Revised charges for recreational activities at Seqwater sites to be implemented from 1 July 2019

19 Jul 2019

Over the years, there have been numerous mergers of water and infrastructure businesses in Southeast Queensland that has led to the current form that Seqwater now takes.

Film crew on site Lake Wivenhoe filming for annual summer safety campaign.

The last of the mergers was as recently as 2013, which saw three organisations merged into one statutory authority. Included in these changes has been bringing control of assets such as lakes and dams as well as the corresponding terrestrial areas into the remit of a single authority and makes Seqwater one of the largest water businesses in Australia.

So, why do we charge fees?

Our primary purpose in managing the use of our land and recreation areas is to ensure the safety of the public and protect the environment and water supply. With 2.7 million visitors each year and around 200 events being held on and around our land, it is necessary to ensure that the risks are managed appropriately. This takes time and resources to do. The fees being charged are designed to help meet these objectives and are in line with our guiding principle of ‘cost effective delivery’ of recreation services and they are in accordance with the 'Principles of Fees and Charges' outlined by the Queensland Treasury.

Why have our fees changed?

Over time the processes and systems that were developed for individual, smaller businesses may no longer be fit for purpose. We want to improve how we manage and process requests to use our recreational areas for community, commercial and not for profit purposes.

In a move to improve transparency, reduce the administration time required and develop a fair and equitable system for how we manage requests to use these spaces, Seqwater has now reviewed its fees and charges schedule to make it relevant to way these sites are managed today.

What has changed?

The key changes in the redevelopment of our fees and charges is a restructure of the categories under which fees apply, a true alignment of costs to the administrative time taken to manage them and some adjustments to additional fees charged to commercial use applications.

The changes mean fees will increase and one new fee has been introduced for high impact commercial service providers. These fees help mitigate impact to the site as well as recover administration costs.

Other changes to the fees and charges include:

Reduction in the overall number of fee categories (from 11 down to 7)
Single application assessment fee (used to be six different kinds of assessment fee)
Clear definitions of what makes a low, medium or high impact event offering event organisers clarity about what they will be charged and why.

In short, all permit controlled events (including filming activities) will be charged an application assessment fee. It is important to note that this fee may be waived by Seqwater for not-for-profit and charitable organisations as well as students filming as part of an educational course. If the event is commercial in nature, the application will attract additional fees.

Commercial service providers, such as coffee/food vans, commercial sporting events, sales days etc will be charged a single annual fee based on impact (no application assessment fee).

The first step in applying to use Seqwater sites for an event remains a five question self-assessment survey via our website that determines whether the event just requires notification to Seqwater (notifiable events) or whether fees will apply (permit-controlled events).

A full list of our new fees and charges for these is available here.

The new fees will apply as of Monday, 1 July 2019. All applications that are underway prior to this will be charged at the existing rates. New applications commenced on or after this date will be charged under the new fee structure.

Seqwater reserves the right to review these fees and charges.