Bracks 'aware of secret Snowy plan'

THE Bracks Government conned Victorians over its commitment to revive the Snowy River, withholding secret plans to turn off flows from a major tributary, the state opposition has claimed. In a move lauded in 2002 as the start of a $300 million Snowy River revival, the Victorian and New South Wales Governments closed the Mowamba River aqueduct between the NSW towns of Jindabyne and Dalgety to stop water flowing to the Jindabyne dam. Water instead poured over the Mowamba Weir wall into the Snowy River, but the flow has been reduced to a trickle since February when the operating body, the Snowy Hydro, began diverting water back into the Jindabyne dam. The Snowy Hydro says the Mowamba flows were always going to be temporary, a fact opposition water spokesman Denis Napthine says was conveniently kept from locals. Mr Napthine said Premier Steve Bracks and and his Government would have been well aware of the proposed plans for the Snowy River and had deliberately misled East Gippsland and Victoria over the flow rate. "Clearly there are secret arrangements," Mr Napthine said. "Steve Bracks was seeking to mislead and con the people of East Gippsland." East Gippsland Independent MP Craig Ingram said while he did not believe Mr Bracks knew about the plans at the time the joint government initiative was announced, the Victorian Government now had a duty to demand accountability by its NSW counterparts. He said the NSW Government-run Snowy Hydro refused to release information about what waters are flowing into their storage. It could say whatever it liked "and there's no ability to check," he said. Both Mr Ingram and Mr Napthine say they did not believe Snowy Hydro claims that the annual volume of water being returned to the Snowy has not changed. The Snowy Hydro say extra water was now being released upstream from the dam. "They're lying, they're not releasing the same volumes and what volumes they are releasing is flat, unnatural flow," Mr Ingram said. He said the NSW Government had failed to make sure the Snowy Hydro was running the environmental flow of the river properly and neglected to set up a scientific committee to advise it on how to manage the environmental flow. "At the moment the scientific advice is coming from the Snowy Hydro," he said. A Victorian Government spokeswoman said the Government had written to the NSW Government asking it to speed up the establishment of the scientific committee. The spokeswoman said the Government had returned water to the Snowy River and was on track to meet its commitments. She declined to comment on whether Mr Bracks knew about plans to turn off the flow when the initiative was announced in 2002.

Bracks' water recycle claim a 'big swindle'

Jason Koutsoukis August 27, 2006 = Melbourne AGE

BILLIONS of litres of water are being wastefully dumped into Port Phillip Bay each year by the Bracks Government, which has been accused of misleading Victoria about the amount of water it recycles.

After the driest winter in 20 years, the State Government will impose stricter water restrictions this summer as it urges householders to save water, yet new allegations suggest it is being dishonest about its own water-saving measures.

The claims have been made by former Melbourne Water general manager Bill Forrester in an exclusive interview with The Sunday Age. He said the State Government was indulging in a "scandalous con job".

"The public are being completely misled about how much water is being recycled," Mr Forrester said.

According to Melbourne Water's last published annual report, 11.3 per cent of Melbourne's waste water was recycled in 2004-05.

But 94.7 per cent of the water that is branded as recycled is in reality class C effluent, which has been subjected to "on site" recycling at two of Melbourne's main water-treatment plants, the Western Treatment Plant and the Eastern Treatment Plant.

The water is not pumped back into the water supply system to be re-used in agriculture or industry, but is used to wash Melbourne Water plant equipment and then allowed to flow out to sea, or is pumped out on to 6000 hectares of Melbourne Water-owned land in Werribee.

Only 0.6 per cent of Melbourne's water is actually recycled and re-used in agriculture and industry.

"I was in charge of all this when the Bracks Government pulled this target of '20 per cent recycled water by 2010' out of thin air and the decision was made to inflate the existing percentage by including this internal recycled water," Mr Forrester revealed.

"The State Government has never set up a structure that will deliver recycled water for the state, and the evidence is there for all to see," said Mr Forrester, who parted amicably from Melbourne Water less than 18 months ago.

Mr Forrester's claims have been backed up by leading environment group the Clean Ocean Foundation, which has long been campaigning for the Bracks Government to halt the 430 million litres of raw sewage dumped into the ocean every day off Gunnamatta beach.

