When political objectives collide ...

Mayor Thorley must be cursing Premier Beattie under her breath today.

In State parliament last Friday, Premier Beattie tabled several new Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Water Information Sheets. One of these Information Sheets, No. 3, relates to desalination and recycling and contains the following comments:

"Desalination and water recycling are potentially longer-term water supply solutions. Technology is improving at a rapid rate. In the future, desalination may become economical and the recycling of water for potable purposes may be accepted by the community.

In the mean time, dams are still the most economical source of bulk water in south-east Queensland and recycling will generally be confined to industrial and other appropriate applications such as irrigation."

Now anyone knows that Toowoomba is in South East Queensland, notwithstanding attempts by the Beattie Government to somehow carve it out this region.

In State parliament on 25 May, Premier Beattie also referred to the "recycled water trials proposed for Toowoomba" (see page 1976). This is the clearest indication yet that State government policy is for Toowoomba residents to be used as the lab rats of South East Queensland.

Premier Beattie is staring down the barrel of the forthcoming State election and needs some deft political manoeuvring to escape the scandals surrounding his administration. He seems prepared to sacrifice the seat of Toowoomba North but appears desperate not to lose the seats in Brisbane. And he needs to be seen to be doing something about the lack of water infrastructure planning during his administration.

To have the Queensland Premier table documents in Parliament which state that "dams are still the most economical source of bulk water in south-east Queensland" and then refer to the "recycled water trials proposed for Toowoomba" are further blows to Mayor's Thorley's floundering recycled sewage project ...