The government’s plan to takeover TasWater has failed with the Legislative Council voting down the proposal on Thursday.
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The government will now attempt to sell the plan to the community during the election campaign to get the enabling legislation passed next year, if it wins government.
Members spoke at length on the aggressive manner undertaken by Treasurer Peter Gutwein to discredit the organisation’s board and the lack of convincing evidence provided by the government to back the proposal.
The legislation failed despite Windermere independent MLC Ivan Dean moving an amendment to the bill, ensuring councils received dividends into perpetuity.
During the debate, Leader of Government Business in the Upper House, Leonie Hiscutt, said the government would consider any amendments from the floor.
Just three independent members supported the legislation: Mr Dean, McIntyre-West independent MLC Greg Hall, and Launceston independent MLC Rosemary Armitage.
Hobart independent MLC Rob Valentine said there were a number of risks involved with the security of assets into the future under government ownership, including the prospect of pork-barreling with projects essentially decided upon on a minister’s whim.
“TasWater is not perfect but this takeover proposal has probably given them a wake-up call,” he said.
“That can only help to sharpen TasWater’s focus … and change the way they do business.”
Rosevears independent MLC Kerry Finch said he had hoped the government could have convinced him a takeover was in the state’s best interests but had consistently failed to do so.
On the other side, Mr Dean said there had been a lot of community dissatisfaction with TasWater’s operation for some time and it required change.
“TasWater has been seen as a bit of a law unto itself and councils cannot do much to control how it operates,” he said.
Mr Hall said even though he had been unimpressed with the government’s overbearing approach to the matter, he supported a change of ownership.
“The operations of TasWater are beyond the capacity of councils to steer effectively (and) the governance of TasWater is beyond the present structure to effectively manage,” he said.
