Cr Gillian Macleod raised the issue of demand on the district's water supply and questioned what had been done since last summer.
"It seems to me we are in for a long, hot, dry summer and we will have that problem [again]."
Cr Macleod said she would like to see water meters on rural properties, with more action than just monitoring the meters.
"We can meter them forever, but then what are we going to do?"Council infrastructure services general manager Mark Kunath said there were already water meters "at the big properties" and a meter going into Lake Hayes Estate.
If a property did not stay within its allocated litres per day, the council did have the ability to "put restrictions on", he said.
Cr Cocks said at this stage there was no policy in place and one was required.
"We've got meters; we've got the ability to do it. We've got to say how we're going to do that, to control the use of water.
"This is an issue . . . The demand management plan's good, but we should be starting to impose some of the actions."
