Am I the only one appalled at the fact that this water shortage has been around for at least 5 yrs now and now we are being told that soon the cost of living for us all will skyrocket if we dont get rain in the next 6 weeks?

Hello- what happened to planning for the future- to Howard  spending some of that 'surplus' on the health and welfare of his own country?
What happened to years ago having put in place measures to take the burden off the Murray Darling so this never needed to happen!!

Is this gross inaction , just plain incompetency?

On another board they are telling me , its a state by state problem!--And what that tells me is that the Public have conveniently taken the heat off Howard, just the way he likes it- and he gets to duck this very serious problem.They have swallowed his excuses and stupidity.






If food goes thru the roof , will everything else go up too?

Will this precipitate a recession we DIDNT need to have?

The cost to farmers wil be brutal - but we cant blame farmers.






Any thoughts.


I struggle to understand how the 'Government' let this hppen. And they did.

This country is surrounded by water-we have a drought and yet we are still deciding if we should build desalination plants????



ITS CRAZY.

Must be disappointing you can't blame this one on Mr Howard  too, oceans ?

What about the massacre in usa ? He prob has flown over usa, so has been in the vicinity.

hahahahhahah

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The Commonwealth has some responsibility towards water.  This has been an ongoing problem for 30 years - Howard has had 12 years to act on this.

The Commonwealth coiffeurs have been overflowing for a decade - and the drought has worsened during this period.

Why act right now when the situation is so desperate.  Howard has just been throwing cash at voters over the years without any consideration to infrastructure for this dry country.  Our farmers have been given billions of dollars - yet many of them would have preferred water to this cash solution which has only been a temporary stop gap.

The States have mismanaged water - but Beattie has been begging Howard for years to help buy Cubbie Station & other great cotton growers out in order to put more water back into the system.  Foreign mining companies are also major culprits.

Howard has been too busy concentrating on how to win each election.  Now once our farmers go - we'll be importing all sorts of rubbish - unchecked.  We'll never get people back on the land.

The essentials for any country are food and water.  We have been let down from all sides of politics while those at the top of the heap have been skimming the cream off this country and lining their pockets at the expense of the Australian citizens.

The empty dry shell of this once beautiful country is now beginning to show.  Howard could have stopped this process years ago - but it's all been about foreign investment, jobs (not even the real figures) and satisfying shareholders.

Most of us would prefer less money if it meant that we could access the basics in life at a reasonable cost without this constant fear looming over us that this government has created in order to continue winning ANOTHER election.

Another term in office - and we could safely say that Howard has destroyed this country for his own purposes.

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Why hell sprint- he,ll get the blame LONG after he's dead rotten and NOT forgotten .What he has done to this country will be left for future generations to endure and try to rectify.


The man is evil.

The point is -it doesnt matter if its state or federal- the fact is Howrd is PM- its HIS job to co-ordinate and orchestrate and legislate effectively- so these things DONT happen..blame shifting is pathetic and its just not bl--oody good enough.

I dont care if Labor did it or Santa Claus did it---why dont these @ares-holes ever learn from past mistakes  instead of saying "aaawww but Labor did the same thing"--thats a big help.

What the hell is he, Howard, being paid a fortune for if he,s not leading this country ?

Scaly...

You post so well and you cover all the points.

Thank you.

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Tell me Scaly - how well have most of our dams in Qld and NSW serviced us?  They are fine if we have a flood and the rainfall just happens to fall in the RIGHT SPOT - but much of the time they remain almost empty - particularly in droughts.

There have only been a couple of dams the Greens have opposed and that is because they haven't been in the right catchment area, would have brought destruction to whole towns and were ecologically and environmentally unfriendly.

We should have brought in recycling and harvesting water with rainwater tanks decades ago.

As far as the States go - yes they have been responsible for managing the water of each state individually, but ultimately the responsibility as a whole is that of the Commonwealth and the states together.

The Commonwealth is responsible for all the wetlands in Australia - many of which these proposed dams would have affected.  

The Commonwealth and the States are supposed to work together on water management and the National Water Initiative has been in force since 1994.

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It is legislated that:

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Recycling waste water is a political nightmare

No it isn't. It is going ahead.

considering 85% of water resources are used by industry, I fail to see  a major impact form the use of rainwater tanks

Rainwater tanks are where the water shortage is most severe - the major cities.