Kenneth Davidson
September 25, 2008
Dismantling the old Board of Works has had disastrous consequences.
THE wheels have fallen off the Brumby Government’s rationale for spending $4 billion on a desalination plant at Wonthaggi and the north-south pipeline and so supply Melbourne with an additional 225 gigalitres of water.
In March I wrote that the need to generate these additional supplies was based on water projections so flawed that that they bordered on the ludicrous — or the downright dishonest. Mathematician and science teacher Neil Rankin produced a critique of the Government’s projections on behalf of the Kilcunda Your Water Your Say action group, which showed that even without restrictions on consumption, the excess of supply would be 60 to 100% by 2016.
We knew in March that the official water forecasts were badly flawed. They were based on running a regression through the three drought years from 2004 to 2006. Statistical analysis worthy of the name would have run a regression curve through at least 10 years — which is what Rankin did.
Instead we have bad government. It didn’t start with the Bracks, Brumby or Kennett governments. The rot was established innocently enough with the decision of the Cain government to break up the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works on the grounds that it was an unaccountable QANGO. This was the de facto planning authority for Melbourne. It decided where the most expensive infrastructure (sewerage and water) went and the developers were forced to follow.
When the MMBW was split up into Melbourne Water and three retailers, its engineering and planning skills and its corporate memory were blown away and the planning function was in effect transferred by the politicians to the developers and the big end of town.
Little wonder we have disasters such as the Brooklands Green estate development in Cranbourne. But at least what is going on here cannot remain hidden. Not so with water — the stench isn’t so obvious.
Please read on in The Age - Water policy is based on flawed figures
