Central Coast Water Corporation Bill 2006
Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: I wish to speak particularly to the Central Coast Water Corporation Bill. I am a Central Coast resident and these issues have constantly been in the headlines of our local newspapers. I have contacted the local councils and mayors and others involved to discuss their views on the matter. I thank them, and particularly Kerry Yates, the General Manager of Wyong Shire Council, for helping me to understand the view of the councils on the matter.
I was absolutely stunned to hear the recent announcement about the proposal to build the Tillegra Dam and the costs associated with that. Although I have been following the water issue for some time, I had not the slightest inclination about such an announcement. It was a surprise announcement, so much so that it was not announced in my local area at all! I do not think Premier Iemma wanted to make that announcement anywhere near the Hunter or the Central Coast. Normally when such a vast amount of money is involved, such matters become a great issue for local members. Quite a number of members in the Hunter support the Premier, but I do not think he wanted any of them around when he made the announcement.
I acknowledge the reasons for this given by members of the Opposition, but as a local citizen I was quite surprised that our local members were not involved in such an important announcement. Normally when making such an announcement the Premier would identify the vast areas of farmland to be inundated, while indicating beautifully produced copies of plans showing lovely, clear, blue water flowing over green pastures, with cows dying in the distance! But on this occasion it did not happen quite like that; indeed, no other members of Parliament were present when the announcement was made.
On the day the announcement was made I received a letter from my local member, Mr Grant McBride, the member for The Entrance. I imagine he sent a similar letter to all residents in his electorate. It was a very special letter proclaiming the initiatives of the Iemma Government for water in the Hunter. That is precisely what this letter was about. It had nothing to do with Mr McBride’s ministry of gaming and racing, or the club industry, or any other initiatives. It was all about water. In that entire letter there was no mention of a new dam. It was quite obvious that Grant McBride, one of Labor’s Ministers, was not trusted with the secret. The letter that was given to me as a resident of the area indicated that the Government would be doing such notable things as encouraging councils to increase rebates for rainwater tanks and so on. However, it omitted to refer to a proposal to build a one-billion litre dam in the area.
The Premier’s announcement was met with a great deal of resistance from the residents of the Upper Hunter, particularly local dairy farmers and those who were assured only a short time ago that it might be 20 years before such a proposal would come to light. Therefore the dairy farmers were all taken by surprise. They had put in new fencing, new milking sheds and the like, only to discover that their new facilities would shortly be inundated and the capital expenditures they had made on their property wasted. I did not hear from people in the area one word of approval for the Premier’s announcement. Of course, if I were cynical I might think that the purpose of the announcement was to detract from other events that were happening in the Hunter area, and to get reports of a Minister and related matters off the front pages of local newspapers.
Mr Ian Cohen: The Government ought to be damned, do you agree?
Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: “The Government ought to be damned,” says Mr Ian Cohen. I congratulate him on his sense of humour.
The Hon. Don Harwin: It’s the first time Mr Ian Cohen has ever advocated a dam.
Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: Yes, it is his only advocacy of a dam ever made. I simply make the point that when I wrote to or telephoned the various councillors and mayors of the local area I found that they were quite strong in their resistance to both the dam and this legislation, particularly the bill concerning the Central Coast. Over many years I have been an advocate of the wise use of water. To that end, on my very small property I have a 25,000-litre tank, a 1,000-litre tank and a 4,500-litre tank. We recycle all our water, including our grey water. We use a dam and we filter all the grey water that goes into the dam. That filtered grey water is then pumped back and, through trickle-drip, it supplies all our animals and gardens. I am quite confident that, with those provisions in place, we have more than enough water to address our needs.
I wish to raise a number of matters about the bill. Councils in general understand there are some valuable aspects to this proposal, but they do not totally agree with the legislation and have requested that a number of amendments be made to it. They want a decision-making body that is totally focused on the amount of water that is needed on the Central Coast. Everyone who lives on the Central Coast knows about the shortage of water and that our major dams are now at about 13 per cent capacity. We have immense problems with reticulation; every householder operates under severe restrictions. However, as one drives along the F3 from the Central Coast towards Sydney one cannot help but notice on the left-hand side the extensive earthworks to accommodate a massive pipe that is to come from further up in the Hunter. This will provide adequate supplies of water into the Mangrove Dam and other dams in the area.
The legislation’s focus has been upon the amount of water that will be needed in the future. Councils’ view is that the legislation should focus entirely upon people’s water needs and how that water will be used. The proposal set out in the bill involves sewerage and drainage, water use and water reticulation. Instead, the legislation should determine the source of the water and address the issue from that perspective.
