“No entitlement to use the water is specifically issued under a water management Act. Entitlement to (not ownership of) the water captured would by default rest with the building owner, provided that it has been captured in accordance with whatever regulation might apply for rainwater tanks in each jurisdiction.

“As we understand it, governments have not yet considered the capture of water from roofs in rainwater tanks to be of sufficient magnitude to warrant the issuing of specific entitlements to use this class of water. However, if rainwater tanks were to be adopted on a large scale such that their existence impacts significantly on the integrated water cycle, consideration could be given to setting an entitlement regime for this class of water. It is important to think of the capture of water from any source in an integrated way. Taking your reference to Goulburn as an example, if 1000 homes were to install 5 KL tanks with an annual yield of 57KL, this is 57 ML that would not have reached a river or groundwater system or, viewed another way, is taken from either the environment's entitlement or another productive use. So as you can see these things are not that straightforward and rainwater tanks is only one option not the solution. As has been pointed out before, the NWC supports the use of rainwater tanks as an option and the NWI provides the mechanism to allow rainwater tanks to be considered as an option.

“As you point out, and my comments above confirm, we are moving into a constantly changing field where sources of water once regarded as a nuisance to be disposed of, are now being considered as a realistic supplement to the more traditional water sources. Governments are responding and adapting to this changing environment. The NWC recognises that there is uncertainty about entitlements to "new sources" of water such as stormwater (including capture from roofs), recycled wastewater, desalinated water and intercepted water and is initiating work that will assist governments to decide on how they should most effectively be managed.”

Greg Cameron

Letter to parents/Strict Father figure: Jennifer must complete her homework if she expects to play in the dialogue sandpit, else she may as well stick to the press release/MSM broadcast media format more suited to propagandists. What homework?

1. How can sustainability possibly be approached without a stable or falling population? (Incidentally, Pr Cohens claim that fall in birth rates is voluntary lacks credible supporting evidence, but i guess thats never stopped the IPA before.)

2. Why is Robg a pessimist for worrying about fossil fuels when global oil production is falling (1st half 06 vs. 1st half 05, US EIA figures)?

3. How is your opposition to Kyoto different to a smoker refusing to quit smoking until all other smokers do too?

The drought is a controversial subject and everyone seems to have an opinion and often times every opinion seems right or has some validity. As a person who lives in a small rural town suffering from severe drought we are aware of how hopeless it can often feel. In Mount Morgan, a town of only 3000, we rely on a small dam as our water source. Unfortunately the dam is nearly empty.

In these kind of situations there are not really any genuine solutions that are long lasting. Several years ago, we had a town prayer meeting and in a miraculous series of events our dam was filled in a matter of weeks. Story at http://www.davidsplace.info/id/276/index.htm ... however since then rain has not been forthcoming. It may be time to pray again.

People often talk about the farmers but forget the population and towns that support the rural industry. Without these towns there would be no farmers, and the drought is just a serious for these people too.

Indeed yes dalleyasaurus, and the non-farmer rural population can go whistle as far as the Howard government is concerned. You are all just another conveniently uncosted externality to the economic fundamentalists, go sell your labour making coffees for those on the corp-gov teat.

Even the farmers are of interest only as a means of funnelling government money to the banks (via 'exceptional circumstances' bank interest payments) & maintaining gerrymandered conservative electorates.

When the bush eventually wakes up to how neoliberalism continues to f**k it over, Brown will turn Green and the National Party will be just an embarrassing memory.

Well Jennifer, you are obviously not going to respond to my post of 28 Oct or the questions that I addressed to you therein, which strike right at the core of environmentalism / sustainability.

It is just terrible that you haven’t even attempted to address these points.

It only confirms my earlier statement;

“You write about a wide range of environmental subjects. But the bottom line is that if you are in favour of continuous population growth, then you are fundamentally missing the core issue of environmentalism, which is sustainability, and you just can’t call yourself an environmentalist.”

As an oldie, did mention a couple of months ago, how German migrants in our district in the 1920s, one Gustave Liebe historically famous, did mention that if the Germans had this country they would have already dammed or altered courses of our northern rivers to make up for the lack of rain and watercourses in our south. It was even said during WW2 that the Japanese knowing that tropical downpours are the most substantial and reliant, had talked of similar plans for Australia

It is also interesting that it was not till the Great Depression in the US, that the Hoover dam was constructed, an idea that lay there from the 1920s, till it took the use of cheap government sustained dole labour to do the job.

Now rather than horse teams and scoops we have oodles of modern earth-moving equipment laying idle in secondhand machinery yards, possiblly waiting for another Financial Depression with the unemployed paid sustenance wages to make use of all our surplus machinery even digging drains to divert northern waters into the northern end of the south-flowing Darling, trapping enough water to forever overflow the Murray.

What is this we hear about the Costello Future Fund having accumulated so much cash that Peter is not game now to tell us the full amount in case we might want some of it used
for the above.

Maybe it is economic rationalism that is the trouble, with it being now irrationalism for governments to make use of, or boss around private enterprise?

Finally right here in WA, what about plans for more damming and diverting of the Ord and Fitzroy? With inflation starting to sky-rocket it might be an idea to at least start talking about it.