amendments moved in the committee stage. Fine tune it, for sure, but let us get on with it. All that seems to happen with water is talk and then knee-jerk reaction stuff.

The opposition came up with a desalination plant because the then leader of the opposition flew over to WA and had a look there, where, I might add, they have extremely different circumstances from those in South Australia. The government then said, 'No; we're not going down that track at all.' The government was just hoping that it would rain. It did not rain, so the government went on with the desal plant. How ad hoc is that? Where is a systematic, well planned water strategy?

The situation is that there are opportunities. Look at what Colin Pitman has done. For over 10 years, I have watched with interest what is going on out there in the Salisbury council area and beyond. Some fantastic and vital work is being done there, and it can be duplicated. You have to start somewhere.

This bill primarily locks in governments of the future, and this is why both the major parties do not like this, as I see it at the moment. I would love to sit down with both the major parties before we go into committee to try to work through it a bit more and see whether we can come up with some amendments that we can all agree on to get things going.

The major parties do not like having to have quarantined, transparent, locked-away money to provide vital infrastructure and opportunity. They are both the same when it comes to that. They like to be able to have general revenue, money coming in, to be able to provide for things that they think are important at the time. But, again, that is ad hoc. It might help for a term to get into government or to get back into government but it does not help the sustainability of the state.

I want to refresh the memories of honourable members briefly about this first bill which creates a plan for the government to spend the equivalent of 10 per cent of revenue from the Land Management Corporation's land sales on stormwater harvesting projects. We hear the honourable leader of government business in this council talk about the importance of planning for future subdivision—25 years, in fact—and I commend him for that. That is a great long-term initiative and we should have that sort of planning, but the south is an example right now. You go down there when parliament adjourns tomorrow and have a look.

The Land Management Corporation has either sold out or has a joint venture with development partners and, almost without exception, with that land that is being developed, the pipelines are going into creeks and the water is running straight out to the sea. Surely, it is not a big ask. You also have to lead by example. If we get this through, we are going to lock in developers to this, and I will talk about the greenfield sites later on. However, when it comes to the Land Management Corporation, 10 per cent of revenue going towards stormwater harvesting projects can help local government. Through the Liberal government, in particular, local government bodies had huge cuts in infrastructure support for stormwater and recycled aquifer storage and recovery opportunities. Those cuts were made; the money has not gone back into that, and local government is desperate.

Mayor Felicity Lewis of Marion would love to undertake a wetlands aquifer storage and recovery project in Marion where the motorbike training and development area is near the Warradale Army Barracks, but no money is available from the state government. This gives an opportunity for that money to be put into a quarantine pool to assist with this type of thing. Local government, in my opinion, has been the undoubted leader in stormwater harvesting in this state, yet people like Colin Pittman are almost ridiculed, or at best discounted, regarding their knowledge and what they have been able to deliver. The need to support local government is urgent.

This package of reforms links hand in glove with the debate on the River Murray. People all along the Murray have been signing petitions in support of stormwater harvesting (I am collating those petitions at the moment) because they realise that Adelaide needs to reduce its take from the Murray. By the way, for all that Land Management Corporation land being developed at the moment, guess where the water supply is coming from right now—the River Murray! We do not even have the water in the River Murray. These people have less sympathy for Adelaide gardens than metropolitan residents have because of the fact that they are under such severe restrictions.

I refer to some important data here. I thank my colleagues for being tolerant tonight because I know it is late but, to Family First, alternative water supplies are really important for the future of the state. In an average year, the River Murray provides 80 gigalitres (30 per cent) of Adelaide's water and 180 gigalitres (79 per cent) in drought years. Studies have shown that population growth in Adelaide between 2001 and 2031, which is what the leader of government business has been talking about in relation to planning, will account for an increased water demand of another 13 per cent.

