At a government business enterprise hearing into TasWater on Tuesday, it was revealed that the rise would happen as a decade-long $1.5 billion capital works program began.

The council-owned entity was criticised by Mr Gutwein who said he had “heard a lot of bleating from local government” on Tuesday.

“In one hand they have a fistful of cash in the dividends they receive and in the other they have got out the begging bowl, it’s not acceptable that Tasmanians could be faced with a 30 per cent price hike while local government gets $30 million in dividends,” he said. 

“We want this fixed and we are not going to take any options off the table.”

TasWater chief representative of the owner councils and Clarence mayor Doug Chipman, said the dividends would soon be reduced to $20 million and that the funds were put back into the community.

“It’s by way of services, by way of infrastructure such as sports grounds, roads, footpaths and so on, and if all of a sudden councils have less money available then they have to work out how to solve that problem and clearly other sources of income have to be looked at or reducing the services to the local community,” he said.

“So no matter what happens, if funding sources to local government are cut off, the local community suffers.”

Mr Gutwein said there was no need for ratepayers to pay more to fix TasWater’s failing infrastructure, and instead council efficiency should be looked at more closely.

He also did not rule out the possibility of the state government taking ownership of TasWater, a move that Cr Chipman called “appalling.” 

“TasWater have identified a need for more funding to fix infrastructure that has been failing faster than predicted …  the councils are hoping to work with the state government to see if we can attract federal money,” Cr Chipman said.

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