Sound familiar ...

... State government relies on a report it won't produce. Government denies any secrecy. Findings remain under wraps.

No, it's not the missing hydrology report relied on by the DNRM&W and the Toowoomba City Council to state that we need to drink recycled sewage.

This time, it's documentation relating to Premier Beattie's proposed dams.

Excerpt from Sunshine Coast Daily:

Report on dam sites still to surface

31 May 2006

By Carolyn Tucker and AAP

MARY Valley residents have accused the state government of deliberately withholding a report on the comparative costs of building dams at 80 sites across South East Queensland.

However, the government denies there has been any secrecy: it just decided to build dams at Traveston and Tilleys Bridge on advice from the Natural Resources Department before the independent report was finalised.

Secretary of the Save the Mary Co-ordinating Group, Alan Sheridan, said the government commissioned the report from engineering firm GHD, but the findings have been kept under wraps.

...

Mary Valley residents said they had a meeting last Thursday with the Department of Natural Resources’ project director and he confirmed that a report existed comparing dam sites but said he wasn’t authorised to release any of the findings.

“The state government continues to treat us as though we have no right to participate in this debate and we are receiving more and more information every day which indicates how much we haven’t been told,’’ Mr Sheridan said.

...

“They have been sitting on their hands for the past 10 or 12 years and are now they’re in a political panic – it’s a terrible indictment on this government.”

Mr Sheridan said the government would still be forced to examine alternatives because the proposed dam would not address Brisbane’s short-term water needs.

A spokesman for the Minister for Natural Resources said an independent report commissioned by a joint taskforce was “in the process of being finalised”.

Source - Sunshine Coast Daily - Report on dam sites still to surface.


You could publish the same story by changing "Sunshine Coast" to "Toowoomba" and "dams" to "recycled sewage".

Queensland ... beautiful one day, bureaucratic bungling and stalling the next ...