In the Coalition's official policy launch the other night, Springborg made a point of emphasising the role of decentralisation and balanced growth between the regions and the South East in maintaining the quality of life in SE Queensland.

Nothing will do more to maintain the quality of life in the SE corner like encouraging new arrivals to settle in the rest of the state. The ALP does not have a decentralisation policy and the bungling of health policy in the bush has actually exacerbated problems in the South East by increasing rural drift to the city and discouraging new regional settlers.

An actual department of decentralisation will never be as effective as real regional autonomy but it is certainly a good start that actually recognises the problem. Beattie's morons haven't a clue.

All very true Jennifer. The environment simply has vanished as an issue. Everything is being swamped (!) by dams. There is no leadership whatsover on the issue of water recycling and the 'debate' in Toowoomba a few weeks ago lurched from feeble to pooerile.
Jennifer does well to raise the issue of over population. That is the underlying issue in almost all environmental issues worldwide. Sadly 'growth' is perceived by almost everybody as A Good Thing. Periodically the Cairns media et all boast that their growth rate is bigger than Townsvilles. These morons see population 'growth' as an unalloyed good. Controlling human numbers will not of itself ensure a well maintained environment, but it is certain that exponential growth of human numbers WILL ensure that the environment will deteriorate.
A stable population number is a necessary but not sufficient condition for environmental sustainability

Why isn't there a huge movement to stop immigration and cut back on population growth ? The best thing about Australia is our relative lack of hideous overcrowding, is it selfish to want to keep it that way? With an arid continent and water shortages getting worse everywhere, why do we want more migrants and more babies a la Peter Costello ? Only the retailers and the building industry benefit in the short term, but I guess they are powerful enough to keep the migration programmes going full bore. But then Australia has always been a convenient dumping ground: first for convicts, now probably for the world's nuclear waste and for unwanted people from overpopulated countries. By the way, I think the Pope is guilty of crimes against humanity, in refusing to sanction birth control.

There would appear to be a general consensus on this issue. In my location the Council has been encouraging growth at all costs for decades. What used to be fertile vegetable gardening land is now covered in concrete and brick while useless scrubland goes wanting. Wetlands about to be covered by factories. It never ends. The sad thing is that that opinion seems to permeate all levels of government. Until we stop this population at all costs we will continue to lower our collective standards of living. As for the upcoming election I have yet to hear one party make an issue of this subject. For the first time in my life I will be voting informal. I know it is a wasted vote but with the choice I have it will be a wasted vote in any case. Labor; Un-coalition; Greens and the bible led Family First. What a choice. If there were an independent in the group he or she would get my vote hands down. Independents are the only upper house we will ever get in this state.

As usual The Governments have it wrong... Why are we so surprised?

Peter Beattie long ago became irrelevant and only the weakness of the so called opposition will allow him to prevail.

If we were to collect all the rainwater that fell on our roadways and filtered it up into our existing catchments we would soon have plenty of water. Last week off a tiny part of our roof we filled a 3000 litre tank. How much drinking water went out to sea in Brisbane last week - it must have been an incredible volume.

Does anyone know how much water is actually diverted down our stormwater drains every time it rains it must be many millions of litres each year and someone must know?

The other benefit of using roads as catchments to refill existing dams is that if it rains on the Southside and not on the Northside the runoff still gets used to supply our water needs. We already have lots of the pipes in place... we just need to redirect the water.

What would you rather drink recycled sewerage or recycled rainwater? If we can make sewerage drinkable... rainwater must be easier to filter!

PLUS because the initial infrastructure, the pipes & stormwater drains, are in place already, the water transportation pipes are all we need to build.

Come on Premier Pete .... Wake UP! How do politicians sleep at night? Does being devoid of any sensible ideas just allow their sleep to be uninterupted even whilst people die from bodgy Drs or Bush and farmland are being flooded unnecessarily?

And when they retire we pay them heaps and they crow about their public service... What service?

kang,
You almost answered your own question. The reason both Liberal and Labor support high immigration is simple. Big business wants to sell more consumer goods and by giving generous ammounts of money to both parties, they can ensure the maintenance of high immigration.

We really should be debating our carrying capacity, forming a population policy and tailoring immigration to suit.

Only then can we determine what infastructure, including water, will be required in future. But I would not hold my breath waiting.