We need to get this clear, the 500 Gigalitres is highly misleading. It is actually 500gL a year or 10,000gL over the next 20 years. And that 10,000gL will be taken from farmers whose total output will fall. In many cases this drop in total output will be greater than the profit margin and so, will be forced to operate at below cost levels or get out.

At $50 for each megalitre the capital cost of this annual entitlement is about $1000 each. But that doesn't tell us how much value the farmer creates with that megalitre. It varies depending on the crop or industry but total revenue of $600 from each megalitre is likely to be the mid-range.

And each agricultural dollar generally produces about $3.30 in downstream activity as it circulates through the local economy between mechanics, tradesmen, transporters and processors. So each withdrawn megalitre puts a $2000 hole in a regional economy. Thats $2 million per gigalitre.

So, once again, the bush has been shafted for an ignorant urban whimsy. The farmers will get a lousy, once off, $500 million when part of their water entitlement is bought off them but their local community will get a billion dollar hole punched in their regional economy, each year. And the net present value of this hole, on the standard price to earnings ratios, will be in the order of $12 billion.

And for what? To maintain a level of flow that is, in most years, well in excess of the pre-settlement footprint. Landscaping for the bimbocracy.

I don't want to get technical, but what do I make of things when paddling my canoe in Berri, (Berri is about halfway along the Murray) my dark shorts quickly show salt stains, I get salt crust on my arms and I can taste it in the water. ?

That really is happening, whatever your politics or academic or journalistic talents.
One more thing. It's not just the Murray. Consider the effect upon many thousands of people if the murray is allowed to fail. You have to consider the downstream effect. (pun intended).

Can't we stop abusing the Murray to produce unsustainable crops and let nature have a go?

Oh no, the Man of la Mancha again, Perseus championing the "bags per acre" or "miles per gallon" brigade. Perseus, get this straight, what you are using are “multipliers” long obsolete which for example can show our economy is 1.5 to 3 times its actual size when applied to all sectors of the economy. Not only are your multipliers naïve, they don’t take into account the long term, ie. environmental and extended economic costs.

Perseus, in the 1980s arguments like “shafted” as you have used were applied linked to multipliers. We live in the 21st century where the FULL ECONOMIC cost is considered. Wander down to the mouth of the Murray River and see what your current cost accounting is achieving. Go join your “bags per acre”, “miles per gallon” colleagues that you want to champion. Triple bottom line accounting, that acknowledges the long term, full costs, is increasingly acknowledged. Your "shafting" is perhaps relevant to those operating without long term, full cost accounting. Australia is becoming increasingly sophisticated.

Perseus championing the "bags per acre" or "miles per gallon" brigade again. Perseus, get this straight, what you are using are “multipliers” long obsolete which for example can show our economy is 1.5 to 3 times its actual size when applied to all sectors of the economy. Not only are your multipliers naïve, they don’t take into account the long term, ie. environmental and extended economic costs.

Perseus, in the 1980s arguments multipliers died out with the Industries Assistance Commission. We live in the 21st century where the FULL ECONOMIC cost, including to the enviroment is considered. Wander down to the mouth of the Murray River and see what your current cost accounting is achieving. Go join your “bags per acre”, “miles per gallon” colleagues that you want to champion. Triple bottom line accounting, that acknowledges the long term, full costs, is increasingly acknowledged. Your use of "shafting" is perhaps relevant to those operating without long term, full cost accounting. Australia is becoming increasingly sophisticated. Some hold on to the past. Like the Man of la Mancha championing those with their backs to the future.

I think its high time we declared South Australia, uneconomic, & unsustainable, & closed it down. After all, its only an accident of settlement, & obviously a mistake.
I think Queensland, NSW, & Victorian water could be put to much better use in those states rather than keeping this dead end going.
It is a totally failed & wasteful experiment, & should be closed down due to lack of interest.

Correction: I awoke at 5am to the realisation that my multiplier was based on total revenue not net earnings as it should have. The correct loss to the regional economy is 1.2 billion , not 12 billion.

Remco appears to believe that repeating the same diatribe twice makes the argument stronger or, in his case, only half as loopy. For the record, price to earnings multiples are the key tool used in both property markets and stock markets to determine how much one should pay for an income stream. His suggestion that they are obsolete makes it very clear that he has a very limited exposure to either market.

He is an anti-farmer bigot who makes unsubstantiated claims that Australian cows produce only half as much milk as Israeli ones, laments our own farmers supposed lack of value adding and innovation but would be the very first in line to criticise battery beef, pork and chicken.

