'Gravy train rider, or just fellow traveler Leslie Graham '

If Abbott has any integrity Hasbeen he will put an end to the gravy train. Thankfully Newman did it in Queensland. I wonder what new gravy train the pseudo scientist will create?

tion Building Schemes.

The Rudd government actually did have an inquiry into the agricultural potential of northern Australia. It found that there was some potential for agricultural development, but nothing like the hype that has been spruiked about it.

http://nalwt.gov.au/files/NLAW.pdf

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-02-08/report-kills-northern-food-bowl-dream/2572856

Problems include poor soils that have not been renewed by glaciation or mountain building, the long dry season with ferocious evaporation rates, and a lack of suitable dam sites.

Future Tense on Radio National went to northern Australia and interviewed a number of agricultural scientists there for their program. All of them said much the same things as the Taskforce report. The question is whether we listen to qualified scientists or to ignorant boosters.

Misconceived agricultural development has done enormous harm to people and to the environment. SBSOne has been running an excellent four part series on the Dust Bowl, America's greatest environmental disaster. In the 1920s, people tried to grow wheat on the Great Plains, in areas that were only suitable for ranching. They were fooled by the lies of the boosters and by a series of unusually wet years. There was then a terrible drought in the 1930s, and the prevailing winds blew away enormous volumes of topsoil. The people lost everything, often including the lives of their children, who died of dust pneumonia. The elderly people who lived through it as children and were interviewed are still scarred by the experience, although the Roosevelt Administration saved people from starving. A similar horror story could be told about what the Soviet Union did to the Aral Sea.

If you want to post about this article reveal if you have grown a single tomatoe in northern Australia. If not, please don't comment.