Over the fold is my latest story for Crikey on the weekend’s developments in the continuing saga of water politics.
Elsewhere: More commentary at Polemica and Andrew Bartlett links to a pro-recycled water petition.
14. Murky tactics cloud Toowoomba’s water vote
Mark Bahnisch in Brisbane writes:
The politics of water continues its murky course in Queensland. Yesterday’s referendum in Toowoomba – a vote imposed as a condition of Commonwealth funding after the local member Ian Macfarlane had a spot of the electoral panics – went down by a wide margin.
The No campaign is being widely reported as scaremongering tosh, with groups such as “Citizens against drinking sewage” playing up all sorts of urban myths and emotive lines. It’s also been alleged that No campaigners were associated with spreading defamatory and bizarre rumours. There was a whispering campaign about Mayor Di Thorley’s sexuality and business plans. And apparently everyone knows that drinking recycled water makes blokes grow boobs and shrinks their fishing tackle.
“Respected businessman” Clive Berghofer ran around ranting and raving about “Poowoomba”. Scares about real estate values were also thrown into the mix. Berghofer gave a none too subtle hint that he might be thinking about flogging off one of his shopping centres for $59 million.
The hard reality for the No campaign is that Toowoomba still faces a water crisis, and citizens of the erstwhile Garden City woke up this morning with no more options for ensuring their water supply. The other hard reality is that the remaining options are much more expensive, and the No campaigners, like everyone else, will be paying more than they would have been had the recycling plans gone ahead.
Peter Beattie has responded to the vote by quashing earlier speculation that he might fight an early election on the water issue. But Premier Pete promises a plebiscite will be held in conjunction with the next Queensland local government elections in March 2008. He’s hopeful that voters will be educated on the issues in the ensuing period.
If NIMBY types and National Party pollies keep running with the same tactics, he might need all his much vaunted political skills to ensure this happens.
Toowoomba resident here. I voted yes but I am not remotely surprised that the ‘no’ vote carried the day.
As for good ol’ Clive, he’s a millionaire. One day if the water runs out, he can catch a helicopter somewhere. The rest of us cannot.
To say it was an informed debate would be of course laughable. It was very much a nimby campaign. I guess the Council did the best they could, but being ‘the official version’ it understandably has a credibility problem among people who know basically nothing about water or where it comes from.
I think Beattie might have the right idea in this case, regarding a plebiscite in 2008. Sure we all get the occasional shower, but what’s the chance of our water problems going away in two years time? Nil, I’d say.
In the long run, I am unconvinced that a country like Australia can afford ‘growth’ in the sense that is usually meant. Toowoomba seeking to grow indefinitely, to 150,000, 200,000, 250,000 people… is like signing your own deathwish.
Many people voted No, not because of any scare tactics, but because they had read the Council’s NWC funding application that Mayor Thorley tried to keep secret. This document showed the project as being fundamentally flawed.
The Water Futures project was never a solution – where was the RO waste stream going to go. Where was Thorley going to hide it? Acland Coal didn’t want it. Without their involvement, the project’s cost doubled. How high would rates be then?
You will be surprised at how quickly other water source options are now adopted for Toowoomba.
I’m guessing if you gave the enlightened denizens of Toowoomba a vote on the existence of UFOs or the if homeopathy should be supported at the local hospital they’d vote a resounding YES.
But Poowoomba is just too good. No contest. Eat your heart out homer.
Interesting to see the SEQ mayors come out and accuse Beattie of playing politics by delaying resolution of the issue. But I think in the wake of Toowoomba, it’s pretty clear that you have to play politics to gain public support. It’d be a brave mayor who went ahead now without putting it to a vote – which is probably in part a result of Thorley’s tactics but also of Turnbull’s gutlessness on this issue.
We’re running 100% in favour of piss-drinking at stoush.net, as of 10.30pm Sydney time Monday (not that there’s right many of us).
I can’t think of anything that’d make me vote the other way for unsustainability.
