(Presenter: Well my next guest thinks the Rudd Government has a pretty loose definition of urgent because 18 months ago, Anthony Albanese was then Opposition water spokesperson, promised to give urgent attention to a proposal for a water recycling project in Port Pirie. Well now he’s in Government and nothing has happened. Now that plant could save billions of litres of River Murray water so what’s the hold up? Well that’s what … Simon Birmingham wants to know … where are things at as far as you know?) Well, things don’t seem to be anywhere as far as we know. This is an issue that I and Rowan Ramsey, the Member for Grey, have been pursuing with the Government relentlessly since the last election. We went to the last election, the Liberal Party promising to put $5m on the table …a clear cut promise that would see the Nyrstar water recycling proposal for Port Pirie proceed. Unfortunately the Labor Party didn’t put such a clear cut promise of money on the table but they did at least promise urgent consideration as you say. Well, it’s certainly not been urgent insofar as I can tell from questions I ask of Senator Penny Wong … there doesn’t appear to be any consideration underway at present which is a real disappointment for the people of Port Pirie, in a project that really has great potential, not just on the water recycling front, but also from other environmental and health issues in the Pirie area. (Presenter: Now to be fair … Senator Wong did say, “Look, I might need to get some more details … before I can answer your question about what attention it has been given”. Isn’t that fair enough?) Look it’s fair enough to a point … but it’s not the first time any of us have asked about this project and I would have hoped that as the Water Minister, as a South Australian Senator, Senator Wong would be well across this project. She’s heard from Rowan about it, she’s heard from me about it, she’s heard from other members and Senators about it, I know others have been up to Port Pirie and talked about the potential of this project and that’s the great disappointment that the Government should be all across this. It is a good project, it has the potential to save some 1.35 gigalitres of water in a recycling capacity. That’s more than a …thousand billion litres of water, a huge amount that can be saved. The company is lining up looking to do this in a partnership arrangement so Nyrstar aren’t asking for the taxpayer to fund it all. The $10m project, they’re looking for the taxpayer to chip in just half of that at $5m to get this big project off the ground that will save water, save River Murray water so it’s good for the Murray, it will be good for the environment in Port Pirie and it is a key part of their lead reduction strategy in that area. (Presenter: So what’s the next step then? Because as you said, you’ve put this to Minister Penny Wong in Parliament this week and she said, “I’ll get back to you.” What’s the next step for you?) Well, the next step … is we won’t be letting up on this. So having asked some general questions in the Senate estimates process with Minister Wong, we’re now preparing a range of other specific questions around the project that we’ll put on notice to her which means they sort of go through in a paper format. Minister is required to respond to those questions within the next couple of months. It’s not as quick as I would like … but at least we know we’ll definitely get some response back there … we will keep putting the pressure on her and on the Government and … there are a range of funding processes this Government has underway at present, none of them proceeding as fast as I would like, but certainly I’ll be looking to talk to Nyrstar again about where they’re at in terms of trying to work through any of the application processes for these programs as well. (Presenter: … thanks for being with us.)