Fed: River plan backdoor bid for privatisation: Bracks

AAP General News (Australia)
12-29-2006
Fed: River plan backdoor bid for privatisation: Bracks

MORWELL, Vic, Dec 29 AAP - Victorian Premier Steve Bracks has dismissed calls for the
federal government to take control of the nation's rivers, saying it is a backdoor bid
to privatise Australia's water.

"If some ministers, not all ministers, want to take over, I know what their motivation
is," he told reporters.

"Their motivation has been revealed in the past - it's to privatise water.

"They tried before we came into government. We stopped it. I know they will try again."

Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran today said control of Australia's major rivers
should be handed to the commonwealth.

The states have had control of rivers since federation but Mr McGauran says drought,
which is crippling much of southern Australia, proves they have failed to properly manage
water.

"The rivers that cross state boundaries and the water systems that flow into the major
rivers ought to be under the principal control of the commonwealth," Mr McGauran told
ABC radio.

"The states have patently failed over the years despite all of the warnings to institute
practices and to build engineering works which would secure their long-term future."

But Mr Bracks said the plan was an "ideologically-based effort" and the existing system
was operating very well and achieving water savings.

He also said he did not support any moves to privatise water.

"I think that would be a retrograde step," he said.

"I'd prefer to keep water as a public asset for the community - publicly owned, publicly
controlled, publicly administered."

"The reality is that privatising our water system will not assist at all in providing
extra water."

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KEYWORD: WATER BRACKS

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