Water services decision time.

April 16th, 2009

The Public Benefit Assessment process is upon us and now is the time to peruse the information and comment on what you believe to be the best model for Council to adopt. I have not yet had time to read the whole document (weekend reading) but the comparative data is what I will be focussing on. Pages 8 and 13 provide some interesting comparative data to start with!

The community is invited to comment and I urge you to do so. It seems that there still is a lot of confusion surrounding this process so to clarify. Council has already decided to amalgamate or join together our water suppliers into one body. Now the question is to decide under what format. The only two choices that I think are relevant, are to proceed under either the corporate model or as a commercialised business unit of Council. I don’t think the third option of returning it to Council to be run as an internal department is a practical one.

The main question I am asking myself is this one. If we proceed under the corporate model do the increased costs of running a corporation provide extra income to the community to outweigh these extra costs?

Here is the link to the report and I will endeavour to post some summary information over the weekend. Cheers, Sue

http://www.frasercoast.qld.gov.au/council/documents/Public%20Benefit%20Assessment%20Issues%20Paper%2014%20April%202009.pdf

2 Responses to “Water services decision time.”

  1. # Smokin' Joeon 17 Apr 2009 at 6:29 am

    In the U.S. corporations have been using forced arbitration to take advantage of Americans and avoid accountability when they do harm. Arbitration is a private system between companies and employers and consumers.

    Will we be charged for the water by a corporation? Who will determine those charges?
    Reference the CEO’s salary, who is going to do determine that?

    Corporations are notoriously expensive.Forced arbitration clauses are buried in the fine print of terms of agreement and contracts for employment,insurance,retirement amounts,credit cards etc.etc.

    In the best interests of ratepayers the control of our water should be kept in the hands of our local council.

    Smokin’ Joe

  2. # Sadmanon 17 Apr 2009 at 8:51 pm

    Sue,
    I admit to not knowing the real difference between a “corporate model”
    and a “commercialised business unit”. But if a “commercialised business
    unit” is like Baypod, Widelinks or the Airport Industrial Estate, no way
    should we be taking that path.

    I also worry about debt transfer, after all that is why WBW was set up
    wasn’t it?

    I believe we should have a completly seperate corporatized water board,
    wholly owned by the FCRC. All bills and complaints etc handled by the
    water board. A board of directors made up of councillors and ratepayers
    who determine salaries and direction of business.

    I would also like to see this new body set up in such a way as to make it
    as difficult as possible for the state or federal government to take control
    of OUR water.

    Sue that would have to have been the longest sentence I have ever written.

    Sadman

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