Farmers in the rest of the world have fought a range of diseases etc caused by excessive growth hormones, incorporating dead chickens in the food rations of pigs and cattle and the rapid spread of viral infections in animals cooped up in barns. Yet, poor old Remco has managed to maintain a classic green antipathy towards Aussie farmers who's cattle roam free, eating only what nature serves them, avoiding disease by adequate spacing and growing as nature intended them to.

But back to the Murray. It was always salty. And if the rainfall of 2003 had taken place in 1788 then the so-called "Mighty Murray" would have been bone dry all the way to Albury. It has been a mighty murray for about 12 weeks in every 4 to 6 years for the past millenia. Get used to it and spare us the urban myths.

Perseus, the Onlineopinion’s assumed Man of la Mancha: “multipliers” are NOT “price earnings ratios”. Multipliers are used by industry groupings to state their impact on a region in a current costing sense. Use them on all sectors and voila, a GDP that becomes 3 times it actually is. They are based on value added calculations and have NOTHING to do with ratios of prices and earnings as you claim. (And, milk yields ARE one-half those of say those of dry Israel (Google it)).

Perseus, rather than continually defending or offending, present a vision or options for better use of a scarce resource that water is. Look at the real long term costs of resisting change to use it better. Look at fuller costings as our grandchildren will have to face.

In the end it is the marketplace, and not a bureaucrat or a Surrey Hills resident, that will determine directions for water use. So water will have to be acknowledged as a commodity that is fully priced and hence tradeable like the land upon which it is applied. It is unconscionable that taxpayers are compelled to spend more than its recreational value, or as a potable water source on the Murray. It would be like a farmer having to pay to clean up an industry site.

Drop your lance and instead present some tangible options for value adding. Read eg. acclaimed international specialist Professor Michael Porters ‘Green and Competitive’ or 'Toward a New Conception of the Environment-Competitiveness Relationship'. Australia can gain a huge quantum by dropping the old school thinking and practices.

Water is a commodity like the land upon which it is employed, and who ever employs it, pays, and no-one else.

‘Multipliers’ belong to the “bags per acre” and “miles per gallon” sector. Old talk, old thinking, that resists innovation and smartness. This is about resource allocation, not subsidies. Not for the “bimbocracies” the Perseus refers to (unless of course they are handouts from taxpayers that he seeks to justify with what he confuses with price earnings ratios.)

Loads of cliches will not mask the fact that you are an economic illiterate, Remco. Multipliers are the routine attributes of economic models and the validity of a model is tested by comparing its results with observed reality. If there is a variance between the models output and observed reality then one must return to the assumed multipliers and correct them until the output is consistent with reality.

But once again you have failed to provide any specific information or examples of multipliers as outdated instruments. Tell that to the boys in Treasury, they may laugh in your face but may just as well cry.

But I will grant you one thing, Remco. You are providing an excellent example of green ignorance that is shaped primarily by bigotry and ideology.

Back to the point. Was the Murray saline prior to 1788? Yes.
Has there been a major improvement in recorded salinity levels over the past 2 decades? Yes.
Was Lake Alexandrina a tidal estuary prior to a failed attempt at providing fresh water to Adelaide? Yes.
Would the current works pass an EIS if they were proposed today? No.
Does the lake now evaporate 1000 gigalitres of valuable fresh water a year when that evaporation once came from sea water? Yes.
Would the removal of the barrages make a greater contribution to restoring ecological values than flushing it with even more fresh water? Yes.

Perseus: I leave you to your self taught and demonstrable falacious self-righteousness. I am most definitely not green, but a progressive inspired by what other countries are achieving. I am however uninspired by the "bags per acre" mendicants you seem to wish to champion on Onlineopinion.

As to this debate, water like land is a commodity that is in short supply and whose quality is under threat. Water should be traded and the market will take care of it without all the economic scull duggery that you wish to promote to seek funding from your termed "bimbocracy". Take your bimbocracy aimed arguments out, and what is left? Just misused data from an aspiring economist.

Water is like land, valuable and in the Murray region, undervalued and misallocated.

Thats fine, Remco, stick to generalities, avoid any specifics and maintain your denigration of the farming community. By the way, you forgot to toss in "sub-human, redneck hillbillies". All this demonising must wear one out at times, I guess.

If one was really interested in gross waste we would be taking a close look at the water supply to those Labor mates in Broken Hill. The nearby lakes hold about 600,000 megalitres in a storage that is not much deeper than 2 metres. Broken Hill only uses about 20,000 megalitres a year and the remainder simply evaporates. So here we have an urban use that is operating a storage at about 4% efficiency.

And the less said about Adelaide the better. Other than the fact that it appears to be the state capital with the highest incidence of rainwater tanks. Some 37% of Adelaide households have tanks, a huge improvement over the rest.

