Peter Beattie ‘sorry’ for trouble at Paradise Dam

Former Queensland Labor premier Peter Beattie has offered a qualified apology over the defective Paradise Dam, which is now being replaced amid safety fears.

Former Queensland premier Peter Beattie. Picture: Britta Campion

Former Queensland Labor premier Peter Beattie has offered a qualified apology over the defective Paradise Dam, built by his government less than 20 years ago and which is now being replaced amid safety fears.

The four-term premier, who retired in 2007, offered the apology amid outcry over the announcement that the concrete of the once-52m high dam wall, near Bundaberg is so degraded it could endanger tens of thousands of people living downstream

Poor “quality controls” during construction is being blamed by experts for the failure of the 300,000 megalitre dam, opened in 2006 by Mr Beattie and delivered under a then-lauded private public partnership.

The dam, which irrigates a food bowl that produces more than a $1 billion annually in sugarcane, tomatoes, nuts, potatoes and beans, has been undergoing $1.2 billion in state and federal government funded repairs that has now been abandoned.

On Thursday, the Miles Labor government refused to estimate how much the new dam would cost or when it will be delivered, just 70m downstream from the existing wall.

Local state Labor MP Tom Smith said the Miles government should not have to wear any of the blame for the dam’s problems – some, of which, were discovered just after the dam’s opening but only made public in 2019.

Mr Smith said the government had “inherited the Paradise Dam from a government that was five governments ago”.

“It’s very clear, the Beattie government commissioned this dam,’’ he said.

“And I think that Peter Beattie owes a personal apology to the people of Bundaberg and I would welcome that apology.”

In response, Mr Beattie issued a statement saying his government was the last Queensland government to build dams and “did so against considerable opposition”.

“Nevertheless, my government was determined to ensure the farmers had the necessary access to water to produce the high quality agricultural products needed by Queenslanders,’’ he said.

“On behalf of my government I accept full political responsibility for building the dam and looking after Queensland farmers.

“For the problems with the dam I apologise to the local farmers and community. The buck stops with me and I have never run away from my responsibilities.”

But Mr Beattie questioned why it took so long “to determine that this dam needed to be replaced”. “If the problems were identified years ago why has there been such a delay?’’ he asked.

The wall had already been lowered by 5m, cutting its original storage capacity to 42 per cent, for the repairs which began four years ago.

SunWater chief executive Glenn Stockton said testing needed to be done on the concrete as the repairs were underway.

“We had to develop a testing regime to understand how this concrete would perform over time,’’ he said. “That took us some time to do we needed to validate that process … and it was only late last year that those results became firm.”

Built at a cost of $200m, it was the first “roller-compacted concrete dam” in Australia, which involves placing 310mm thick horizontal layers of concrete on top of each other. Mr Stockton said the design of the dam wasn’t the problem but the concrete composite and levels of clay.

“The roller compacted design is not the issue here, it’s the technique in which it was delivered and placed and the quality controls that that were utilised during the process,’’ he said.