At a meeting with council representatives in Hobart on Friday, Mr Gutwein said the state government was considering taking ownership of TasWater infrastructure. 

The news followed a week of accusations from Mr Gutwein that councils were not doing enough to fix the state’s water and sewerage. 

TasWater already has a plan to overhaul water and sewerage infrastructure in the state within 10 years, but Mr Gutwein said the government could halve this and do it within about five years. 

A government takeover was one of five options Mr Gutwein gave the councils, others were staying with the status quo, a federal injection of funds, councils reducing returns, or increasing prices. 

“We believe that the state of water and sewerage in this state is at a crisis point, and that urgent action is required,” Mr Gutwein said.

“We were all in agreement that the status quo is not acceptable and if more can be done, it should be done.

“It would enable the state government to utilise the strength of its balance sheet to get the job done and to accelerate the programs that TasWater are currently rolling out.” 

TasWater chief owner representative and Northern Midlands Mayor David Downie said it was good to have the opportunity to meet face-to-face.

“We’ll go away and consider that as an option … it could work, but also if the Treasurer can access money through a state government ownership model, why can’t they help local government ownership access funds too?” Cr Downie said.

“I think a package can be put together where all of the options are put into the basket, and great outcomes come when everyone works together.” 

Latrobe Mayor Peter Freshney said he thought there was an agenda at play. 

“There was clearly a predetermined position and this meeting was, in my view, a token gesture on [Mr Gutwein’s] part to confer, consider and claim to have an appropriate level of engagement with the local government sector,” he said. 

“It’s disappointing to not have acknowledgement of the work that councils have done, along with TasWater, to bring about better outcomes in the water and sewerage sector.” 

Meander Valley Mayor Craig Perkins said he needed to see what impact this would have in the regions. 

“I think we need to see a fully-fledged proposal presented to us, and maybe in local government we need to work with government on that, to understand the impacts that a change of ownership will have on our community,” Cr Perkins said. 

“It’s not unreasonable to understand that local government mayors are pretty annoyed at the way that this has eventuated.” 

Labor MP Madeleine Ogilvie said simply taking over TasWater would not fix the water and sewage issues.