ARBITRARY PRICE HIKES APPROVED BY CABINET

THE State Government has ignored the reasoning of the Queensland’s irrigation sector, and is pushing through increased water charges of $2/megalitre plus CPI for many irrigation schemes across the State.

The QFF said today that it had received confirmation that Cabinet had approved the water price hikes, which came about due to ongoing delays to a Queensland Competition Authority (QCA) review into SunWater irrigation prices.

“The Government has taken the easy road here and irrigators have been the ones hit with the sharp end of the stick,” CEO Dan Galligan said.

“As we have continued to state, the very purpose of the QCA review is to determine fair and reasonable prices for irrigation water. We’ve been involved in the process from the start.

“But throwing this interim price at irrigators goes against the entire review process. Irrigators are continually stating that they have serious reservations about the efficiency of SunWater, and they see this price hike as an undeserved reward to the monopoly water provider.

“We are also frustrated that the $2/ML number is an estimation derived by SunWater but not yet verified by a rigorous QCA investigation. Irrigators are asking what will happen if these price hikes are not confirmed by QCA and customers end up paying an excess charge.

“These are issues that remain unresolved but this is an arbitrary price hike that irrigators recovering from flood and cyclone cannot afford.”

Mr Galligan said that QFF would continue to work with the Queensland Competition Authority, SunWater, and the Queensland Government on the review process.