Treasurer Peter Gutwein announced last week that he was “actively considering” a government takeover of TasWater, saying the organisation was not doing enough to upgrade assets. 

But TasWater chairman Miles Hampton fired back at the government on Monday, saying the organisation was being used as a “political football”. 

He said the state’s water and sewerage infrastructure was not in crisis and that 99 per cent of Tasmanians receive safe drinking water. 

“From the start, the Treasurer’s portrayal of the situation appears to have been a cynical attempt to alarm the community and convince the Upper House that a takeover of TasWater is in the best interest of the state,” Mr Hampton said. 

Mr Hampton said in 2008-09, the Office of the Tasmanian Economic Regulator reported that 4 per cent of Tasmanians had non-compliant drinking water.

By 2014-15 this figure had fallen to 1.4 per cent of the population.

Premier Will Hodgman said it was about time the different options were considered. 

“We've had to say enough's enough and we've had to take action,” Mr Hodgman said. 

“It's challenging, but we all agree that we need to do more, we need to do better. 

“What's been done to date has not delivered what we would have liked, certainly not as quickly as we'd liked, and we think there are other options for us to explore.”

Local Government Association of Tasmania president Doug Chipman met with stakeholders on Monday to discuss the options handed to the industry. 

Alderman Chipman said he had written to the government asking for more information.

“The meeting today formed a view that we don’t have enough information for the member councils to make an informed decision,” he said. 

“We certainly agree that we don’t want any towns at all on boiled water alerts, but TasWater does actually have a plan to fix those as fast as humanly possible.

“We believe that the campaign that’s been mounted has been based on false evidence because the fact of the matter is that we are fixing those towns as quickly as possible.”