Water Articles

Since the days of Joseph in ancient Egypt, droughts have periodically rationed water and food supplies for humans and wildlife. Sensible peoples store water, but it is about 40 years since Australians built a big dam – young Aussie engineers have no damn experience.

Earlier this week some 3,000 irrigators and their supporters rallied in Canberra against government policy on Murray-Darling irrigation and management. With the cacophony of dozens of semi-trailers’ blaring horns, it was certainly noisy. Ominously for the National Party, their representatives were treated with

The Murray-Darling is the only major region where irrigation plays a prominent role. Water availability there has the urgent attention of politicians because locals, unhappy at measures that have deprived farmers of water, have helped displace Nationals representatives in favour of those from the Shooters, Fish

here is a considerable interest in water in the Murray Darling, an issue that I have written about over the two decades during which concerted attacks on irrigation took place. Most of my articles and reports, including my latest piece in The Spectator, drew attention to the effect of taking water for environmental

From little things, big things grow. And so, for the 60 odd years until the nineteen-nineties, we saw the land in the Murray Darling basin being developed from what was mainly arid low-yield farmland into a province producing over 40 per cent of the nation’s agricultural output.  Dams transformed the highly irregular

The Murray Darling River is facing a plethora of publicity: fish deaths due to mismanagement of flows by the responsible body, farmer agitation as a result of loss of irrigation water, claims that the water buybacks behind the farmer concerns have been at excessive prices

The Nationals are paraded as having had a poor election.  This is not obvious – the Nationals got 9.7 per cent of the vote in the Legislative Assembly, a swing against them of 0.9 per cent, in the context of considerable opposition on their traditional turf with the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers (SFF) increasing their

Over the past century, the Murray Darling river’s naturally highly irregular flows have been transformed to convert it into the tranquil, ever-flowing waterway that has allowed the Basin it serves to become the source of 41 per cent of the nation’s agricultural output

he South Australian election has temporarily benched the political struggle over water use in the Murray-Darling. ​ That region, responsible for over 35 per cent of Australia’s agricultural output, has become a political football with farmers facing pressure from greens and green academics. ​ In 1995, around 11,000

An article by the excellent rural reporter Sue Neales, examined the sales and purchases of irrigation water rights for agriculture in the Murray-Darling Basin (agriculture uses about 90 per cent of water collected in dams for industry and personal consumption). The focus of the article was on the overseas purchasers of the water rights

As a result of irrigation, the Murray Darling Basin became Australia’s premier agricultural province – accounting for up to 40 per cent of the nation’s farm output. It did so while making the river system more pleasing and safer by creating a placid, ever-flowing river.

The environmental lobby first cited salinity as the reason irrigators must have their access to water reduced. Next, farmers were Flanneried with warmist prophecies of drought and more drought. And they were right! Thanks to those bogus alarms, agriculture and national wealth really are being ruined

Victoria’s Wonthaggi desalinisation plant will be five years old this December. At an initial cost of $5.7 billion and an eventual cost of $19 billion, the plant will never be required. The $19 billion eventual price tag means a direct and indirect cost to the average Victorian household of $13,000. A far more productive alternative – a new dam

A DECADE of stagnating output and sluggish productivity growth in agriculture screams out for reform but a foreshadowed Commonwealth policy review is behind schedule.

FOLLOWING the report into state finances by an independent committee, we are seeing the hollowness of the previous Victorian government's claim to budgetary competence. Further evidence of the Brumby/Bracks government's ineptness is coming from a Productivity Commission inquiry into urban water supplies. Central to 

Rain is falling in Victoria and water restrictions are being relaxed. How well has the Government performed as a business manager in drought-proofing Melbourne and other Victorian cities? The Thomson Dam - Victoria's most recent major catchment development - supplies on average 150 gigalitres a year, a third of Melbourne's needs. 

Rain is falling in Victoria and water restrictions are being relaxed. How well has the Government performed as a business manager in drought-proofing Melbourne and other Victorian cities? The Thomson Dam - Victoria's most recent major catchment development - supplies on average 150 gigalitres a year, a third of Melbourne's needs. 

John Quiggin argues that taxpayers should buy 34 per cent of the water now used by Murray-Darling basin irrigators and add this to the 50 per cent of water that now flows for environmental purposes ("Billions down the drain", December 9). However, the present wet spell has demonstrated the resilience of the river system, which is n

The Bracks Government's greatest long-standing policy blunder has been to allow environmental activists to dictate water policy. Environment Minister John Thwaites came to office baring a hairy green chest. He cancelled long-standing plans to cater for Melbourne's water needs by damming the Mitchell River.

