Bligh Labor government plans permanent pay-as-you-go water restrictions ...

State Labor government playbook:

Form a commission for everyone to blame.

Grab all the water assets.

Charge what you like.

Excerpt from the Courier Mail (annotated):

Daily consumption plan for each household

5 February 2008

Permanent water quotas are being planned for southeast Queenslanders regardless of whether the wet summer fills the region's dams.

The [Bligh Labor government] Queensland Water Commission is discussing a long-term strategy to ration what households use.

It is understood a return to the old tiered restrictions, currently at level 6, has been ruled out.

Instead, a daily consumption level would be introduced for each household – with a daily figure of 230 litres per person being discussed.

Residents would be able to decide how they used the water.

Mechanisms to enforce long-term reduced usage – possibly a pricing scale – are being developed.

The aim is to ensure water users never return to pre-drought usage of 300 litres per person per day before restrictions were enforced in May 2005. But the move depends on the region's critical dams – the Wivenhoe, Somerset and North Pine – surging higher than their current combined level of about 29 per cent.

That figure could top 30 per cent if forecast rain arrives today and tomorrow. But despite residents being allowed to hose their garden three days a week when the levels were last at that level, there are no plans to lift bans on all but rationed bucket watering.

[Bligh Labor government appointee] Queensland Water Commissioner Elizabeth Nosworthy said although flood rains had been recorded in Brisbane and the Gold Coast, not nearly enough had fallen in hinterland catchments.

The 1,165,240 megalitre Wivenhoe was on 18.03 per cent, the 379,850 megalitre Somerset on 63.74 per cent and the 214,960 megalitre North Pine was on 21.72 per cent.

Ms Nosworthy yesterday declined to release details of long-term strategy but said it was aimed at protecting the needs of the entire region.

The Water Commission got people thinking about daily quotas with its heavily promoted 140-litre target. [Don't forget the Chinese 4 minute timers which never worked and are now part of the State's landfill.]

She said the commission was not under pressure to ease restrictions because few people wanted to water gardens in such wet conditions.

"Anyway the feedback I'm getting is the community wants us to be cautious," she said.

But Gold Coast Mayor Ron Clarke has blasted the [Bligh Labor government] Water Commission as "pig-headed" for its refusal to relax the restrictions for his ratepayers.

He wants the level 6 water restrictions eased to level 3 to reduce the risk of downstream flooding if heavy rain continues to fall.

But Ms Nosworthy said the council could reduce the risk of flooding by releasing more water through bypass valves in the Nerang River. The Hinze Dam is set to join the southeast Queensland water grid late this year.
...

See - State government to raise water prices.