The No campaign is being widely reported as scaremongering tosh, with groups such as “Citizens against drinking sewage� playing up all sorts of urban myths and emotive lines.
The No campaign: an instance of the “appeal to disgust?”
Interesting, Arthur. Nussbaum is a challenging and insightful thinker.
I read once in New Scientist that by the time we die, we’ve each drunk Hitler’s piss, some of us several times over, at least in some infinitesimal way. Such is the international distribution and recycling of water molecules.
I don’t think the result would have been much different in any other city in similar circumstances. Although the Berghofer factor and the direct influence he can wield would not be the same in many other towns, I think the biggest blame has to go to the federal government, who basically hung the Council out to dry.
Apart the predictable scare-mongering and misrepresentations (such as in John C’s comment above), the factor that made it hardest for Toowoomba City Council was having to fight this battle alone, while the federal and state government ran for cover.
In particular, singling out Toowoomba as the first time since Federation that a local Council had to hold a referendum as a condition of receiving federal government funding made it much harder to overcome natural suspicion about the plan.
One question from the locals that was hard to convincingly answer was “why are we being singled out? If it’s so good, why isn’t anyone else doing it?” The answer – that nowhere else has had a council with sufficient integrity and courage on the issue, and the federal government is gutless – was not likely to convince many people, no matter how true it is.
There’s not much point in Malcolm Turnbull talking up recycling as the way to go, when he refused to provide the support at the very time it was needed. He forced the referendum on the Council when there was no need to, and then ran off while they were left to defend on their own. He can now say ‘recycling is good’ as much as he likes, but he’s directly responsible for causing serious damage to the prospects of it being adopted anywhere in Australia.
Instead of getting behind the Council and unequivocally backing it, both the state and federal government did a Pontious Pilate act and said they would leave the decision up to the people – even though they knew water recycling was the safest, fairest, cheapest and most sustainble option.
If there’s any justice, Andrew, this will be a setback for Turnbull in his political career.
I would have thought that people being conservative about their water supply would be fairly understandable, and to me appears perfectly rational. It’s hard to think of many things you would want to be more confident of.
Yes, but there’s already recycled water in many people’s water supply, and it’s safer to drink than the usual tap water. If Toowoomba residents end up paying $500 or $1000 extra on their rates bills, perhaps that might make people think again. Or they might end up drinking bore water like lots of other places in regional Queensland, which is pretty vile, quite frankly. There just aren’t many good solutions for water in SEQ, unless it starts raining and I’ve heard young kids in Brisbane exclaim wildly when water falls from the sky so rarely does it happen these days – and when I was younger, we had a pretty wet climate here in Brissie.
I’m with Andrew on this – I don’t want to disrespect people in Toowoomba – it’s a lovely place and I’ve been there quite a few times and my family hail from thereabouts. But they’ve been ill served by the way the debate was conducted and the manner in which the decision was made.
That’s true Brendan. However, Toowoomba’s wastewater can’t be too bad, as it currently gets treated and then discharged into the river that flows into the water supply of towns further inland. It’s hard to see how it is rational to believe that purifying it to a sigificantly greater extent and then pumping back into the original dam instead of discharging it downstream is somehow less safe.
It’s not a big deal – It’s not like Toowoomba has got any actual choice (as Mark posts). They can vote/wish all they like- but at the end of the day – what else are they going to do?
Worst thing to happen is there are limits on municipal growth – which I’d vote for anyway. Let them lie peacefully in their bed.
One of the ironies was the “people will flee” thing. Given that Toowoomba is marketing itself to Southern folks as a “tree change” destination, you’d think that people contemplating buying property there from elsewhere would want to know that the City had made responsible choices to ensure water supply before investing and/or relocating.
Another Toowoomba resident here….I voted yes, but like Kieran, I’m not surprised the by the win by the ‘no’ side.
