Premier should intervene in TasWater dispute, says ex-HVC mayor Peter Coad

Premier Will Hodgman’s public support for Minister Peter Gutwein’s adversarial approach to the takeover of TasWater was very disappointing, said Peter Coad, mayor of Huon Valley Council until it was sacked last October.

Mr Coad said today that, because councils had to represent their communities in a non-political way, it was difficult for them and their mayors to be publicly critical of the Local Government Minister.

Consequently, councils’ calls for Mr Gutwein to talk with them and mediate a solution were being ignored by both the Minister and the State Liberal Government.

He said he was disappointed, as were many others in the community, with Minister Gutwein’s adversarial approach to important issues, in particular that of TasWater.

Seriously disappointing, he said, was that Premier Hodgman was not encouraging his Minister to consult and mediate an acceptable TasWater solution.

Mr Coad said Mr Hodgman, addressing the December 2014 meeting of the Premier’s Local Government Council, had said that his government was committed to a “consultative and collaborative approach”.

But now the Premier appears to have abandoned local councils and their communities by backing an aggressive ministerial style that was beginning to look like a Liberal Government brand.

Mr Coad said serious questions were now being asked in communities as to who was actually leading the Liberal Government.

On another matter, he said, water-testing for drugs was a state and federal government responsibility, yet it appeared the Ministers for Health and Police, Fire and Emergency Management had been asleep at the wheel in not securing funding that was apparently available from the Federal Government.

The same had happened in the case of the Federal Budget, which had provided little or no funding for major Tasmanian infrastructure needs.

“It is time for the Premier to step up to the plate and to work constructively with councils to mediate a solution on TasWater,” said Mr Coad.

Legislation to take away the rights of ratepayers to manage their own assets, and to hand sole power to a Minister, was not the way to go, he said.

“We have seen how the health system has been managed in this state, so why should the fate of TasWater be any different,” he said.
Ex-HVC mayor Peter Coad