TasWater plan a masterclass in weasel words

THE Australian author and historian Don Watson is renowned for calling out “public speak” and “weasel words”.

Weasel words are statements or words that are intentionally ambiguous or misleading.

It is likely that most public servants and politicians have resorted to an ambiguous turn or phrase from time to time, but the deliberately misleading statements being repeated by the State Government with respect to TasWater need to be called out.

For example, the Government is not halving the delivery of the current TasWater capital plan to five years, they will take five years from 2018, shortening the time frame by only three years at best.

They will not be responsible for removing boil-water alerts.

The prioritisation of boil-water alerts by TasWater commenced after the last federal election when it became clear that no additional funding would be provided to TasWater by the federal or state governments.

The 24 well-publicised boilwater alerts are all due to be removed by August 2018, which is around the time the State Government would take ownership of TasWater.

Having 29 owner councils does not undermine the decision-making and governance of TasWater as an independent and expert board is in place.

What it does provide for, is a high level of scrutiny of the board and the company and the ability for local ratepayers to raise issues and have them escalated by their council shareholders.

The State Government has stated that the draft legislation ensures no privatisation of TasWater once it is in their hands, but it simply requires passage of another piece of legislation by a future Government to override that, compared to getting 29 councils to agree to the sale of TasWater.

The Infrastructure Tasmania Report is being touted as proving the Government’s plan can be delivered.

However, this report has so many ifs, buts and maybes as to be almost meaningless. For example, it assumes no

The Upper House should reject the planned takeover of the state water authority, says Doug Chipman

financial constraints, does not contemplate the effect of borrowings and debt and does not provide analysis of pricing.

If the State Government’s solution relies solely on significant injections of funds from consolidated revenue, then TasWater under the current ownership model could undoubtedly also deliver the capital program over a shorter period with the same injection of funds.

This weekend the Government linked the formation of the Tamar Estuary Management Taskforce to their proposed takeover of TasWater when in reality their plans have not addressed Launceston’s combined system — other than to state it may be possible to allocate future funds to it.

The Government also knows that addressing the combined system will not, by itself, significantly improve the Tamar River’s poor health — and this has been outlined in studies already undertaken by NRM North.

Local Government is optimistic that the Legislative Council will look beyond the weasel words and undertake the necessary due diligence and consider whether the Treasurer’s plan is legal, well founded, affordable — both now and in the long-term — and is really in the best interests of all Tasmanians. Clarence Mayor Doug Chipman is the president of the Local Government Association of Tasmania.