Media Release

Peter Gutwein MP
Shadow Treasurer

Friday 15th January 2010

Government must adopt Libs water and sewerage policy

The resignation of another senior executive from the new water and sewerage corporations highlights the need for the Liberals’ policy of an urgent review of the entire structure of the water and sewerage changes.

The Labor Government have already admitted that they got water and sewerage reforms terribly wrong and have been forced to commit nearly $60 million over the next three years to make their changes more palatable.

To try and dig themselves out of a hole, the Government committed taxpayers’ money to fund refunds for taxpayers. Effectively, Tasmanians will be no better off, because they will ultimately be the ones paying for the refunds anyway.

What’s worse is that the Government’s proposal will cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars without actually fixing the problem and the Government won’t even review the situation until 2012-13.

This is not a sensible or prudent way forward.

The review must be conducted this year. It needs to be a root and branch examination that considers the corporate structure and what efficiencies may be able to be achieved, how best to access federal government assistance and importantly how to move forward without financially crippling many ordinary Tasmanians.

A Hodgman Liberal Government will conduct an immediate review, freeze water and sewerage bills in 2010-11, make sure prices don’t rise by more than 5% during our first term and provide grants to assist people to take steps themselves to reduce their own water and sewerage bills.

The government knows they got this wrong. They hid information that was key to understanding the cost of these reforms and now they are content to throw taxpayers funds to dig themselves out of a hole without dealing with the underlining issues. If the Government is allowed to continue on this track Tasmanians may not be able to afford the Government’s water and sewerage changes.