*DING*....ok.. stop fighting and go back to your corners for a 1 minute rest... (Perseus and Remco)

I think you both have strong points, along with Berri who gave a very powerful personal anicdote.

The truth lies in between P and Rs points I think. We cannot ignore the 'shafting' which does occur when political interests exist. Also, there is 'shafting' of the natural order and resources for the sake of personal gain. So, ur both right.

The Biblical view on all this is twofold. 'Stewardship' of the environment and 'Do for others....etc'.

I urge a Biblical approach, because without it, we are at the mercy simply of the rich and powerful.

God help us if they lose the big picture and end up just accumulating wealth for its own sake.

King Hezekiah is one of my favorite characters to illustrate the danger of short sited thinking. When told by Isaiah the prophet that due to his freely showing the Babylonian ambassador all his treasures "You fool, don't you know they will come and take it all, though not in your lifetime ?" said.."Woah..cool... I don't have to worry, wont happen in my time".

But it did happen, and for us, poor stewardship of the natural world WILL result in a price, and it might just be 'no' multiplier effect on produce which now cannot be done due to salination.

So,.. rest time is over, *DING* u may resume the battle, but this time no blows below the belt :) look for the truth in both of your positions

Perseus, yes I have commented on you in generalities as there is no point in debating points of detail when they are unnecessary to the outcome. Instead of debating the economic costs and benefits etc, it become a matter of accepting there need be no divide between the urbanites and the country people. It is simply that some, notably politicians that promote it. I have refered to the old school (bags per acre group) only as a segment, a metaphor of those resistant to change - maintaining the old way of thinking.

It is absolutely irrelevant to discuss the multipliers etc if you were to acknowledge that the Murray belongs to the users. Step aside and allow those that benefit own it. To get away from looking to what you refer to as the "bimbocracry" to fund but allow for the "user pays" principle to apply. Once we let go of our attachments, let go of the perceived urban/rural divide, then there is no need for the lenghthy rationals you are supporting. Yes there is a cost. The cotton farmers will hurt as they incur greater water costs, but any change will promote winners and losers.

I suspect you have a lot to offer but I humbly suggest you accept that the greens and the urbanites are not your enemies (your 'windmills' as I hinted at) but sources of pressure to create a new way of moving ahead. Where the farmers take charge of their own affairs without looking to dodgy economic rationale (I am an economist btw) to justify handouts legitimised as they themselves feel unfairly treated).

This forum can help breakdown divides and create a new way of thinking and relating.

Redneck subhuman (I'll add 'in bred') hillbillys ? :) yes, P, that was a bit of a mouthful eh. Don't think Remco is that far yet, and his last post seemed more conciliatory, aaah..progress :)

Rem, your reference to 'old thinking' does seem a bit doctrinaire...
P has a point, and it is the economic 'trickle down' impact of any commodity in the value adding chain.

Your point seems to be that if we destroy the source of the commodity, there is nothing to debate, because its 'gone'.. fair enough too.

So, as I said, both points are valid, and what I observe is that there are a lot of politics in the farming community. Downstream people who have established crops or ways of using water become very annoyed if upstream farmers want to retain the water which falls on THEIR property, i.e. rain. And to me, the idea of making a claim on water which falls on someone elses land is just about outright theft or terrorism. Specially if they did not have much water dependant agriculture, then decide to put in something which needs more water.

So, the combatants are:

Downstream Farmers vs Upstream farmers
Greens vs all farmers.
Politicians vs anyone who threatens their re-election prospects.

Life in sure interesting. I wonder how one resolves the water issue ?
We have Turkey wanting to utilize the water of the Tigris (which Iraq depends on)... for massive agriculture, same thing I suppose. Hence, we can see why wars are fought.... its usually about resources.

Abraham had an interesting approach, he gave Lot all he desired, which was the fertile pasture lands, then God promised Abraham that in the end it would ALL be his anyway. Thats just how it turned out.
Lot was greedy and selfish, and he got his just reward.

The Murray is more than a salt drain and their are other indicators of health than salt levels at Morgan. How about turbidity at Howlong?

Have you seen the colour as you fly into Mildura?

No I don't want to see the Murray brim full all the year. I wouldn't mind the occassional flood to give the gums a drink and stir the cod into breeding.

Hey Jen, is there any part of our environment at all that isn't actually in the best shape ever and just generally fantastic and top-notch all round?

Maybe we should just stop wasting our money on rivers and use it for advertising the government's industrial relations legislation or something useful like that.

