Sydney Water and Hunter Water are to stay in public hands with the introduction of legislation to prevent privatisation.
Introducing the legislation, Premier Chris Minns said the Constitution Amendment (Sydney Water and Hunter Water) Bill 2023 would safeguard the public ownership of the State’s critical public assets.
“Both Sydney Water and Hunter Water are statutory state owned corporations and can be safeguarded from privatisation by an amendment to the Constitution Act [1902],” Mr Minns said.
“[The Bill] proposes an amendment that will require those two specific corporations, and their main undertakings, to remain in public ownership by ensuring that those entities, may not be sold or disposed of,” he said.
“The new provisions of the Constitution Act will be binding on the current and future governments.”
Mr Minns said that once passed, only an Act of Parliament would be able to authorise the sale or disposal of Sydney Water or Hunter Water.
Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said the Bill would act as an effective safeguard on the sale of state-owned assets, limiting the government’s ability to sell off assets.
“Sydney Water and Hunter Water are highly valuable state-owned corporations,” Mr Mookhey said.
“It simply does not make sense to privatise or even have the risk of privatisation, so we are ruling that out with this Bill.”
