Ken Ticehurst (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My electorate of Dobell is facing the prospect of level 5 water restrictions if we do not get reasonable rain. This would limit each resident to only 130 litres of water a day. As our local paper recently pointed out, if a person takes a five-minute shower, fully flushes the toilet three times, washes the dishes and does a load of washing twice a week, that is 130 litres gone.

The New South Wales Labor government’s response to this crisis is to announce it will build a dam hundreds of kilometres away in Dungog with the water to be pumped down to us on the coast. Pipes do not even exist to enable Hunter water to meet its current commitment to the Central Coast. Not only will this make the Central Coast forever reliant on the Hunter for water, but water is not expected to be flowing from the dam until at least 2013. That is six years away. The situation is already beyond belief. It is the middle of a hot summer and we cannot top up pools, gardens are wilting and people cannot wash their cars in their front yard. The population on the Central Coast is expected to rise by a whopping 26,000 people over the next ten years and Labor’s solution is to have the Central Coast community wait several years for a dam to be built and hope and pray for the heavens to open up and fill it—that is, if it even gets built in 10 years. Central Coast residents are still waiting for the fast train between Sydney and Newcastle. That has been promised every state election for the last three or four times.

There are options available to improve our water supply now with less cost to the ratepayer, using the water that falls in our own catchment on the Central Coast. Indeed, the public works department’s 1975 central coast water plan outlined the necessary projects. This begs the question: why would the state government ignore an option that is already planned and will produce results in two years with less cost to the ratepayer in preference to a dam that will not yield results for another 10 to 15 years, if that? It is plainer than day that the state government is ignoring the only viable option, and the community’s preferred option, because they will not be reaping any revenue from it.

The Tillegra dam is just a backdoor way for the state government to strip our local identity and control and profit from the Central Coast’s water supply, and it is a follow-on from their attempts to take over our joint water authority. Water from the Hunter/Central Coast pipeline will cost residents an additional 90c a kilolitre. Does the New South Wales government expect Central Coast residents to continue paying this for the next 60 years?

I was interested to discover that, during the latter stages of the Carr government, the Hunter Water Corporation was routinely paying dividends and taxes to the New South Wales government of more than 100 per cent of its operating profit and as high as 184 per cent. According to New South Wales Auditor-General reports, from 1999 to 2006, Hunter Water paid dividends and taxes to the state government of approximately $423 million, with an operating profit in the same period of $289 million.

This grand plan of Labor leaves the Central Coast indebted to the Hunter Water board for decades to come, as Premier Iemma’s capital investment program continues to bleed Central Coast residents dry. The New South Wales government is the only entity to benefit from this absurd scheme—at the taxpayers’ expense. Premier Iemma is selling water to the Central Coast. The federal government recently announced $6.61 million for the Hunter connection pipeline and $2.6 million towards the Porters Creek Wetland Stormwater Harvesting project, both of which were grants, free from repayment.

State Labor must stop playing politics with our vital resources and get on with the job of providing real outcomes for the Central Coast. The practical solution to the water crisis is to use Mangrove Dam as a reservoir, as it was always intended, and put high river flows from the catchment into the dam. In the public works department’s plan from 1975, this was the justification for the dam at Mangrove Creek. Announcements such as Tillegra dam confirm my concerns that, should the Central Coast joint water authority become an arm of the Iemma government, future proposals to increase water and sewerage charges for Central Coast residents will not be subject to the public scrutiny local people are entitled to expect.

The Australian government is committed to helping local councils find water solutions for current and future generations. I look forward to continuing to work with councils to secure the Central Coast’s water future. The Liberal led coalition is working hard to develop a real plan that will mean the Central Coast can independently provide its own water. The Liberal candidates on the Central Coast have committed $80 million towards the construction of the Lower Wyong transfer system and the Mardi Dam to Mangrove Dam transfer system—(Time expired)