The Queensland Water Commission’s final report to the Queensland Government: Urban Water Supply Arrangements in SEQ (PDF, 4MB) was released in May 2007. Read more about the recommendations.

The final report outlines a range of structural and regulatory reforms proposed for urban water supply arrangement in SEQ. Following consideration of the report, the State Government decided to introduce reforms to the way water services are provided in SEQ.

Figure 1 - Current Institutional Arrangements

Figure 2 - Future SEQ Urban Water Arrangements

Key elements of the reforms:

• Bulk source and treatment - ownership of water sources such as dams, weirs and aquifers will be aggregated into a single Bulk Supply Authority owned by the State effective by 1 July 2008. The entity will conduct its affairs on a commercial basis and sell all its water services to the Water Grid Manager
• Manufactured water - the SEQ (Gold Coast) Desalination Plant and the Western Corridor Water Recycled Water Project will be located within a second State owned bulk entity focussed on manufactured water
• Bulk transport – a state owned authority will own the major transport infrastructure, including that presently owned by local governments and that being built by the State as part of the SEQ water grid to enable conjunctive (regional) management and distribution of water. The Bulk transport authority is required to sell all its water services (transport from the Bulk Supply and Manufactured Water sources to the Distribution Entity’s network) to the Water Grid Manager
• Water grid management - a Water Grid Manager will be established by the State to manage contracts with the Bulk Supply and Transport Authorities and the retailers, and to manage the flow of water around the SEQ Water Grid allowing for the sharing of costs, effective from 1 July 2008. The Water Grid Manager will buy the services of the Bulk Supply, Manufactured Water and Bulk Transport Authorities and sell the treated water to Retailers and power stations
• Distribution – a single Distribution Entity will own the water and sewerage reticulation pipes, reservoirs, pumps etc (i.e. all non bulk transport assets) and sewage treatment plants. It will be wholly owned by the SEQ local governments, effective from 1 July 2010. The Distribution Entity will deliver water to retailer customers and collect sewerage from retail customers, deliver sewerage to its treatment plants, treat and dispose of the sewerage
• Retail – Local government owned retailers will be established by 1 July 2010 (i.e. separate legal entities from local government). The corporate structure is yet to be decided. Retailers will:
  • sell water supply and sewerage disposal services to SEQ households and businesses
  • purchase treated water from the Water Grid Manager
  • contract and pay the Distribution Entity to deliver water to their customers
  • contract and pay the Distribution Entity to collect, treat and dispose of sewage from their customers

The Bulk Supply, Manufactured Water and Bulk Transport Authorities and the Water Grid Manager will be State statutory authorities, each governed by its own Board. There is provision for Ministerial direction (akin to shareholding Minister’s direction of a Government owned corporation) to perform, for example, non-commercial activities.

Consolidating the ownership arrangements for water supply and sewerage presents an opportunity for improvement in a number of areas including:

• Providing security of supply - to all of SEQ’s population, now and into the future;
• Developing consistent service standards - addressing the current variability in service standards throughout the SEQ region;
• Technical expertise - bringing together of staff expertise in developing and providing the region’s future water supply and sewerage services;
• Optimised network planning - creating the opportunity to plan future infrastructure networks across the whole of the SEQ region;
• Improving financial capacity - bringing together assets under one entity and increasing financial capacity. In the case of the Distribution Entity, this creates an opportunity to more proactively construct water supply and sewerage infrastructure to support future development.

The current and future institutional arrangements for water supply in SEQ are shown diagrammatically in Figure 1 and Figure 2.