Last word for a bit...
I'm going to shush up on the topic of water for a bit. But here's a wrap up of what's happening next for Australia and Queensland. Currently no word on what Toowoomba's next step is.Here's an article which pretty much sums up what has happened: Pressure mounts for early water referendum (July 31 2006, ABC News Online).
Calls are growing to hold a referendum on the use of recycled water in south-east Queensland much sooner than 2008. The Democrats say the failure of Toowoomba's referendum has severely damaged the prospects of it being adopted anywhere in Australia.
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie had wanted to add treated effluent to Wivenhoe Dam, but he has promised a south-east Queensland referendum in 2008 because of Toowoomba's "no" vote on the weekend. Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett says the results of the Toowoomba poll were disappointing. "It's a big tragedy for Queensland and indeed Australia," he said. "It's meant a big bazooka put right through the prospects of full recycling being adopted in many areas where it would nonetheless be easily the fairest, safest and cheapest and most reliable solution."Senator Bartlett says Mr Beattie is a coward for promising the referendum in 2008 instead of going ahead and introducing recycled water.
"Mr Beattie won't hold a referendum to decide whether or not to build a dam cause he knows he'd lose it," he said. "To put it off until after the state election and gets back in and then starts raising it, to put it off as another referendum - he's not holding a referendum on anything else he's doing - is just gutlessness."
'Proper debate'
But Mr Beattie says the time will also be used for proper debate. "When you've got people who are prepared to use negative, hysterical campaigns like we saw in aspects of the Toowoomba campaign, you've got to have time to have an informed, sensible debate," he said. "I'm a democrat, I'm not an arrogant person, I believe that I work for the community. "If we can't convince people to votes 'yes', then frankly we've got to do what they tell us." Mr Beattie says he cannot ignore public opinion about recycled water, even if he disagrees with it. He says forcing industry to use more recycled water will free up drinking supplies in the meantime.
'Poor planning'
But Clean Up Australia chairman Ian Kiernan says that is poor planning and he backs Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman's call to fast track the vote. "I mean the problem's here now - by 2008 it's going to be a lot worse I would guess," he said. Mr Kiernan also says the poll was defeated by a campaign of fear and false claims. "We need a national water policy so that the Government can come to grips with the global fresh water crisis - the crisis in water that is here," he said. "We need new water management - it's about securing the water for the future of this country and that's what we'll continue to push."
'Misinformation and hysteria'
A member of a national environmental think-tank has criticised the media after the weekend "no vote" in Toowoomba. Peter Cullen from the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists says the media must play a more responsible role in the debate about the issue. He says the case against recycled water was fuelled by misinformation and hysteria. "We've seen a campaign where there's been an awful lost of misinformation and what I call a lot junk journalism," he said. "I did see a lot of the journalism which was pretty hysterical about toilets to taps and so on and it seems to me that's not a very good way to inform the community," he said.
"I mean people talking about toilets to taps - I mean that's never been a reality, we're talking about highly-treated water perhaps of better quality than we're getting from some our rivers and we've seen a campaign that's really polarised the community rather than inform the community. "If we're going to go through these debates again hopefully we'll be able to do it in a bit more of a mature and sophisticated way to get better decisions for the community to make."
'Policy weakness'
Meanwhile, State Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg says Toowoomba's decision to reject recycled drinking water has exposed the Premier's policy weakness. Mr Springborg says the Opposition has already set out a comprehensive water policy. "Mandatory rainwater tanks - the Government said 'no' - they had to follow suit within a couple of weeks," he said. "We said water use efficiency program with the subsidy scheme - the Government had to match us. "We've said a water use efficiency program now for industrial users - the Government will have to match us.
"One area of difference: Traveston Dam, because it's the wrong dam in the wrong place, the answers are there." Mr Springborg says Mr Beattie makes it up as he goes.
posted by Jess @ 4:15 PM
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Here's another press article which gives a different view of the Toowoomba water debate.
The No vote put all the options back on the table.
Lies, damn lies and recycled water
Alex Smith, National Nine News, Brisbane Reporter
The Toowoomba community's resounding no vote in Saturday's water referendum had virtually nothing to do with recycling. The people simply delivered the Mayor that age-old lesson that arrogance will never attract popular support.
Mayor Di Thorley lost her bid to use recycled effluent as drinking water the day she chose to announce her plans on a national radio program, shunning her local community and leaving people with festering feelings of resentment and the perception they were being railroaded.
Thorley acted as if on some mission from God to achieve a place in environmental history as the champion of recycled water. Instead, her patronising and belittling approach has set the cause back several years.
The cause was further crippled by a professionally pathetic local media that was intimidated by the Mayor and failed to constructively canvas both sides of the debate.
It is yet another reminder to leaders at all levels of government that they can't attempt to jam something down their community's neck without meaningful negotiation and inclusion.
It's also a lesson to the Greens, Australian Water Association and other so-called conservation groups that they can't ride into town on some sort of pompous lecture tour and expect anyone to take them seriously. As they retreat to their capital city offices and gaze into their chardonnays, they would do well to reflect that ordinary Australians will not be patronised or forced to comply with environmentally trendy notions conceived in some popular café.
It is indicative of the nature of the campaign that the Australian Water Association chose to complain about the word sewage being used in conjunction with the term, recycled water. What a joke! If the lobby is so bereft of arguments to support recycling that they need to hide the water's origin, then what hope have they got of winning an honest debate.
There is another myth being perpetrated after the Toowoomba poll. The no vote was not against recycling. It was simply a 'no' to the Mayor's proposal that drinking recycled water should be the first option.
The 'no' case wants recycling, they enthusiastically want to build the reverse osmosis plant at Toowoomba's treatment plant, but they believe every litre of recycled water can be allocated to industry and other users without the need to drink it.
The 'no' case also believes that if the drought continues and there are no remaining options for supply, then treated effluent should be used for human consumption provided all current concerns about hormone and chemical contamination are overcome. The 'no' lobby in Toowoomba simply objects to the notion that recycled water has to be drunk in order for it to be environmentally correct.
The final analysis of the Toowoomba poll is that there should never have been a need for a vote. A measured proposal, properly placed before the community, would never have attracted the federal requirement for a vote.
The real tragedy now is that environmental groups and the petulant Mayor are saying the Toowoomba vote has killed recycling. Nothing is further from the truth. The vote simply means that governments at all levels have to implement recycling according to the will of the people and not in response to the whims of the environmentally correct.
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