Well I'll be dammed , what courage , here we have a female solicitor who has figured out we need water !
This wise Lady needs several thousand Water Professor's eg; like AGW does , previous to AGW no one even dreamed there would be that many AGW Prof's ......well this is the "need" we need a BSA like Garneau or Billy Graham to bring out the Hype BS and Fear to frighten the population into demand mode then our man Rudd will blossom , "Today I have set aside 678 Billion to solve our water crisis , work is to begin tomorrow". (Beware of the stampede comprised of 3000 Shingle Waving Water professor's).

I am going over old ground here, but the problems with our water is not so much that we have a shortage, rather, the way we use water.

Firstly, 100% of all water passing through our taps is ‘A” grade drinking water, yet, we only drink/consume 2%. Therefore 98% is wasted. Washing cloths, bathing etc.

Now if we provided drinking water via either ‘free rainwater tanks’ or ‘subsidised bottled water’ and replaced our tap water with water that has been treated to a lesser extent, one may well pay for the other, then, we can recycle much of the water that is currently being wasted.

Secondly, we already collect and channel stormwater, so why no re-direct it back to the catchment areas.

Then there is ‘big business’. I was told one day that a certain canned fruit processor in Brisbane uses 27 thousand litres of water PER HOUR just to wash fruit. Remember, this is drinking water being used.

I think this is where the answer lies, better use and management of water rather than simply building more dams.

I assume you mean to Treat & Recycle water back to the storage Dams , sure I would vote for that .

What's missing in Oz is the ability of every day Australians to contribute Ideas to water science .

Democratize Science , in History "Can Do" people were the inventors the Scientists came along later to unravel the Mysteries .
Scientists today have gained the Ascension , this is very bad because simple solutions are instantly condemned because they lack mysteries .

How can a Scientist get a grant to profitably sort something with no Mysteries ?

What our Gov; needs to do is find the people with inventive genius for example offer a two hundred thousand dollar prize plus patent protection to anyone who can establish a way to desalinate Sea Water using evaporation and condensation techniques .

Evap/Cond is used every day in the Tropical Islands to provide drinking water , I don't accept that it can't be done on a grand scale , especially in Au since we have an abundance of suitably cold sea water and absolutely no shortage of solar activity.

Think about it , get right outside the square , it's to easy .

Yes, but there are some pretty good arguments against total recycling as well, esspecially if you live in a town that is 'down stream' and relys on the 'waste water' from towns 'upstream' for your river to flow. This was pointed out by a poster with regards to the Toowoomba situation.

Towns that dump their waste water into oceans are another story.

I am more talking about 'storm water'.

At present we catch trillions of liters of the stuff and channel it into rivers and streams which ultimately sees it flowing into our oceans.

What I say, is we have already caught it, why not simply re-direct it back to the catchment areas.

Yes , storm water , this was an Idea put about or supported here in Bendigo by Damian Drum .
Apparently it's not environmentally positive .
The natural drainage from Bendigo ends up in Cow Swamp a bigtime Bird Habitat , no doubt in heavy rainfall situation it would drain out to the Murray a few miles away.

I guess all inland creeks go somewhere and support some "Habitat" .

Goodness and I thought that the hype about 'sustainability' and 'water reform' was all about softening the sheeple up for the eventual privatising of water.

After all, if government was really concerned that our cities were already running out of water they would turn down the tap a little on the record numbers of migrants entering the country. It seems simple logic to slow the flow while necessary infrastructure is put in place, rather than have all of that pressure on housing, water, hospitals and the like.

But no, the spin is that consumers are 'wasting' water and guess what, the best solution will be to charge more for water to make people more parsimonious with a precious resource. How long before there is a water collection tax on privately owned water in dams and tanks for inspectors to ensure the water is not harbouring pests or some similar excuse?

Of course the National Water Commission did not discuss sustainable population growth and immigration policy, but then it might if there was any real representation of consumers. Can't have voters getting in the way, that would be too democratic and they cannot be relied upon to know what is best for themselves.