On 27 January 2016 the West Australian Parliament Legislative Council held an Estimates hearing with witnesses from the Govt owned Water Corporation. Scroll right down to “Water Corporation” 27 Jan 2016 and click on the bottom link – Transcript of hearing – for a 32p 325KB pdf.
Working through the 32 pages – four issues caught my eye.
In order – at the bottom of page 1 there is a question relating to the sale of the Engineering and Construction Services division of Water Corporation last year.
Hon ALANNA CLOHESY: What was the sale price?
You can read through the pages of obfuscations and stonewalling invoking irrelevant issues including privacy – then on page 4 look at the fifth clause down –
The CHAIR: Just whilst you are thinking of your next question, I just quickly googled, as you can these days. Your website shows a press release “Buyer chosen for Engineering and Construction Services”, and the opening paragraphs says the sale price is $10.4 million.
Cringeworthy indeed for the Water Corporation top people that news they announced to the world in August 2015 comes out like this. But they bounce onwards – upshot was the WC cleared about a paltry $2mill on the sale. Another disaster.
Perth media had this to say – Water Corp chair Eva Skira a director of company which bought its assets 21 Aug 2015

The second issue is that of leaking pipes raised in the question near bottom of page 8 – Hon RICK MAZZA: … As I was saying, a couple of years ago the Auditor General spoke about pipe leakage out of your 34 000 kilometres of pipes. Has there been any work done towards minimising losses?
They talk about this issue and that issue related to leaks for all page 9 but never put a quantity on it – despite media articles being available suggesting that 30GL or 66% of the production from the Kwinana desal plant could be lost through leaky pipes. (on top of that would be losses from evaporation when the expensive desal water is pumped to dams)

The third issue is the statement by Mrs Murphy the CEO of Water Corporation on page 15, fifth clause down one line from the end “….four of the last five years have been the driest ever. It appears to be getting an accelerating drying trend.”
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But nobody asks about rainfall. Silence.

The fourth issue I thought worth mentioning is near the top of page 21 the first Question after Mrs Murphy mentioned Wellington Dam at the bottom of page 20.
Hon RICK MAZZA: That dam does regularly overflow though; does it not?
Keystone Cops would have been proud of the replies.
Mrs Murphy: It does, but that is largely because the irrigators are not taking the water either because it is too salty.
Mr Moore: It did regularly overflow; it has not in recent years.
Mrs Murphy: A couple of years ago.
Hon RICK MAZZA let them off after not getting a coherent answer.

According to a 2014 Water Corporation Media Release – Wellington Dam has overflowed in 2014, 2013, 2009, 2008 and 2005. I think it was 2007 rather than 2008.
It all reinforces my belief that Perth water policies have for 15 or 20 years now been the worst in the developed world. The ancient Romans would have done far better for less cost.