July 20, 2023
South Burnett Regional Council will seek support for a motion at this year’s Local Government Association of Queensland’s annual conference calling on the State Government to reclassify water as an essential service.
Councillors were told at Wednesday’s General Meeting the State Government changed the classification of water in 1992.
This opened the door to having water charged on a cost-recovery basis which, in turn, has made it cost-prohibitive to build new dams and weirs.
But reclassifying water as an essential service would make these problems go away.
The Council will also propose a motion that coal mines and renewable energy companies be compelled to adopt the Clean Energy Council’s guidelines for community funding models.
These funding models reflect the number of megawatts generated by energy companies.
The motion also proposes that councils receive a portion of this funding to invest in community infrastructure, in partnership with their affected communities.
The two motions are part of a package of 10 motions the Council will table at the conference.
Others include expanding domestic violence support to cover men as well as women; addressing the housing and homelessness problem; helping more communities with bat issues; and supporting efforts to get more GPs to practice in rural areas.
The Council will also seek support for motions to transfer State Government reserves to Councils – when requested – to allow for a more cost-effective transition to freehold and/or broader use; to obtain more arts funding for rural areas; to help communities tackle gambling issues; and to introduce reforms to the Office Of The Independent Assessor and the councillor complaints system that were recommended by a recent State Government inquiry.