Clean Ocean Foundation spokesman Carlo Iacovino said: "Many Melburnians assume our sewage is recycled at Werribee or Carrum. The truth is that every day, over a billion litres is dumped into Port Philip Bay and into the ocean at Gunnamatta via environmentally damaging outfalls."

While Melbourne Water management yesterday strongly rejected the claims that it was misleading Victorians, spokesman Ben Pratt was forced to concede that water recycled "on-site" was not pumped back into Melbourne's water supply system for use by agriculture or industry. "We stand by the figures as reported in our annual report," Mr Pratt said.

A spokeswoman for Victoria's Water Minister, John Thwaites, also denied that its figures were misleading. "We support Melbourne Water's targets. And Victoria is on track to meet its 2020 recycling target," she said.

But the federal parliamentary secretary for the environment, Greg Hunt, a long-time proponent of water recycling, slammed the Bracks Government over its inaction. "Their own figures have been shown to be a fraud," Mr Hunt said.

"Overnight, they increased their recycling figure to around 12 per cent, yet in reality it was nothing more than an accounting trick," he said. "The problem of pollution still exists in Port Phillip Bay and off our coast and their proudest boast on recycling has been shown to be a lie."

The Liberals, Nationals and the Greens are calling for an increase in the rebate offered to houses installing a water tank.

Existing houses that install a tank receive $150 from the State Government and an additional $150 to have it connected to the toilet system. It costs about $2200 to buy a water tank and have it fitted to a toilet and laundry.

Hey Big Spender - Mr Bracks

THE Bracks Government's environment department has spent more than $1 million on media spin doctors in less than a year.

Taxpayers have footed the bill for 18 communications managers and advisers employed by the Department of Sustainability and Environment.

Figures seen by the Herald Sun under Freedom of Information law show the DSE spent $1,122,231.12 on salaries for the advisers from July 1, 2005 to June 14 this year.

The bill equates to more than $60,000 a year for each media manager. The money is enough to plant 500,000 trees, restore 500ha of wildlife habitat, buy 1000 megalitre of water for the Murray River or put six new litter traps on the Yarra River.

Environment Minister John Thwaites' department employs four communications managers and a further 10 communications advisers in its Melbourne office.

Another five advisers are employed in offices in Ballarat, Benalla, Box Hill and Traralgon.

The DSE has 18.5 full-time equivalent media managers for water, fire and emergency, land stewardship and biodiversity, planning and sustainability, as well as an overall media manager and advisers.

The advisers are in addition to Mr Thwaites' own communications team. The department has the same number of advisers as the Premier's media unit, which handles all ministerial media enquiries.

Opposition environment spokesman David Davis said the DSE was absorbed with spin and should stop wasting money. "This is money being diverted from community projects that would have improved our environment," he said.

But Mr Thwaites said the advisers were necessary to inform the public about DSE projects.

"The DSE needs to communicate effectively with the media as it deals with matters of crucial public importance such as fire fighting and water conservation," he said.

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Editorial: I am constantly amazed at the Victorian Government's duplicity!

They have encouraged the public to believe, among other things, that the Victorian Mountain Cattlemen are using public land with such ideas as 'cheap grazing', that they are destroying the bio-diversity of the land (the Government printed doctored pictures of cattle drinking at a silt trap and inferred it was a bog) and that the cattlemen are being paid $100,000.00 to get out of the Alpine National Park when actually most families have only received three or four thousand dollars to get ajistment for their stock.

And all along, there is an enormous bureaucracy, which makes it's living directly from public land - that is Parks and DSE! Parks and DSE then spend taxpayers money to make themselves look good while, vilifying the cattlemen, stopping people from gathering firewood, stopping us using timber (while we now import over 20% of our hardwood needs from unregulated sources in places like Indonesia and this amount is growing). They are also going to do the same as NSW and ban people from horse riding or driving in the Alpine National Park unless they are in designated areas.

As an aside, last summer, the majority of campers along the Howqua River had NSW number plates - why - because campfires are still allowed in Victoria. Look out Victorians, there will come a time soon that we won't be allowed to have them either - if Bracks and the Greens get in at the next election.

Wendy Jubb Stoney. Howqua Hills.

Bracks Spends Up Big with your money