All the official analysis on the water needs of the Murray-Darling system have been based on the assumption that the original flow of water was equal to the sum of the current flow plus current irrigation diversions. And this has been a very neat way of presenting the 11,600gl of irrigation water as a loss to the environment.

Yet, none of the policy on fish and bird stocks appear to have included the expanded populations of aquatic species that now inhabit the irrigation ditches. And the fact that the water may have already flowed down much of the river before diversion is also ignored. It is recorded as a loss to the entire system, with implied ecological losses to match.

More importantly, even the so-called Wentworth Group were capable of getting their asynergistic minds around the fact that land clearing increases catchment water yield. But the policy process has never bothered to calculate how much additional flow has been added to the system by past clearing by upstream farmers.

There is a huge "smoking gun" being ignored by the government and the captured science community that indicates that farming activities may have almost doubled the total flow in the system but this increase is now being fully captured by downstream irrigators.

The decline in flows to the river mouth is an urban myth devised for the sole purpose of justifying an increase in so-called environmental flows (ie landscaping) at the expense of farming communities.

"Urban myth"? Perseus just search Google, see the range of government reports by a multitude of agencies - it is a DISASTER.

Not to ignore the tide, like King Canute, you are yet again tilting at the rural/urban perceived divide. For goodness sake, get off your horse.

But dont worry about the myth, dont worry about the conceptions and misconceptions, just promote the Murray going back to the owners and users.

Let the owners take care of it, not the so-called "bimbocracy" and this means user pays as water is a commodity as painful as the consequences of that will be to the heavy water users like the cotton industry.

Remco,
It is a fact that the removal of trees from a catchment will increase the level of runoff.
It is a fact that the volume of this increase is in proportion to the amount of rainfall.
It is a fact that a very significant part of the Murray Darling catchment has been cleared.
It is a fact that this clearing has generally taken place in the higher rainfall parts of the catchment.
It is a fact that the phenomena of vegetation thickenning and regrowth is less pronounced in the higher rainfall parts of the catchment because the economic returns are high enough to justify more frequent pasture maintenance.

So it is absolutely impossible for there to have been zero net increase in catchment water yield from past land clearing in the Murray Darling system.

So why is the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, and every government policy process in relation to that system, continuing to assume that this increase in yield did not happen?

It is a fact that millions have been spent on the Murray River and it is a fact that the general concesus is that there is a serious problem contrary Perseus to your "urban myth" problem. And why? Because if one owned it, then there would be a sense of possession and hence care.

There aint.

So, like so many divides in our society, instead of sabre rattling, mudslinging as occuring here as well, we acknowledged that in the end we can take care of ourselves and our property. Without that, there is neglect just like the street verge belonging to the shire/council.

Put the Murray (and other issues you and I have eyeballed on) back to those responsible and benefiting. Water is a commodity and so let it be traded. Hey, if you own it, guess what, you take care of it. Yes, there will be losers (including the parasitic "bimbocracies" as you refer to them who evolve empires based on disputes and resistance to change) but in the long term, the Murray, and the rural sector, will be the more robust.

The umbilicus to your bimbocracies must be cut. The new IR reforms is actually part of that thrust too. Get the "looters" represented by your bimbocracies out of our society. I have better things to do with my time too and I am sure you too.

Out of all your tangential, and indeed, positively orbital ramblings, Remco, I must agree with you on one point. And that is on the issue of ownership.

Currently, the decisions regarding the Murray Darling are made by urban political elites who have no real stake in the outcome. They all feel they can survive without any economic contribution from the MDB and all are certain of being fully insulated from any adverse consequences of their maladministration.

If, on the other hand, there was a new rural State covering northern Victoria, and two more covering inland southern and northern NSW, and another covering the Darling Downs and Maranoa in Qld, then the proper management of the basin would be in the hands of decision makers who have most to gain and most to lose from the consequences of their decisions.

It may not mean the end of the cheap shots, the pious positioning, the shonky science and the ignorant political spin, but at least there would be other parties with access to funds to ensure their proper exposure and removal from the policy process.

At least we would have all parties to the negotiations on an equal footing, with an equal need to be fully informed. At the moment it is garbage in - garbage out by urban daytrippers.

Better yet Perseus, instead of shaping the 'bimbocracy' (ie. the States) to the river, excise them out. Put the river back to the people who need it (and use it). Why create fuel for the "looters" (Ayn Rand) and give the farmers and users the FULL control (and rent it out to the recreational users etc). The river is water and so make water a tradeable commodity whose value is therefore related to quality (ie diminished by salt). Yes it will be opposed (notably cotton) but that's the price, better use with winners and losers. It's about accountability and making costs visible.

