Why the QWC is the Beattie government's scape goat ...

Excerpt from the Sunday Mail:

Goodwill dries up

7 July 2007

The Queensland Water Commission has to rely on the good grace of the residents of southeast Queensland to do its job.

But the goodwill shown by thousands of Queenslanders cutting their daily water use is drying up at the same pace as some of our regions.

Both the Government, and the commission, sell the body as an independent entity charged with the crucial task of delivering sensible water policy, implementing water restrictions and creating water savings.

But that doesn't tell the whole story and in reality the commission now plays a twin role falling well short of any definition of independent.

The $18 million body, set up under the Water Act 2000, has become both the marketing arm for State Government policy, and the buffer for Team Beattie from any community anger.

And the commission is playing that partisan role well, accepting with open arms the responsibility and marketing of issues and policies that should be the domain of an elected government.

The consequence of this is that it allows the Government to escape voters' wrath for its lack of planning in relation to water infrastructure.
...

That's a point not lost on one senior Labor MP who put it this way: "Why wear the flak when we don't have to."

But while the commission is saving the Government on the water front, it is creating strong enemies among many of the local councils which have had to hand off their water functions.

And at least four councils are now openly briefing journalists about the "litany of disasters" they believe the commission is responsible for.

The latest is the water usage form, sent out to high users and re-sent to many who had done the right thing in the first place and responded.

Councils remain furious their logos are on the form, despite no senior council officers or elected councillors being involved in its preparation. But some councils feel their hands are tied when it comes to publicly criticising the Water Commission; to come out in opposition of the commission, one senior staffer calls "the runaway train", risks mayors being pilloried.
...

Elizabeth Nosworthy, who heads the commission, is also not going great strides in helping the public perception of her operation either.

This week, she was warning of the same "crisis" she refused to acknowledge only a couple of months ago.

And her explanation for why some residents were getting second reminder notices on Thursday, weeks after those ratepayers responded to the commission, also raised more questions than answers.

But we didn't vote in Nosworthy and any wrath over how the whole southeast water operation is being undertaken should be laid squarely at the feet of the Government.

See - Beattie's scapegoat.