'Completely unacceptable': NSW Premier washes his hands of Dubbo's water woes

Dubbo was placed on a boil water alert in July after the city's water treatment plant produced water above the 0.5 percent turbidity threshold for 10 hours.

Council flushed the system twice, but NSW Health imposed an even stricter 0.1 per cent threshold for old and new water coming in, which forced the long wait for drinkable water to again flow from household taps.

It was later discovered that the same water had not been fluoridated for more than three years.

The increase in turbidity was a direct result of significant rainfall.

With more rain predicted in coming months, there are concerns the situation could be repeated.

Despite repeated attempts to contact them, the Premier's office has opted not to respond to questions from the Daily Liberal regarding maintaining the safety and quality of drinking water.

Premier's office told the Daily Liberal to speak to the Local Health District about the matter of boil water alerts saying "they are the most appropriate to respond to your enquiry".

The Western NSW Local Health District also stated they would not be responding to further enquiries about the boil water alerts.

In response to concerns about the lack of fluoridation in the water supply, the Premier's office said to "please contact the local council with respect to the water treatment".

Although water treatment is a local council responsibility, the NSW government oversees and regulates the operation of local councils through the office of local government.

"If 40,000 people in Sydney were on boil water alerts for that length of time it would be front page news and the Premier would be up addressing it with some urgency," said Shadow Minister for Water, Labor MLC Rose Jackson.

"I absolutely think the fact resident's of Dubbo have been experiencing this and can't get any response from the Premier's office shows people in the regions are treated differently.

"They're not given the same priority as what happens in the Premier's backyard in Sydney and what is happening in major regional towns."

Ms Jackson said the Premier's lack of engagement on the issue was completely unacceptable.

"I appreciate there's a lot going on in the state but Dubbo's a major regional centre and I don't think it's difficult to make a lot of time to address these pretty major concerns.

"It's unacceptable that it's been so hard for Dubbo residents to get engagement from senior levels of government on this issue."

"It's not just about an acknowledgement that it's not acceptable - it's about finding a solution and looking at how to fix it so it doesn't happen again," said Ms Jackson.

"There's more rain predicted and it's not unreasonable to think the same thing will happen again, because the water infrastructure can't cope. The government needs to step up."

The current Dubbo council is also scrambling to get the local water supply fluoridated before June next year after unearthed council reports revealed the water has not been fluoridated since January 2019.

Dubbo Mayor Mathew Dickerson said the lack of fluoridation - and failure to inform the public - was an oversight by previous senior management and said it was a breach of number 58 in the Fluoridation of Public Water Supplies Act 1957 - which the Minister for Health is responsible for.

Ms Jackson said she believed it was the government's responsibility to make sure everyone in the state is getting the same health support and to ensure "councils are meeting their responsibilities".

"It's easy to sit in Sydney all the time and enjoy the privileged services in the capital and to not realise the lived experience of people in the regions is quite different," she said.

"It's really incumbent on political leaders to make an effort - they represent the whole state so they have to go and connect with the whole state."