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By CAITLIN CROWLEY
THE “flow of information” within Toowoomba Regional Council is under scrutiny after the two councillors responsible for the water and waste portfolio were excluded from a meeting with their state counterpart this week.
Mayor Paul Antonio told his colleagues at Tuesday’s Ordinary Meeting that Water Minister Glenn Butcher had only wanted to meet with him, after holding a press conference in the region earlier that day to announce the start of survey work on the Toowoomba to Warwick pipeline project.
Water and Waste Committee Chair Councillor Rebecca Vonhoff (pictured) sought clarification on whether the mayor asked for her and portfolio leader Nancy Sommerfield to be included.
“With regard to your meeting with Minister Butcher, the Water Minister, did you ask if Councillor Sommerfield and I as portfolio chair and lead in the portfolio, would attend and he said he did not want to do that?” Vonhoff said.
Antonio responded: “I just asked him – did he want anyone else and his staff made it very clear he wanted to meet with me”.
“I asked him to come to lunch today, I asked him to do a number of things to include people. He made it very clear he was here briefly, he wanted to talk to me and that sort of stuff,” he said.
However Antonio went on to say his meeting with Butcher was not brief, that he had a friendship with him from “way back” and that the pair also discussed horse racing during their visit.
“I suggested to him through his staff that it would be the right thing to do to have lunch with us all,” Antonio said.
“Now they just refused that and they just said they wanted to see me briefly – which it wasn’t briefly – there was a fair bit more that he wanted to talk to me about.
“Well, a few other things in relation to personal matters with him, his horse racing career just briefly, and that was that.
“The other thing he wanted to take up with me was community attitude to it (the pipeline) because there’d been what he believed to be some quite unpleasant questions asked to him at the press conference.”
Water and waste portfolio leader Councillor Nancy Sommerfield (pictured) asked the mayor if there was a process to ensure the “flow of information” after meetings.
“I’m trying to work out how we get that flow of information to everybody, that’s all,” Sommerfield said.
“You hold important meetings with many people – but it is about getting that flow of information because you always learn something from those meetings, no matter how big or small.”
Antonio said there would be some matters Butcher would not want to discuss publicly, but that notes from the meeting could be made available.
Vonhoff requested a briefing from council officers on the Toowoomba to Warwick pipeline and said she’d been asked questions by media that day, which she didn’t have answers to.
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“I think that as a council we need to be brought up to speed with this, it is a huge project and I’m frankly not that concerned – I’m sure the minister can hold his own at a press conference,” she said.
Butcher told the Caller, “As a Queensland Minister, I regularly meet with Mayors and this meeting was no different”.
“An “informal lunch with Councillors” was suggested by Council staff, however given other scheduled commitments, my diary could not accommodate that,” he said.
Butcher (pictured above) provided an update on the Toowoomba to Warwick pipeline earlier that day, speaking at Cranley where survey works to help inform the final route had begun.
The 109km underground pipeline will carry water from Toowoomba to Warwick, providing a drought contingency supply for the Southern Downs and a permanent water supply to the towns of Cambooya, Greenmount, Nobby and Clifton along the way.
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The pipeline will utilise existing corridors where possible, while avoiding highways with 100km/hr speed limits.
Landowners will be impacted by the project, but Seqwater’s Barbara van Heerden said the number of affected residents had already been reduced from more than 90 to around 32.
“We’ve minimised that quite a lot through the realignment of the route so the key property owners are the ones where we’ve got the reservoirs,” she said.
Butcher said construction was due to start early in 2025 and be finished in 2027.
“We have opportunities in the future, with the regional water assessment being done in the Southern Downs and that will identify opportunities for either extending this pipeline to places like Stanthorpe or continuing on with the Emu Swamp Dam,” he said.
“I can assure the Toowoomba Regional Council and the mayor that if there’s any costs extra that go into this as a result of the pre-planning that we’re doing now, won’t be borne by the ratepayers of Toowoomba.
“This is a state government funded project with some money coming in from the council which is all we’ve asked for is that $12.8 million – on putting pipelines and extra water treatment facilities in those communities.
“After the detailed design’s done, after the planning’s done, the whole thing is ready to go – this is a Queensland government funded project and we will be supporting that project.”