Water or more correctly water rights have become the new oil.

Part of the privatization process is to shift those rights from farmers and communities into the hands of corporate CEO's and bankers.

Secondly governments that hand those rights over to these players have contributed significantly overuse of water in Australia.

Ask yourself why would a government issue more water rights, when the system is already over used?

Why didn't the Coalition do something about it while they were in power, Sussan? Why did they allocate more water than the basin could handle? Why are you trying to stir anger against the Labor Party now that they are trying to fix the problem? Why aren't those who received the over-allocation expressing some remorse?

Putting the basin right is in the interests of all Australians not just the few who have brought the river to its knees!

http://www.dangerouscreation.com

daveg the states allocated water right as until recently the federal government had no jurisdiction. I understand you want the ALP defended at any cost though, figures. The people who have an allocation, had to pay for it - why should they feel remorse.

The Coalition government tried to fix the problem but had to deal with bloody minded ALP led states who all played politics, surprisingly they cared more about winning points against the PM Howard government then about their own mismanagement.

Turnbull had ministerial power for managing this .. I know all the wet Liberals and "progressives" wanted him to lead the Liberal Party, but even he was unable to get agreement with the states - what a guy!

At the 2007 election, the Coalition had still not been able to get Victoria to agree to hand over power over the rivers, but soon after the election it was handed over and it was quite obvious it had been held out to deliberately embarrass the PM Howard government to win political points. They wanted to deprive the Coalition of a win, and showed how little they cared really about water management .. now we'll have the idiot green/alp/indy coalition to mismanage things .. how about another inquiry? Why now a couple more?

So now the ALP is all about trying to fix it .. of course they are and will make as big a mess of this as they have with everything else.

Whatever it takes eh.

Amicus has been looking into his crystal ball, and it said it was labors fault.
I am waiting for someone to tell me what is wrong with this one.
Rid the river of the barrages at the mouth.
Allow the tidal flow to keep the mouth open as it was meant to.
Install the weirs and locks that were on the drawing board early last century.
Why allow fresh water to run into the ocean.
The coorongs and alexandrena were meant to be tidal.
What is the ecenomic costs of this....

Gillard's ALP is ever mindful that it must pay homage to the Greens balance of power in Parliament.

This water initiative is a key item of homage. Even though it is destructive, ridiculous and will go nowhere for years the ALP can say "this is what the Greens want".

So this water initiative by a politically appointed Authority is an indirect way of pitting rural and coservatives against the Greens - to the benefit of the ALP. The Greens will be painted into a radical environmental corner.

This will cost the Greens dearly from a voter backlash. Swinging enviromentalist votes will then return to the ALP...

Sneaky!

Pete

579, no, really what I'm saying is this is not the previous government, the coalition's fault as daveg was trying to make out.

I do reckon it will be the usual ALP mess as they seem to have no idea about infrastructure management as opposed to deals and mates agreements which they are very good at - so far in almost 3 years everything they touch turns to a mess, except workplace relations, which of course they should be good at since half are ex-unions officials, and that is going back to the 50s though, (who is that good for?)

I agree, remove the barriers and let the Coorong find its balance. Put in the locks and weirs, make a true inland waterway system. Why indeed do we have to have let good fresh water go that way?

mind you this will put the Greens at odds with country folks .. but that's everywhere isn't it, it's only inner city folks who seem to love the greens .. oh and the odd old hippy here and there.

It will expose the Alp and the greens to more scrutiny hopefully and maybe the media will finally get to putting the government to the test instead of always focusing on the opposition, even if it is good fun, they have no power .. well, not yet.