Water saving and agonising over an augmentation of Victoria's urban supply have been long and unnecessary exercises. We have plenty of water available for Melbourne and regional cities. Victoria's average stream flow is about 27 million megalitres, although flows have been almost

The release of the Murray-Darling plan adds another chapter of woe to those reliant on the river system's irrigation water. At present, 11,000 gigalitres of water - about 40 per cent of the system's flow - goes to irrigation. This has been an indispensable component of the basin,

Late last year the World Wildlife Fund and a group of CSIRO officials formed the Wentworth Group. They issued a paper, Blueprint for a living continent, which proclaimed our land management was causing our rivers to die and our topsoil to blow away, threatening our future capacity to farm.

Armed with consultants' reports, Victoria's Government proposes that all new houses incorporate additional $2000 costs to use less electricity and water. Under the Plumbing (Water and Energy Savings) Regulations 2004, people buying new houses

The AFR has started an overdue debate with Terry Dwyer's article ('Conspiracy of silence over water charges'). Like many natural products with a more-or-less fixed supply, water's worth has increased as its usage has risen. Any water scarcity that we may be experiencing is not due to a natural shortage but is actually created by government r

A great myth of government propaganda is that their activities create jobs. Water Minister Tim Holding recently used our money to commission an ``independent'' report which estimated that 

Water Minister Tim Holding recently leaked part of a report that his department had commissioned to update the cost of building new dams. For a dam on the Mitchell, the previous $1 billion price tag was revised to $1.35 billion. Having used the taxpayer funded report for political purposes, the government has refused to make it public.

The AFR has started an overdue debate with Terry Dwyer's article ('Conspiracy of silence over water charges'). Like many natural products with a more-or-less fixed supply, water's worth has increased as its usage has risen. Any water scarcity that we may be experiencing is not due to a natural shortage but is actually created by government r

Under Labor, Victorian water policy had an urban-orientation. Its focus was on reducing city usage and providing more water to Melbourne without building new dams. That is set to change with new Liberal Premier Ted Baillieu having appointed National MP Peter Walsh the minister in charge of water and agriculture. Agriculture is where the key issues lie. 

Water has always been a defining issue in Australia's prosperity. And in recent decades irrigation has grown rapidly. Even so, only two per cent of Australia is irrigated, one of the lowest proportions amongst among OECD countries.

Ideological aversion to dams in the state government's first bloom meant cancelling the proposed Mitchell Basin dam. The drought has meant the inevitable outcome of water shortage has bitten earlier and more savagely. And requirements for increased environmental flows have exacerbated this.

For the first time in 50 years, Asian income growth means Australian farmers are facing long-termdemand for their products. Unfortunately, the government's national food plan green paper, issued last month, was largely framed by the threat of reduced rainfall and increased salinity. The green paper addresses water usage as a problem, not an opportunity, emphasising "producing more with

Abandoning the characteristics of a fiscally responsible Treasurer, Peter Costello yesterday argued for downgrading economic considerations and adopting multiple desalination plants around Australia. This week's demonstration against Mr Brumby's plant in Wonthaggi reminds us

Having little political rating 20 years ago, water is now a battleground area in the Federal election campaign. Farmers use 70 per cent of the water that is available from dams and, especially in the Murray- Darling area, increased access to water has lifted rural prosperity. It has even allowed them to stay in business during the worst drought in a century.

In August of last year, the Prime Minister, John Howard, and the State Premiers laid out the framework for a 'National Water Initiative'. Including a $500 million rescue plan for the Murray- Darling River system, this was designed to provide water to important environmental sites in the Murray Darling Basin.

late 2004, Melbourne’s The Age newspaper gave considerable publicity to the supposed ‘Parlous state of the Yarra River’. Articles headed ‘Our sick river’ and ‘It’s time to put the needs of the Yarra first’ bled ink into the majestic waterway’s swirling eddies. The campaign was joined by breathless Age reporters and ‘authorities’ as diverse as politicians on both sides of the State Parliament.

Both governments and businesses are constantly reviewing their operations. For businesses the objective is to see what new trends are emerging, how to reduce costs and how to better orientate services and products to consumers. Governments nowadays seldom have firms that are competing for the consumers' dollars.