THE basic assumptions used to predict the amount of water to be delivered to Melbourne from the north-south pipeline have "now proven to be wrong", Victoria's top water adviser has admitted.
The managing director of the Government's Office of Water, David Downie, said factors such as expected flows, water quality and rainfall predictions for the pipeline and irrigation projects had undergone "substantial changes" since April last year.
Mr Downie made the admission while giving tribunal evidence in a freedom-of-information case last week. His evidence also contradicted the Water Minister's announcements on when the controversial pipe and desalination plant would be finished.
He said Melbourne Water had told the department the pipe would not be completed until at least the middle of next year, while Water Minister Tim Holding told Parliament last month that water would flow down the pipe as "early as February 2010".
Mr Holding refused to answer any questions on the record about Mr Downie's evidence and also refused requests for the correct assumptions the Government is now using to predict the flows from the north-south pipeline.
The Government has been under pressure to show how it will provide a "long-term average" of 75 billion litres of water to Melbourne each year from the $600 million-plus pipeline. The water will deliver to Melbourne a third of water savings from the upgrade of northern Victorian's irrigation infrastructure.
Ongoing drought has drastically cut the amount of water lost in the irrigation system — and therefore the amount that can be saved — from an average of 900 billion litres a year to 343 billion litres in the previous Goulburn-Murray irrigation season.
Mr Downie also told the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal the food bowl modernisation project was unlike other Government projects. "Government policy was made before the business case was done," he said.
The Opposition is seeking documents sent from the Department of Sustainability and Environment to Melbourne Water in April 2008, which show, among other things, how much water is expected to flow down the north-south pipeline.
The Government is refusing to release the documents because they say the figures were only a snapshot, have now changed, were prepared by junior staff and "do not contain sufficient information for an uninformed audience to interpret them correctly and reasonably".
The Government has also refused The Sunday Age's requests under freedom of information for the business case for the $2 billion food bowl modernisation project.
In other evidence, Mr Downie said the desalination plant might not be finished until early 2012 — again at odds with Mr Holding.
Under attack from the Opposition, the Government has admitted to The Sunday Age that construction for the $3.1 billion desalination plant is running behind schedule. But Mr Holding said water would still be delivered as promised, at the end of 2011.
The Government originally said construction would start mid-year, but this looks set to shift to the second half of 2009, as a private partner is still to be appointed.
"The Brumby Government should stop the spin and take responsibility for delivering water major projects on time and on budget," said Louise Asher, shadow minister for urban water.
But Mr Holding said the plant, which will provide 150 billion litres of water, would start working "exactly when we said it would", at the end of 2011. The delay, which the Government did not explain, would be made up by the work already done in the planning phase.
"In the next few months we will be announcing the successful bidder and we expect they will begin construction shortly after," he said.
But Ms Asher said government fact sheets said the plant's construction would take 2¼ years. "Construction will have to commence by the end of September 2009 to meet this deadline," she said.
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