Thought of the day...

[lirion]

I was having a conversation with someone recently about rainwater tanks - I think it might have been at Midsummer?
There was a thought that the government might then try and charge you for water colelcted in the tanks. I was arguing that as they had invested no money in the infrastructure I didn't think they legally could (not to mention measuring how much you'd collected etc). That said another recent conversation has brought up the far more likely conclusion - they can't charge you for the water you collect, but there is nothing stopping them from taxing the tank itself :( How they'll do this could be interesting though - at the moment they'll only know you have a tank if you claim a rebate. Unless they propose bringing in registration for buying one...

Edit: For the record this was an argument put forward by someone else, i'm not sure how much I agree with it, but it's an interesting conversational piece

Comments

[aeduna.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely convinced that its in the State Government's interest to put any financial penalties in place if you collect rain water. The alternative is that we build more damns, and that's expensive, both in cash and public opinion (in terms of wiping out areas of virgin bush).

[lirion.livejournal.com]

Re building more damns, putting aside the expense for a moment, unless building a new dam is going to magically make it rain more, what's the point?

Surely we'd do better to find a way to make better use of storm water than shoving it out to sea?

Define 'interest' though? Governments like to make money, and the less water we use, the less money intot heir coffers from that income stream. So are they going to try and prop that up from the alternate source fow ater people are turning to?

I dunno, but I was after covnersation about it and I'm getting it so... I won't be entirely surprised if they try and tax it but I think the logistics of it will be too difficult to make it worthwhile.

[aeduna.livejournal.com]

More dams are a bulwark against the /next/ time this happens - that's how we got the Thomson in the 1st place I believe. Its not a good solution, but its "doing something" - a maxim that seems to be all the rage amidst current governing bodies.

re: storm water. It used to be a given that you /had/ to put water down the pipes to keep them clean and unblocked :)

Interest = remaining in government. Currently when you pay for water, some of it is skimmed off by the billing company, and the rest goes to Melbourne water, which is a corporation. ... A solely government owned corporation, sure, but still. (FWIW: people doing water recycling impacted on the amount of water being used and thus on MelbWater's income to a significant degree).

I don't believe that the current situation - water restrictions, low dam levels, etc - are condusive to a tax on tanks. True, governments do insane things in the name of income, but rebating with one hand and telling everyone to be careful with water and then taxing with the other seems a career limiting move for a State Government

Local councils, I'm not so sure on.

[lirion.livejournal.com]

The thing is it's an expensive 'doing soemthing', and there is a lot of "but if we have no rain it's just going to be another empty damn sentiment". that said, if the restrictions get much worse I think you'd find that the cost in public opibion for destroying the forests might not be as high as it once was...

Maybe so, but at the moment, it's criminal to see how much water runs away to no beneift after a rainstorm...

And if we need to use less water stillt hen the bottom line is going tos tart getting shaky for Melbourne Water...

I think it might depend on what they said the tax was going towards as to how much people would complain about being taxed for water tanks.

But yes I think there would be an argument if they rebated and then taxed. Depends on how much time between cutting off the rebate and insituting the tax too.

[aeduna.livejournal.com]

I doubt that building a new dam is an attractive idea for the current government. Don't ask about the liarberals.

Some of that water has to run off, to get to waterways and all. There's a lot of work going on to try and make holding ponds so that it doesn't surge too much down the creeks and rivers. The trick is to find a balance - more runs off at the moment than "should" because concrete and ashphalt aren't that absorbant. So, if we collect what falls on houses and let what hits the road run off, it might make a workable balance. (and avoid stuff like this.)

Its more likely that water costs would increase, I think, to help balance Melb Water budget...

If the situation changes - we're not on water restrictions any more, and the damns fill up, then a tax might be possible. I just don't see it now :)