Beattie's plan sure to reopen old wounds ...

Excerpt from the Chronicle:

23 November 2006

By Rebecca Vonhoff

Beattie's plan sure to reopen old wounds

TOOWOOMBA residents may have to vote again on drinking recycled water only four months after they rejected the issue. Premier Peter Beattie yesterday told reporters Toowoomba might be included in the South-East Queensland referendum, which has been earmarked for early next year.

"All I want to do is keep my options open here and I'm not going to rule out Toowoomba," Mr Beattie said.

"If they are going to end up drinking recycled water ... then frankly they've got to have certain rights and I'm not going to leave them out.

'The premier said a contributing factor to the July poll's failure – defeated with a 62% majority – was Water Futures' high component of recycled water that would have been added to Cooby Dam.

"In Toowoomba they talked about 25%, I think it was, I could be wrong," he said. "We have not yet made a determination of the percentage. It may well be a different percentage. It may not be anywhere near as high as that ... I think a lot of people were concerned about the 25% in Toowoomba.

Toowoomba has previously been excluded from water plans for South-East Queensland, instead creating a Water Task Force, which will hand down recommendations to the Minister of the Department of Natural Resources and Water Craig Wallace and Mr Beattie on December 18.

But the possibility the recommendations include plans to use water from Wivenhoe Dam, the proposed sight of recycling, have meant Toowoomba has again been brought into the recycling water debate.

"It depends on whether in fact the water strategy that we're working out for Toowoomba necessitates them having a pipeline to Wivenhoe," Mr Beattie said.

"We've not made that decision yet, which is why I'm equivocating ... If it includes a pipeline to Wivenhoe then frankly it's pretty hard to say they shouldn t have a vote, the premier said, giving a strong indication that Toowoomba would head to the polls.

Cr Snow Manners, a vocal opponent to drinking recycled water, said the premier's comments – flagged the fact that he has influenced the actions of the Water Task Force in regard to the likelihood that water will be sourced from Wivenhoe Dam.

"That's the logical reason Toowoomba has been mentioned, Cr Manners said.

Cr Manners said he felt "like somebody walking up a hill. I thought I had got to the top, but there's another climb".

Rosemary Morley, who heads Toowoomba's Citizens Against Drinking Sewage (CADS), said she had a sense of deja vu and impending stress when she heard about the Premier's comments. But she put the resurfaced issue down to political manoeuvring on the premier's part.

"He's a political genius," Mrs Morley said.

"This is about him deflecting attention away from all his other problems. His problems with Mary Rose and Gordon Nuttall and all the rest of them aren't on the front page of the paper – sewage water is."

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See - Premier Beattie plays games with Toowoomba.