Andrew is right to say the Federal government hung TCC ‘out to dry’…bad pun there…
But the No campaigners ran a shrewd campaign. The more rabid nay-sayers called themselves CADS..Citizens Against Drinking Sewage….really rational people! Also, the clever slogans ‘It’s OK to say No’ and ‘a No vote puts ALL options on the table including recycling’ not necessarily for drinking, and the support of Clive Berghofer, a local folk-hero, were master strokes.
Federal member Chainsaw Macfarlane sensed that his mainstay redneck National supporters were naturally ‘no’ voters, and the opportunistic State Nationals, in a rare chance to land a blow on Beatty, came out for the No case as well.
Add the Yuk factor,(not just plain poo, but gasp…mortuary fluids!…) anti-science technophobia, enough vague conspiracy theories and a sense of victimisation, and some lame TCC stunts like water tasting of Singapore recycled water, and the No vote was a shoo-in.
The No campaing also attracted the ‘I told you so’s’ for such perennial hobby horses as domestic tanks, dam building and North Queensland pipelines.
The kiss of death for the Yes campaign was the support from anti-Mary River Valley dam people. The Greens then loudly joined the Yes campaign. Finally to make the Yes case the classic ‘elitist’ cause, public support from many doctors and academics materialised. Stir in some Beatty bashing…fuelled by his ‘Armageddon solution’ statement, and the silvertail republican Malcolm Turnbull’s assurances on the desirability and safety of the recycled water, and Federal funding only available for the project, and the No people were home and hosed…so to speak.
The real hero of the campaign, the ballsiest (oops, I think the No campaigners alleged this of her as well) leader around was Mayor Diane Thorley. Her great one-liner was that many government and community leaders were right behind her..100 miles behind.
Perhaps I am being a bit biased, but I never saw any possibility for the yes campaign to win. Even though it seemed to have support from all levels of government (with the Nationals being the exception) as soon as any doubt is put in people’s minds they will vote conservatively.
It doesn’t matter if you have world experts who are in a good position to give guidance on these matters, as soon as there is doubt the Australian population seems to say, no need for change. This appears more and more even with some examples from the federal government ignoring advice from experts for seeming ‘political’ purposes to keep the population ‘happy’.
Each day I read messages that say there needs to be a change in order to survive. I just don’t think the majority of Australians want change, even if it is for their own good.
How does that old saying go? “No pain, no gain”. However, the pain we must overcome is not physical, it is in our minds.
If the citizens were fully informed of their choices and prospects and then voted as they did then we would have to accept their democratic decision. If. And “if” is the whole point, They were subjected to party political and unobtrusively commercoal manipulation throughout.
The “yuck” factor alone would have had only a very minor effect – this is Australia where cremations, TV, the contraceptive pill, etc. were taken up easily and rapidly – and the innovative change in water management would have been just as readily taken up without any bother. It was all the extraneous shenanegans that brought about the desired (and profitable?) result. As for Turnbull, despite his public stance, he may have been happy with the actual result.
yeah, Ross, agreed on most of that. Well the ‘no’ case has won now, and I don’t expect anyone will be game to talk recycling again unless Beattie manages to pull off some kind of state-wide endorsement for it.
Which leaves us all back at square one. How can anyone be optimistic about any sort of endless magical economic pudding, growing forever and ever amen, when water, let alone stuff like oil, looks more and more dicey every year?
Toowoomba was definitely hung out to dry, and I just couldn’t help thinking to myself that if down the track it simply can’t supply the population, there won’t be any help forthcoming from higher levels (of government, not the atmosphere) then, either. I can’t imagine Brisbane giving up anyting from its own already limited dam supplies.
That the Council itself (coughlylesheltoncough) was divided on the matter didn’t help.
Well, Brisbane has had no success in getting the Sunshine Coast, which is quite well positioned as regards water, to give us any of theirs, so, no, I doubt it.
The parochialism that plagues these issues needs overcoming. That’s where the idea of a South East Queensland water grid is a good one – fingers crossed that Beattie runs with it.
