Sunwater chair's call for smaller water projects rejected by LNP

Sunwater chairwoman Leith Boully told the 270-strong crowd attending the lunch debate headlined What is Queensland's water future? that the government-owned corporation's work in regional blueprint investigations suggested that for agriculture, things like smaller distributed infrastructure that services individuals and small communities might work.

"Over and over again, we call for big dams to be built," she said.

"Over and over again, the business cases fail.

"They're going to continue to fail unless we change the way we do things, unless something changes in the system that we're operating in."

In a pitch that encompassed climate change and private investment, Ms Boully told the audience that on the Darling Downs, in northern NSW and on the Riverina, private investment was providing great value for their communities.

"For our urban regional communities, (when) you think about climate change, sometimes a big dam's not going to be very helpful to us," she said.

"Sometimes a small dam's not going to be very helpful to us.

"We need to be looking at climate-resilient water sources - recycling, desal, and we really need to focus on how to bring all of those water resources together."

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Extending her theme to Queensland's north, where the majority of the 50 per cent of Australia's run-off occurs, and where schemes such as the Urannah Dam, the Big Rocks weir and Hells Gate Dam, and the new Bradfield scheme are being nurtured, the increase in extreme climate events would be a handbrake according to Ms Boully.

"If you own a dam in North Queensland, let me tell you, you're very focused on dam safety and of course the standards are very high in terms of what you're required to do in order to be able to keep that dam safe.

"That just goes to my argument around if we didn't have really large infrastructure perhaps we would be better able to afford to maintain a smaller suite of infrastructure."

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It was a message that was solidly rejected by the LNP's spokesman for natural resources Dale Last, who said it was "clear that the comments from Labor's handpicked chair of Sunwater were reinforcing the government's anti-dams and anti-regions agenda".

"Not only was the chair of Sunwater publicly dismissing any criticism around the government's handling of the Paradise Dam fiasco, she was actively talking down the prospect and requirement for large scale water infrastructure in Queensland, especially in North Queensland.

"Any hopes that Sunwater has not been politicised has now been completely dashed and it is clear the only way to build new dams is to change the government.

"Annastacia Palaszczuk's anti-dams and anti-regions agenda is costing rural and regional jobs."

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Pressed by former National Party director Mike Evans at lunch to share views on the latest version of the Bradfield scheme, only Urannah Water Scheme director John Cotter was prepared to respond.

He said that in his humble opinion, North Queensland suffered a heck of a lot of vision and not a lot of follow-through.

"What I get worried about when I'm walking around chambers of commerce in North Queensland is that, it's another big headline greeted with a bit of cynicism.

"What I would concentrate on - there are a lot of programs further developed that, as the information comes from Bradfield, let's put that into what I think we've all said today, which is a bit of a mature conversation around what is the right outcome for all those catchments.

"I think I'd reiterate the point about ownership and psyche of water as well.

"It's not to be under-estimated when you're looking at Bradfield."

Mr Cotter had earlier touched on the need for regulatory certainty, amid the politicised environment that water has become, as an important part of the equation to pull off large-scale water developments.

Fellow panelist Riparian Capital Partners managing director Nick Waters said the private-public partnership approach to building Emu Swamp Dam at Stanthorpe was an example of how it could work.

"It shows again, when you have high value agriculture in the form of vegetables, fresh produce, that can afford to contribute to the project upfront, then things can get done.

"As you said Leith, it doesn't have to be huge dams.

"You can create incredible value for a regional community like Stanthorpe and for Queensland in general."

Questioned on the timeframe for building a new dam, Mr Cotter said greenfield infrastructure projects in Australia took about 10 years to work through.

"We've got three-and-a-half years to go and 2500 approvals to go through.

"That's what new infrastructure actually means.

"Is it a wonder that when you get to the end and ask people to pay for it, that it's actually expensive."

Putting out a call for more creativity in approaching the future for water storage, Ms Boully said there was a need to look at opportunities for off-stream storages, for infrastructure that wasn't going to damage the environment or break the bank, and that would enable individuals to create wealth at a smaller scale.

"We focus on the dams and the water storage but let's focus on agriculture and the agriculture we're going to need in 2030 and 2050.

"You see some wonderful examples of high value, high intensity agriculture in glasshouses, look at Sundrop in South Australia and how they're producing amazing quantities of tomatoes on desal and solar.

"So let's turn to the other end of the equation, which is how do we produce more high quality wonderful agriculture from smaller and smaller quantities of water."