19 February 2008

Recently, the Minister for Water, Minister for Rural Affairs and Minister for Regional Development, Philip Costa MP, attended the Water Directorate Executive Committee meeting to discuss the Independent Inquiry Report into into secure and sustainable urban water supply and sewerage services for non-metropolitan NSW.

Minister Costa advised that he was comfortable with the recommendations contained in the report and believed that it provided an excellent starting point for further discussions with councils about how to achieve best practice standards in all aspects of delivering water and sewerage services.

Minister Costa explained that he is in favour of binding alliances because he believes that an alliance structure will be able to deliver cost savings, resources sharing opportunities and greater efficiencies when the workload and technical knowledge is shared amongst a group of councils. He also believes that alliances must be binding to ensure that the viability of the alliance remains strong and that the councils are accountable for their contribution to the alliance.

At this stage there is no preferred model for how the alliances should be established and the Minister is very keen to receive feedback from councils before the cut off date for submissions. An extension to the 20 March 2009 deadline for submissions will be requested by the Water Directorate and LGSA to allow councils to consider closely their responses and further negotiate within their preferred alliance groups.

Minister Costa very clearly stated that no councils will be forced into alliances and that alliances are not considered a precursor to amalgamation.

We thank Minister Costa for being very generous with his time and for clarifying his thoughts on binding alliances. We have invited Minister Costa to attend our July meeting and provide a further update on the water reform process.

The Executive Committee sees great benefits in having ongoing communication between government and senior local water utility managers who can provide first hand technical advice and who represent all regions of New South Wales.

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