Around 68 kilometres from the biggest policymakers in the country, near the ACT border, a group of Yass locals are gathering to protest against their lack of clear drinking water.
According to the Yass Valley Council website, the water is safe to drink but its appearance may suggest otherwise to those that use or consume it: "The palatability of Yass water is a major issue being addressed by Yass Valley Council," it says.
"The water supply is safe to consume but is affected by water hardness, dissolved solids and high organic matter, iron and manganese, which affects the taste and colour."
As the town, part of the historically contentious federal seat of Eden-Monaro, headed into an election in 2019, promises were made by the state and federal governments for funding and "support" to fix the colour and taste of the water.
Both Liberal and Labor camps promised upgrades to the town's water treatment plant.
Four years on, Deputy Mayor of Yass Valley Council and protest organiser Jasmine Jones said Yass water was "nothing pretty" and smelled like "rotten egg gas".
"Up at the plant it comes in looking like sewerage," Ms Jones said.
"It looks brown from manganese. And who wants to put that in their kid's bathwater? Who wants to drink that? Nobody.
Cr Jones said the local treatment plant was unable to deal with the high load of minerals and dirt in Yass' water and it was not "built to deal with that kind of degraded water supply".
A mother of five, she said she had been out of pocket because there were days when her kids turned on the tap and were unable to drink it.
She said residents were footing the bill for water treatment alternatives such as rainwater tanks, filters and bottled water.
Yass resident Pete Chatwin said he could pay up to $130 for a brand-new water filter that could, at times, only last up to four months.
'Smells like sewage'
One Yass local said the town's water supply could have been behind a bout of giardia in her family.
Carl Hodgson, whose wife spoke to ABC in 2019 about the family's illness, said he had not drunk the tap water in Yass since.
Mr Hodgson said he had not been anywhere but Yass over the period of time he picked up giardia.
"By process of elimination, there's a very, very high chance it was Yass [water] that I got it from," he said.
He said his children did not want to bathe in the water when it was running a particularly brown colour.
"Even the days where it is a clear colour and still smells like sewage, the kids don't want to get in [the bath]," he said.
Ms Jones says Yass residents could not turn on their taps with confidence and know their water was not going to be brown.
"When the risk is highest, the council has to issue a boil water alert because we cannot guarantee that the water is safe to drink, and there could be pathogens such as giardia in there," she said.
"Only just last year we got down to our last five hours of treated water and we were close to issuing that boiling water alert.
"Water guidelines have become much stricter and the water treatment plant just isn't up to scratch," Ms Jones said.
MP blames council for funding missteps
Today, local state member Wendy Tuckerman said the NSW government's commitment to fixing Yass's water issues "remains firm" and a re-elected Liberal government would "ensure the project is delivered without cost blowouts".
"Let's be clear, at the last election, Yass Valley Council said it was going to take $10 million to fix the problem," she said in a statement.
"However, for an investment decision to be made by the NSW government, a robust business case is required. This involves properly evaluating the options and the costs associated.
"This work is now underway and early indications are that the project costs will exceed the initial $10 million that [the] council estimated at the time of the election by more than 200 per cent."
Ms Tuckerman said she had secured nearly $4 million in funding for the existing water treatment plant.
She added that the Yass Valley Council had multiple opportunities to apply for further funding under state government-run programs to help the expansion and upgrade of the treatment plant.
"The community is being continually let down by the lack of planning on this and other issues.
"There has been no shortage of funds that council can apply for … other councils in my electorate have done the work and their communities are benefiting."