The State Strategic Plan is to increase Adelaide's population to two million by 2050. Desalination will supposedly deliver 50 gigalitres per annum. The cost of providing desalinated water could be in the order of $4 to $6 per kilolitre. It is acknowledged that part of the Waterproofing Adelaide strategy are the Kondoparinga and North Para catchments, which are estimated to yield 12.7 gigalitres per annum at a cost of only $1.55 per kilolitre—as against $4 to $6 for desalinated water—for the Finniss River, and $2.40 per kilolitre for the North Para River. So, the cheapest of those three options—all three of which supposedly this government is investigating—is $1.55 per kilolitre, and all those options together will deliver (supposedly) 62.7 gigalitres per annum.

Let us now consider stormwater harvesting. Long-term modelling of stormwater flows indicate that there may be up to 174 gigalitres per year available for capture, storage and reuse in the Adelaide metropolitan area. I ask honourable members to absorb the next piece of this information that I and Family First see as crucial. The Finniss River, at $1.55 per kilolitre, is the cheapest delivery of water to Adelaide, and let us set aside for a moment, if we may, the environmental risks of those projects.

The average cost for aquifer storage recovery for urban stormwater, when analysed across eight different projects in Adelaide, is $1.12 per kilolitre. That is between 30 per cent to 50 per cent of the cost of producing water from a desalination plant, depending on which study you believe, and it uses 3 per cent of the energy that you are going to use in a desalination plant.

Turning now, more specifically, to the subject matter of this spiel, I want to continue on the theme of costs as they relate to local government. In 1994, in the Salisbury council area (in the Premier's electorate) the first aquifer recharge bore was trialled. New residential subdivisions in the past 10 years have been required to install wetlands to contain stormwater, which is what we are talking about in these spiels, and now the City of Salisbury has significant wetlands that not only promote biodiversity but they deliver for the environment and they deliver, of course, water.

A recent wetlands project at the Parafield Airport catchment—and I have been out there and seen it with a now federal Labor MP when he was mayor; I went with him and had a good look at it, and he is committed and passionate about this—provides 1,000 megalitres of water to Michell's for wool processing. That is one gigalitre per annum. Before that, that wool processing plant was relying on fully treated mains water to process the wool. Now waste water is supplied directly from the wetlands and the excess from that goes into aquifer storage.

Throughout metropolitan Adelaide there are 22 operational projects, and they are injecting 2,000 megalitres per year of treated stormwater into various aquifers throughout Adelaide. All of these, I understand, have been generated by local government—the whole lot by councils. Five more are in the planning stages, which will increase the injection volumes to about 3,900 megalitres per year.

The government's Waterproofing Adelaide strategy includes provision for increasing rain water and stormwater use from an estimated two gigalitres per annum in 2002 to 20 gigalitres per annum by 2025, but the government says it will not support this bill—it has these goals but no way of driving them.

Look at the maths of this: desalination, 50 gigalitres; North Para and Finniss, 12.7 gigalitres; and stormwater harvesting, 20 gigalitres. That adds up to a total of 82.7 gigalitres, yet the potential, on the science, is up to 174 gigalitres available from stormwater harvesting. If we got serious about this, if the government got serious about supporting local government's great work, we could double what Waterproofing Adelaide intends to deliver.

The government should look to Israel for inspiration. I will provide some quick data on this. When I went to Israel 10 years or so ago, I saw this and I have been passionate about it ever since, because it is equally dry but more difficult, in many ways, to be able to address stormwater harvesting than a lot of Adelaide. Israel uses an average of 1,785 gigalitres to sustain 10 million people. On that figure alone, you can see that they are far more water efficient than we are. Their water shortage is far worse than Australia's, with the Jordan River significantly more degraded than the River Murray. Israel is one of the highest users of reclaimed waste water in the world. In fact, about 80 per cent of the total water generated is wastewater.

An estimated 455 gigalitres of water is recharged into their aquifers, and it is being extracted very quickly. The quantity captured is estimated at 160 gigalitres per year. Israel also provides all its fruit, vegetables and market gardening bowl from that water. I have seen it first hand. I believe that this is a good bill, and I look forward to further debate during the committee stage.

Bill read a second time.

Search for more information on this subject, or for anything else on Family First SA’s website, by using our Google Custom Search: