TURNING on a water tap should be a relatively uncomplicated act.
However, water policy is one of the dominant issues of state and local government and it has been for more than a decade.
Last week in Capalaba, Premier Campbell Newman at his Cost of Living breakfast responded to a question asking why Redland City Council should contribute towards his election promise to give a $80 water rebate to South East Queenslanders.
Mr Newman has suggested councils give $10 towards that rebate because the state government water reforms had saved councils $30 per ratepayer.
He said his government had done the "lion's share of the lifting" to cut water bills and it was now time councils "put some money on the table"
This is the latest in a long running series of policy detours on water provision and distribution.
The rot started in the drought seven years ago that resulted in a massive water infrastructure roll out by the state government in South East Queensland including a controversial takeover of previously run council water storage assets.
This was despite a very successful water conservation education campaign where people began to value water usage and altered their consumption habits and ended up saving water usage across the board.
However, in the process of creating a water grid that would provide the mechanism to move water around between localities in in South East Queensland, Redlands lost control of its highly valued and innovative water assets and its own water business.
The end result was that we were lumped into a shared water business that we didn't control and we were locked us into paying a share of the massive state water infrastructure debt.
A change of government has given another policy change and taken us back to where we were - but still without ownership of our water storage assets.
Was it all worth it? Was it all necessary? - No to both.
The cost of turning on your tap is higher and these days when you do turn on your tap you are paying for more than the water and associated infrastructure and future investment.
It's quite likely that you are repairing a road or buying a book because is more than a necessary utility - it's a revenue source.