Media Release

Peter Gutwein MP
Shadow Treasurer

Sunday 17th January 2010

Water and sewerage rebates, yet another Labor bungle?

Treasurer Michael Aird must explain whether his water and sewerage rebate plan has turned into yet another Labor bungle.

When announcing Labor’s hastily put together and expensive water and sewerage back-flip late last year, Michael Aird promised Tasmanians that they would get a rebate on this year’s bill before Christmas.

To date no-one has received any such rebate.

Late last week the senior executive in charge of revenue resigned from Onstream, raising further questions about the status of the rebate.

The Labor Government have already admitted that they got water and sewerage reforms terribly wrong, and have been forced to commit nearly $60 million of taxpayer’s money over the next three years to try and make their changes more palatable.

What’s worse is that this won’t actually fix the problem and the Government won’t even review the situation until 2012-13.

In contrast, a Hodgman Liberal Government will conduct an immediate review, freeze water and sewerage bills in 2010-11, make sure prices don’t rise by more than 5% during our first term, and provide grants to assist people to take steps themselves to reduce their own water and sewerage bills.

And we’ll do it all for half the cost to the taxpayer of Labor.