The current Labor Government set up a separate headworks body for Sydney in 1998, which separated responsibility for water management and the management of water reticulation, sewerage and drainage. If such a body is good enough for Sydney, why should not the Central Coast also have one?
If it is Minister Campbell’s proposal that all water, sewerage and drainage functions, including the assets and staff, be transferred from the councils to a separate body, three separate bodies will exist on the Central Coast—the two councils and the new joint body. So that if a bloke like me wanted to install new water tanks or a reticulation system, he would need to apply to three separate bodies for approval. Of course, that will increase costs for the ratepayers because we will have to support three staffs rather than two. It will mean that ratepayers will receive separate bills and we will have to go to separate offices for water, sewerage and drainage issues. It will mean that we will have to get approval from three separate bodies to carry out any kind of development, and so on. The Minister’s proposed new body will result in a multiplication of facilities.
I wish to direct the attention of honourable members to a very sneaky feature of the bill. The proposal is that there will be a transfer of ownership all of the assets that are involved from the Central Coast ratepayers to the State Government’s coffers. That means that rather than the ratepayers being shareholders in the new water, sewerage and drainage body, all the assets would go into the coffers of the State Government and would be owned by the State Government. On the four previous occasions that the State Government has tried to take water and sewerage operations away from our two local councils on the Central Coast there has been strong resistance. The ratepayers have supported their local representatives and local councils. One of the fundamental principles of democracy is that end users must be consulted on these matters. The ratepayers on the Central Coast feel really cheesed off that they were not consulted about this bill. For example, there were no announcements about the new Tilligra Dam; no-one, including the State Government local members of Parliament, knew what was happening. It has been a very good example of non-consultation with people in the region.
History reveals that there have been five different attempts to take over the assets of the Central Coast—Wyong council’s and Gosford council’s water and sewerage supplies. Things came to a head in 2004 when Minister Sartor, in one of his more Napoleonic thrusts into empire building, instructed the two councils to examine the issue. He indicated, with a magnanimous gesture and a wave of the hand, that he would leave the final decision to the two councils and that he and the New South Wales Government were prepared to accept whatever decisions the councils might make. Now, of course, we have another Napoleon, the Hon. David Campbell, the Minister for Water Utilities, who has indicated that the councils will not have an opportunity to make a decision on behalf of the Government. The Government has seen fit not to honour the undertaking given by Minister Sartor and is now pursuing another option, contrary to the joint decisions and wishes of the two councils.
In conclusion, I say to members: Please keep in mind that the councils have opposed this bill at their own council meetings. They have written to the utilities Ministers and indicated their opposition to the bill. Therefore, this bill must be severely amended to make it acceptable to the people and councils of the Central Coast.
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Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: I spoke at great length about this yesterday and I do not propose to repeat myself. Since I spoke in the House yesterday, I have had the opportunity to speak to the mayor of Gosford. I discovered that, contrary to some of the earlier publications presented by the Gosford City Council, there appears to be a diversity of views between Wyong and Gosford councils. I am sorry about that, because the people suffer when local councils cannot agree.
The practical effect of amendments is, in the words of one person, “to denude the councils of their power to raise funds for water and sewerage services”. They will lose the power to levy service charges and to impose fees and other charges. That does not relate so much to new works. However, all councils would have some residual costs that have not yet been covered for more recent works, such as extending pipelines and so on to new housing developments, and they need that opportunity to impose a levy on water and sewerage services. Once the councils’ water distribution infrastructure is transferred to this combined corporation, they will lose the power under the Local Government Act to impose special rates and charges for water supply and reticulation because a condition for doing so is that the land is supplied with water from a water pipe provided by council. Contributions cannot be extracted under section 94 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 for public amenities or services comprising water supply and sewerage works.
I wish we did not have to vote on an issue about which there is no clear understanding of what the councils jointly want. Accordingly, the effect of the councils ceasing to be water supply authorities will be to prevent them from raising money, whether by levies or contributions, for water or sewerage services, and to restrict the power to raise money for drainage purposes. This is a very important issue on the Central Coast, where much of the land and housing development is roughly at sea level and drainage is very important. The extent to which a council will be able to impose a rate or charge for water, sewerage or drainage will depend, in the case of water and sewerage, on the extent to which the council retains its infrastructure and the proximity of the infrastructure to the land upon which the rate or charge is to be levied.
It is unfortunate that we are not getting clear guidance on this from the councils’ point of view. All we can do is represent the viewpoints of the councils, and yesterday I represented the viewpoint of Wyong Shire Council, its general manager and Mayor Bob Graham accurately and faithfully. I am inclined to think from a conservative point of view that we should support the Liberal Party’s amendments.
