By Kath Gannaway
THERE are calls for a judicial inquiry after the Victorian Auditor-General delivered a scathing report on the State Government’s handling of its $2 billion dollar water saving projects.
The report into four major irrigation efficiency programs, including the Foodbowl Modernisation Project and the Sugarloaf Pipeline was released on 9 June.
The report concluded that the government’s decisions to invest the $2billion on projects between 2004 and 2007 were poorly informed.
It questioned whether the projects represented the best way to achieve the government’s policy objectives of saving water and safeguarding Victoria’s water.
It said the decision to invest $1billion in the FMP was “based on advice of water savings and cost assumptions that had not been verified, technology that had not yet proven itself and the feasibility of the project, which was unknown”.
“As a consequence, assumed water losses have been significantly revised down, making the achievement of intended water savings less certain.”
It said poor documentation and record keeping had been a consistent concern that had inhibited the DSE’s ability to provide the necessary assurance on the status of the irrigation efficiency programs.
The decision-making process from concept stage to delivery of a service requirement lacked transparency and rigour, the report said.
The Auditor-General described the cost/benefit analysis of the projects, including the pipeline, as “superficial” and said there was a lack of information to support the basis for water savings assumptions.
Liberal/National Coalition shadow minister for Country Water Resources, Peter Walsh, wants an inquiry into several matters around what he says is the government’s mishandling of the FMP and the pipeline.
Among those matters is the decision to build the pipeline before the government had secured legal access to the water and privacy concerns surrounding the extensive surveillance of the pipeline protestors, including Plug The Pipe’s most prominent activist, Yea farmer Jan Beer.
Mrs Beer supported the Opposition’s call for an inquiry.
“There are still a lot of unanswered questions,” she told the Mail.
“It’s all right for Mr Brumby to say it was just the process the auditor general was having a go about and that they had to do something because there was a crisis in water supply, but if you throw away all the checks and balances we have on proper governance, what you get is corruption, fraud and lies, which is what happened here.”
Mrs Beer said while the government had branded grassroots citizens liars, they continued to claim water savings that were not there, and that they knew were not there.
“There are all the sorts of checks and balances that should have occurred and did not and the Auditor-General’s report states that,” she said.
“The only crisis was that they had done nothing, and there was an election looming.”
She said those who opposed the FMP and the Sugarloaf Pipeline had been vindicated.
“Everything we said for three years has been shown to be true by this report,” she said.
A response from Water Minister, Tim Holding, was not received by the time the Mail went to print.
