Government arrogance
A dam, or a smokescreen
Nathan Rees may have the cabinet he wants, but whether it changes his government’s rashness over major decisions is another matter. Documents requested by the NSW Upper House show that last year Eddie Harris, a senior public servant in the department of the Water Minister, Phil Costa, advised that the $450 million, 450 billion-litre Tillegra Dam is in the wrong place environmentally and anyway will not be needed for 30 years. Only Labor MPs had voted to keep that opinion secret. Yet, as with the CBD Metro, it seems NSW will still get the Tillegra Dam whether it needs it or not, because the Government apparently believes that being seen to make a decision – any decision – will trump making the right decision.
The NSW Water Commissioner, David Harris, has said Eddie Harris’s advice was only that of one senior staff member, and did not reflect the department’s view. That may be so, but the advice forms part of a growing body of evidence that the dam has for some time faced considerable opposition within the bureaucracy. In July, documents grudgingly released by the State Government showed that when the then premier Morris Iemma announced the dam in November 2006 it had not been properly costed. Not only that, Hunter Water had also rated the dam the second least desirable option – ahead of desalination – to provide water to the Central Coast and Hunter region.
Despite the poor assessments, the Government announced the dam shortly before the last election. We have already suggested that the Government had good reason – in the form of several scandals of which the Milton Orkopoulos child sex charges were the most serious – to want to repair its reputation in the Hunter with a big-spending announcement. They, not the Hunter’s water needs, appear the chief reason why the dam was approved.
Of course NSW must ensure its water supply. Two years ago Warragamba Dam levels slipped dangerously. Severe water restrictions moved the public to debate desalination and recycling, and demand why effective catchments were not built decades before. If NSW is to grow and not run dry, new dams will be needed.
But the Government is arrogant, if not outright foolish, to think the electorate will not recognise a multimillion-dollar smokescreen when it sees one: after 14 years they are hard to miss. Mr Harris’s note to Mr Costa also warned that the dam would become embarrassing for the NSW Government. It already has.
Editorial published in the Sydney Morning Herald today.