I’m disappointed that Beattie has gone for the referendum with the Council elections option. I think Brisbane (Liberal) Lord Mayor Campbell Newman is basically right about this – Beattie wants a possible vote loser off the table before the state election – “I support it but the people will get the democratic right to choose” blah blah. If he’d gone to the election (which will not be decided on one issue alone – and which everyone can see he is going to win anyway) with a platform in favour of recycled water, he could have claimed a mandate and we could have been all systems go early next year.
Lawrence Springborg’s response:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/08/01/the-national-party-the-manly-party-for-really-tough-blokes/
“I read once in New Scientist that by the time we die, we’ve each drunk Hitler’s piss, some of us several times over…”
Well there’s the answer right there Weathergirl! Celebrity piss! It’s an opportunity to turn the debate around, and local councils could charge higher rates for premium water.
With just a bit of clever marketing and a high-profile endorsement from, say, Hotdogs or Shannon Noll we could be there!
*Yes, the outcome was stupid*
Apologies for the following cut and paste from AAP, but this latest statement by the Local Government Associaion of Qld is encouraging, and certainly suggests the issue isn’t going to go away (although again I’d have to say if would have been much more helpful if the LGAQ had come out this strongly before the referendum).
post edited to reformat quoted text: tigtog
Senator Bartlett thinks the following comments are “predictable scare-mongering and misrepresentations”
“Many people voted No, not because of any scare tactics, but because they had read the Council’s NWC funding application that Mayor Thorley tried to keep secret. This document showed the project as being fundamentally flawed.
The Water Futures project was never a solution – where was the RO waste stream going to go. Where was Thorley going to hide it? Acland Coal didn’t want it. Without their involvement, the project’s cost doubled. How high would rates be then?”
I suggest that Senator Bartlett has not read the Toowoomba City Council’s NWC funding application. Others have. Perhaps he’d like a copy.
He is obviously not aware of how difficult it was to wrestle it from the Mayor and the Toowoomba City Council who wished to keep it secret. And why? Because it revealed that the project was fundamentally flawed.
And Senator Bartlett, perhaps you could explain to us how the project was going to cost only $68 million when Acland Coal did not want the RO waste stream. Where was the RO waste stream going to go? Singapore’s is pumped out to sea. Hundreds of acres of evaporation ponds costing an additional $70 million (according to Council’s own consultants) would have been required. This was not in the Council’s Water Futures budget.
It’s easy to make broad statements about how wonderful recycling is, but let’s propose a project that actually could work for the amount they say it will (and not double or triple the estimate) before trying to impose it on the people.
“that nowhere else has had a council with sufficient integrity and courage on the issue’
Yeah right – have you seen the potty mouth Mayor video on Media Watch?
Have you heard the Deputy Mayor’s threatening phone messages?
Integrity? Yeah right.
The referendum is over now John, so you can stop the misrepresentations.
The costings of the options were independently assessed and publicly released. The main option with the fuzziest cost was whether pumping water from dams further afield will be even dearer than has been estimated.
Quite why it is sensible to vote against receiving finanical assistance from the federal government for what was already the cheapest option is beyond me, but anyway that’s what people voted for.
Congratulations on your win at the ballot box. Personally I think politics should about good outcomes for the public and the environment rather than winning for it’s own sake, but each to their own I guess.
As you are so concerned about costs, I am sure you will enjoy explaining why it is a good thing that the residents of Toowoomba will now have to pay far more for their water (and with much greater energy usage, for those that are concerned about such things).
Hopefully all of south-east Queensland will soon have the chance to go down the recycling path, which is the way it should have been done in the first place. Having a debate that doesn’t single out one town will hopefully allow things to focus more on facts rather than petty parochialism.
Andrew
Did you actually read the “independent assessment” from cover to cover?
Why is it that the Water Futures recycling project was not assessed but the other options were. The consultants ASSUMED the Council’s figures were correct and just added 10% on top. No actual review of Council’s costings at all. They also assumed that Acland Coal would take the waste. State government emails from July 2005 unearthed under a FOI request by the State opposition show that Acland didn’t want it. So bad assumption.
