The state government’s war on local authorities continues unabated with its decision to refer water-pricing structures adopted by 10 south-east Queensland councils to the Queensland Competition Authority.

Having arbitrarily seized the water assets of councils at a price it set, and now in the process of establishing a convoluted and expensive structure to manage its distribution, the government appears intent on avoiding the political consequences of its folly.

The state government, through the Queensland Water Commission, has already attacked Sunshine Coast and Redland councils over their claims that significant increases in the cost of water were inevitable due to the water grid.

Sunshine Coast Regional Council has produced tables, based on information supplied by the government, showing water price increases through to the 2017-2018 financial year. By then, water would cost householders $8.61 a kilolitre.

At that price, reduction to 140 litres per person per day, as suggested by Sunshine Coast Environment Council as a target, would be inevitable.

Left to its own devices, the Sunshine Coast Regional Council had regional water security through to 2020 and the ability to shape a water policy which could have addressed, through its own innovation, the needs of the community beyond that date.

Instead its water assets have been seized by a government that intends to drain our supply and with it, that security, in the interests of continued unfettered growth in the south-east corner.

Councils have been offered a role in the sale of water under the SEQ water grid and, while it would seem smart to remain engaged as a stakeholder in the process, that position should be placed under considerable scrutiny.

This council may better serve its community by copping the seizure of its assets on the chin and effectively look to develop infrastructure that would reduce reliance on the grid.

It can’t do that effectively while it is part of the business.

If we are to become a regional model for sustainability, encouraging innovative infrastructure design and requirements for new developments, and exploring harvesting and recycling strategies to service the whole community, may be a better strategy.

You can’t on the one hand criticise the construction of the Traveston Crossing Dam while planning a future reliant on whatever water it produces.

The capacity of local authorities to meet the challenges of climate change and peak oil, which most experts agree would be best met by decentralisation of key infrastructure, continues to be compromised by a state government that says one thing, yet plans with a 20th century mentality and grasp of realities.

This column has previously praised a speech given by sustainability, climate change and innovation minister Andrew McNamara to the Brisbane Institute in which he expressed a refreshing appreciation of the big picture.

In part he said: “The key to achieving a sustainable Australian population in the 21st century is population distribution: adopting policies which encourage and support population growth in areas where it can be supported sustainably, and discouraging it in those places where it can’t.

“Population maldistribution increases the stress on available resources and heightens the need for more stringent sustainable living practices, such as water restrictions. Population distribution, standard of living and sustainability are linked inextricably.

“They sit like three moons around a planet … separate, but part of the one system: influencing each other, intimately connected.

“A long-term study pointing out the appropriate population distribution for Australia, including modelling of the impacts both of climate change and peak oil on our capital cities, our regional cities and rural areas must now become a priority.

“This will of course be controversial. As Butler (2003) notes, no academic or political consensus exists concerning the optimum population for Australia. That is, however, no excuse not to start."

A good place to start would be the state government’s review of the SEQ regional plan where Mr McNamara’s concerns could be tested against its modelling for exponential growth.

It is worth recalling another section of Mr McNamara’s seminal speech in which he quoted former NSW Labor premier Bob Carr’s address to the 1997 National Conference of Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population.

“Let’s throw away for all time the notion that Australia is an empty space just waiting to be filled up. Our rivers, our soils, our vegetation won’t allow that to happen without an enormous cost to those who come after us,” he quoted Mr Carr as saying.

Unfortunately none of this appears to very much inform the policies of the government of which Mr McNamara remains a part.