Consumers should foot the bill for new water supply infrastructure rather than appoint blame for skyrocketing water bills, a leading water sector body said yesterday.
Australian Water Association Queensland president Garth Bellingham said southeast Queenslanders could have been hailing the government as heroes had the drought not broken.
Mr Bellingham said the likely cause of increasing water bills was the state government’s $9 billion water grid pipeline investment, water recycling plants and the Gold Coast desalination plant.
He said the state-owned entities were attempting to pass on the cost of the investment.
“It is probable, or highly likely that the state government water charges are responsible for most of the increase,” Mr Bellingham said.
“However it is really difficult to slice and dice the [water] charges and look at what they used to be and what they are now in separate parts.”
Mr Bellingham said he disagreed with Lord Mayor Campbell Newman’s suggestion that the state government offset the cost of water by “writing off” at least part of southeast Queensland’s $9 billion water grid.
“I think that user-pays is fair, that the user should pay for the service that they receive and for the infrastructure that has been put in place to service what it is that they use,” he said.
Mr Bellingham said while the government’s tax base was broad enough for the “write-down”, it was not fair to ask for a benefit to be given to just southeast Queensland households.
“The investment is predominantly in southeast Queensland and I would argue that user-pays is the appropriate way for that to be covered,” he said.
“I think there is a case to manage the water changes progressively, so the pain of the increase is not too great.”
Mr Bellingham said the Queensland government had taken a big risk investing $9 billion in recycled water, water pipes and desalination plant when the southeast corner faced drought.
“If we hadn’t had drought-breaking rain, we would all be very grateful,” he said.
“We would probably think they were heroes because they had put that infrastructure in place and saved us from a disaster.”
Mr Bellingham said this could have led to a different consumer mindset.
“Perhaps we would have been happier to have paid for the increases at this stage,” he said.
Mr Bellingham said the impact of the global financial crisis has also impacted on households, businesses and government.
The Local Government Association of Queensland released a report yesterday predicting state government charges would make up about 65 per cent of water bills, resulting in a 190 per cent price hike since water reforms were introduced in 2007.
Cr Newman said costs for an average household would skyrocket from $770 this year to $1350 in 2017, according to a report commissioned by the Local Government Association of Queensland.
He asked for the State Government to “write down” the cost of the water grid in the same way that Clem7 tunnel operators, RiverCity Motorway, had “written-off”’ $1.5 billion from the tunnel’s value.