With Acland Coal not wanting the RO waste stream, evaporation ponds would be required doubling the project’s cost. Suddenly, it’s no longer the cheapest option.
Personally, I think the No vote outcome was a very good thing for the Toowoomba public. And almost 62% of the public agreed with me.
Shortly, you will see that Toowoomba residents will not have to pay more than Water Futures for their water. Honestly Andrew why do you believe everything Mayor Thorley tells you? You’re supposed to be a sensible politician.
Andrew
You have not confirmed whether you have actually read the Council’s NWC funding application.
You talk a lot about the Council’s project but have you actually read the funding application?
Cheers
I find that a lot of men are intimidated by Mayor Thorley’s bullying approach. They tend to say what she wants – she can be very abusive if she doesn’t get her way.
Toowoomba has voted again. This time they have elected Snow Manners to Toowoomba City Council with what can only be described as a huge majority.
This must send a clear message to all elected Councillors and Parliamentarians that sewage water does not have public support. Manners was unambiguous in his opposition to potable reuse and a leader of the ‘NO Campaign’.
Has Toowoomba been ’scared’ again? Are Toowoomba people irrational? Hardly.
The reality is that sewage is not considered a suitable source of urban water supply.
On the topic of potable recycled water, I heard Maude Barlow on the radio recently. She says the main problem is that they have not yet developed a way of filtering medicines out of the water.
She doesn’t like desalination either. She says the plants are big and ugly, use a lot of power, and disposing of the brine is an environmental problem.
Oh well, then, Toowoomba merely has to work out what population it can support given its water supply and stick to it.
And the rest of us ought to do the same.
Good luck to Toowoomba, then. Hope you’re all enjoying the level 5 water restrictions up there. I’m sure Councillor Manners will be quick to suggest alternatives to recycled water… We’ll be watching here in Brisbane.
How’s the property prices holding up there, dude?
By the way, if someone could organise for it to rain again in Brisvegas, I’d be most grateful.
I miss the storms.
I miss water falling from the sky full stop.
I think everyone is missing the point here. It was never really about drinking our own piss or shit, BUT if we voted yes to the recycling option, then it meant it was the only option being offered. None of the other possibilities would be considered!
The other major problem was that water recycling would not be available to us until around 2013…THAT”S 6 YEARS AWAY. We need a water solution NOW…and although water recycling will help in the long term…you actually need water to recycle….the problem we have is that we have no water!!
To wait 6 years to recycle water we don’t have, makes no sense!!
The NO vote was about making the council consider other, short term options.
For example…a pipeline from the gas mines out west. The gas mines need to get rid of millions of litres of water when mining. What do they do? They build evaporation lakes, and pump the water into these so the sun will evaporate the water. Why not build a pipe line from there to our water supply? It would be cheaper, and would provide a short term solution.
Another solution is bore water. Provided it’s treated and chorinated as per our normal supply, it would provide another short term solution.
In fact, having our water supply come from underground obviously decreases the amount of evaporation.
Water recycling is a viable option, but this should have been put into place 15 years ago when we had water to recycle….but the technology was not as advanced as it is today, and of course, was never thought about until it become a major problem.
Here’s something for you. 20 or so years ago, the Toowoomba City Council were actually prompting people to pull down their rain water tanks because they bred mosquitos and were not needed…..we had this endless, mosquito free water supply you see….now…they’ve made it law for every new house built to have a water tank.
It’s the lack of longterm foresight that has created this problem, which has been left go sooooo long, it now needs a short term solution. I voted no not because of the drinking piss and shit (that did not phase me…I had faith in the technology), but because Toowoomba needs to get water NOW!! Waiting 6 years to recycle a non-exsistant water supply makes no sense.
Water recycling will happen…it has to, it makes good sense, but only when you have water to recycle.
jacks a whimp coz he dont believe in recycled water