The NSW Water Minister Melinda Pavey has accused me of "wasting staff time and taxpayer money" in trying to make public documents relating to the current review of the Lower Hunter Water Plan after Hunter Water spent 450 hours and $320,000 to comply with Parliament's order for information ('Waste water', Newcastle Herald 16/10).
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The cost of the documents in the 21 boxes provided by Hunter Water comes in at a cost of $3.76 per page or more than $15,000 per archive box (ie. not very large ones).
The minister has asked whether this is really the best way to use taxpayer money. Here's my answer.
The review of the Lower Hunter Water Plan could result in billions of dollars in expenditure on new water infrastructure and that spending will be clawed back on local water bills. A plan for the future water supply for one of NSW's largest and fastest growing areas should be grounded in science, with projects going through rigorous cost/benefit analysis and subject to transparent public consultation.
The fact that it took this amount of time and money for Hunter Water to do this task is the very reason it was necessary. Why aren't many of these documents already on the public record? Why have so many of the documents been labelled as privileged and only available for members of Parliament to read? If there are so many related documents, why are the current published summaries of the options being considered as part of the Lower Hunter Water Plan review so lacking in detail?
The fact that it took this amount of time and money for Hunter Water to do this task is the very reason it was necessary.
The Hunter community has been here before. Tens of millions of dollars were wasted on the failed Tillegra Dam proposal because the NSW government and Hunter Water didn't do the preparatory work. They didn't consult the community properly and the project was found to have massive holes in terms of costs, environmental impacts, social impacts and geotechnical challenges.
That fiasco led to the development of the 2014 Lower Hunter Water Plan which, after detailed community consultation, specifically ruled out new dams to support Lower Hunter water supply, instead favouring water efficiency, recycling, stormwater harvesting and a portable desalination plant.
Six years on, after the second frightening drought in less than 20 years, with relatively little investment having been made in recycling and water efficiency, and with the Lower Hunter still significantly underperforming other major water utilities in terms of water efficiency, two new dam proposals have made their way into the consultation for the review. How? Why? They are the questions I am helping the community to uncover.
I've seen the consequences of secrecy in water decisions before.
The Hunter residents might like to consider the experience of the Broken Hill community.
In mid 2016 the NSW government announced a plan to build a $500 million 270-kilometre pipeline from the Murray River to Broken Hill to secure that town's water supply. Many locals didn't like the idea of paying for this pipeline, especially given the town had always enjoyed a secure water supply from the nearby Menindee Lakes which were filled from water flowing down the Darling.
The community wanted to see the business case but the government wouldn't provide it, claiming it was subject to Cabinet secrecy. The project was fast-tracked and completed in late 2018. After the 2019 election the numbers changed in the Upper House and I was able to get support to use the same order for papers process I've used for the Hunter Water documents to try to finally uncover the business case. It took six months, multiple orders, and threats to suspend the leader of the government of the House for failing to comply with the orders before the document was finally provided.
The fears of the community were realised. Far from being just a water supply pipeline, one of the main justifications for the project, (one never made public by the government) was to allow more water to be diverted to cotton irrigators in the northern Murray Darling Basin. With an alternative water supply for Broken Hill, there was less pressure to allow the Darling to flow to the Menindee Lakes. The Broken Hill community now faces losing reliable long-term flows in the river and funding an expensive pipeline for the privilege.
I won't let the NSW government pull the wool over the eyes of the Hunter community like they did with the Broken Hill pipeline.
The cost of some documents isn't the main problem. The far bigger problem is the cost of government secrecy which can lead to terrible decisions that leave the community (who have to pay for these) and the environment worse off.
Justin Field is an independent member of the NSW Legislative Council.