Haughton pipeline blowout confirmed as Council CEO confirms project’s future looks murky

The completion of Stage 2 of the Haughton Pipeline is at jeopardy as the Townsville City Council responded to criticism and confirmed it was overbudget by $150m.

Townsville City Council’s interim CEO Joe McCabe attends a recent ordinary council meeting, which marked the returned of absent Mayor Troy Thompson. Picture: Evan Morgan

The completion of Stage 2 of the Haughton Pipeline is at jeopardy of not being completed until it can find another $150m in funding, leaving the half billion dollar project at risk of being a white elephant.

Townsville City Council’s interim chief executive Joe McCabe said the council was not in the position to commit further funding than its allocated $79m for the large scale project that would guarantee the city’s water supply during drought.

Mr McCabe said this year’s annual budget would allocate $45m of its total portion towards the large-scale water infrastructure.

Mr McCabe confirmed the figures after weeks of public criticism from Herbert MP Phillip Thompson who used parliamentary privilege to vent frustrations at how the large-scale project had been handled, and that the total cost of Stage 2 had lifted to $420m.

Mr Thompson said regardless of whether the state or local government paid, it was still money that belonged to the Townsville community.

Pipes being laid for the 28km second stage of the Haughton Pipeline project. Picture: Supplied.

And he was scathing of the past council’s administration’s decision to go ahead with the project, even without the support of the then LNP federal government.

Mr McCabe said “it became apparent” that the project would going to extend beyond its budget of $274m, which would mostly be state government funding of $195m with the rest covered by Townsville ratepayers.

He said that inflation in the construction industry following COVID-19 had impacted projections to $420m.

Herbert MP Phillip Thompson has blasted the handling of the large scale project.

The final inflated cost had been determined by a specialist consultant, who had reported the findings to all councillors within a confidential meeting.

“To date – Councillors have been unable to publicly address the project status, due to the confidential nature of the report provided to them,” Mr McCabe said.

“Council will complete its review, identify solutions and engage with State funding partners and other critical stakeholders to endeavour to ensure Council provides the community with a low-cost secure water supply via the Haughton Pipeline Project,” Mr McCabe said.

However, Mayor Troy Thompson publicly stated that more investment on the Haughton Pipeline would be needed, and in a social media post on Tuesday he showed support for the unrelated Herbert MP’s criticism by saying it was “warranted”.

His rant also included an attack against other councillors for keeping quiet on the subject, which would have required them to break confidentiality.

Originally published as Haughton pipeline blowout confirmed as Council CEO confirms project’s future looks murky