Former recycled water champion urges Palaszczuk to be ‘courageous’

Toowoomba’s former mayor has urged Annastacia Palaszczuk to be ‘courageous’ and add treated effluent into southeast Queensland’s drinking supply.

Former Toowoomba mayor Dianne Thorley in 2016. Picture: AAP

The former mayor who spearheaded Toowoomba’s failed push for recycled water during the ­millennium drought has urged Annastacia Palaszczuk to be “courageous” and add treated ­effluent into southeast Queensland’s drinking supply.

State cabinet will this month consider a new report, which proposes using recycled water in the region’s drinking supply or building a new desalination plant, costing up to $8bn.

Southeast Queensland’s surging population means water shortages are due a decade earlier than forecast and a new drinking source is needed by 2030.

Recycled­ water was controversially rejected by Toowoomba residents in 2006 at the height of the millennium drought.

Peter Beattie’s Labor government then pushed ahead with a $2.5bn recycling scheme, built in 2006-08, which supplies power stations with water but has never supplemented drinking supplies.

Dianne Thorley, who served as Toowoomba mayor from 2000-2008, believes recommissioning the network of recycled water treatment plants is politically risky, but the right decision.

“There is an absolute fear of losing elections and if you don’t want to lose, you don’t go near anything controversial,” she said.

Then mayor Di Thorley was the face of the Yes vote for Toowoomba’s referendum on recycled water. Picture: Kevin Farmer

“But at some point you have to stand up and say ‘this isn’t about me sitting in ministerial leather, this is about doing the best we can’. You’ve got the system already in place, you already spent the money – just do it.”

Ms Thorley was the face of the Yes vote for Toowoomba’s referendum, while rich-lister businessman and former Nationals MP Clive Berghofer championed the No campaign.

Multiple sources have told The Australian that the Premier prefers the desalination plant, despite being the more expensive option, and wants to avoid public debate about the permanent use of recycled water.

Ian Macfarlane, a former federal MP who represented the Toowoomba-based seat of Groom at the time of the vote, said Ms Palaszczuk’s instinct was “probably right”.

“It is a tricky question, I can understand why the Premier wants a desal plant,” he said.

“The big issue at the time was people in Toowoomba felt they were being used as guinea pigs and Clive Berghofer was strident about the fact we would be the only city in Australia that would have recycled water.

“I just don’t think people were totally convinced of the safety of it and why was Toowoomba the only city in Australia doing it.”

Perth residents have been drinking recycled water since 2017 and the McGowan government last year commissioned a $320m expansion of the scheme to double its capacity.

University of Queensland professor Sara Dolnicar, who has researched public perceptions of recycled water, said governments were afraid of large-scale recycled schemes after the failed Toowoomba vote.

“From the social science point of view, desal is easier to sell politically, but recycling is cheaper and more environmentally sustainable,” she said.

“The narrative of recycled water being unsafe has never been successfully quenched in Australia. Many countries have relied on recycled water for a very long time, so this is very well tested technology.”

A Labor source told The Australian the recycled water option “made sense”, but could be politically dangerous if the LNP mounted a campaign against it.

A Queensland government spokesman said the region had enough water “for the foreseeable future”.

“There has been no decision about extra desalination,” the spokesman said.

Water Minister Glen Butcher last year said the government was not considering increasing the use of recycled water.