So much debate here and elsewhere is about people struggling in power systems (and I include in that the perceived rural/urban divide). It is also about disguised subsidies (but that is better discussed elsewhere where we have headbutted).

Get rid of the "bimbocracies" dont fuel them. "Looters" out, people in (and tolerate the screaming from the "bags per acre", "miles per gallon" mob.

So Jennifer Marohasy, to sum it up.

Get the bureacracies out of the Murray. No more money and endless reports that simply consumes resources and better applied.

Allow the users to take charge by acknowledging that water, like the land, is a resource. Water then becomes a tradeable commodity whose price is sensitive to its quality (including salinity). (Recreational users can pay a license fee if that's what is required).

Get the wider community to understand what it is all about. That is lose their receptivity to the politicians representing the old school (ie. mpg and bags/acre) mob and heavy users that are economically (as distinct from current cost accounting) subsidised cotton producers etc to adjust. Set up a once-off fund to help the mob that looks to Canberra to leave/adjust (hey there might be money left over from all those reports that dont need to be written now).

Get the bimbocracies out of this national icon. Give it back to the people that need it and make them accountable.

Idealism? Hmmmm.

Hey, who is going to promote salination, when it debases the value of the water?

Who is going to sit idly by while someone upstreams degrades the quality or quantity of the water?

Why fuel "bimbocracies" with value added analyses (multipliers)? All that money and resources then released to help those disaffected (and there will be some as there will be those that gain) to adjust or leave.

And why wont this happen? Because associations, politicians, and the vocal lose their role when the people take charge of their own affairs.

Power before logical application.

History to accommodate.

Voters to educate (hey who's going to do that?).

Business as usual. Now let me see, how many litres to a gallon? And what's the value added per acre (what's that hectare unit again?) for cotton vis a vis, lucerne again? Rubbish in, rubbish out.

To the sound of one hand clapping.

Ah we agree at last Perseus.
Politics entrenched.
Politics obfuscating.
Politics hiding the fact the answer is here, clear and so easy.

In space no one can hear you scream that like in 1989, (when the iron curtain comes down and when finally we get it) water is a commodity that has an economic value and it is being traded below its true worth and hence neglected.

Until then the huffing and puffing. The multipliers, the rhetoric, the urban myths, the bimbocracy, the powerplays that hallmarks so much of the debate in Australia. A clever country drowning under 13 layers of government - 1.5million per layer. People needing a raison d'etre and endless reports, consultants, hot air obfuscating and procrastinating and hiding behind gigalitres that adds $ per hectare for which the urbanites needs to pay.

Four out of ten for poetic rhythm, Remco. Two for content, two for relevance.

Thank you Perseus.

I guess you too learned that the tools of the consultants and the nourishment for the 'looters' are multipliers and these are based on value added. Pointless anachronism just like the ORANI model of the IAC.

But I suspect my proposal was lost to Perseus, who I suspect would eg. fight tooth and nail against the carbon tax and the carbon exchange system. Water is a commodity that could be owned and valued - with salt degrading its value and hence promoting accountability.

I wonder who really understands this (begging to dismiss this as "academic" or "unrealistic").

Here's my 2 cents worth! :)

'Can Salt Salinity effect me ?'

"Around 2 million hectares (5 million acres) of land is now officially salt-affected, half of that in southwest Western Australia". Environmentaly its catastrophic..... Less rain, more salt etc.. For anyone to think that spending money on the problems of Salt Salinity is not good for Australia needs a little education upon our water crisis. It is all well linked if we all take the time to understand our eco systems, that they are more real than money itself.

Because we all believe and work within a Monetary system of which there is an accepted ideology that money is the first thing that will effect 'me' and should be placed 1st.
Though I don't understand this view, because it is effecting the bottom dollar within our Monetary Systems anyway.
Eg.
"salination is turning once productive farmland into lifeless dirt tracts and threatening the country's A$30 billion ($22 billion) agriculture export industry, one of the biggest in the world."

Farmers are terrified of the salt, which cuts land values by one-third and reduces output.

But Australia is far from getting the messasge with Hegemonic Masculinity at the forefront of our society. Take away Japan's vast technology and imagine Australia was more advanced than Japan at present, we would still be way behind is saphistication. THis is due to the way we treat each other and the way we label people as 'Greenies' which from a Hegemonic Masculinity domination in our society makes it 'bad' to care about our environment, like many of us label gay and lesbians. So knowing that greenies are then disadvantaged, they seem to have more guts than any Hegemonic ideals.

"The most celebrated win so far is the reversal of salinity in Australia's biggest river, the Murray, through a combination of engineering works and management of water flows. A national tree-planting campaign is being accompanied by the use of salt-tolerant plants to combat growth of desertification."