I don't agree. We elect politicians to provide the infrastructure to cope with an increasing population. To prevent politicians from suffering shock, our population is reasonably predicted by government agencies expert in that area. Is it asking too much to require politicians to read those projections and adopt plans that will cope with an increasing population?

How cheeky of our pollies to ask us to pay more. They have failed to deliver ample clean drinking water to the people of Australia yet they turn on us and blame us. What a hide.

Politicians should be reminded that they aren't there to ride around in nice gleaming Qantas jets. They are there to provide services for the people.

This article is a complete fabrication, more commonly called a “pack of lies”

Taking the following phrase

“At the moment, prices are so low that these projects only happen if government is willing to fund particular initiatives. “

So, are we paying too little for water?

I refer you to http://www.bracksed.com/articles/2006/09/23-1950-6144.html

“Bracks went back to the old annual increase and then jacked up dividends from water from $265 million last year to a forecast $304 million this year in the May budget. They have now increased it again for 2002-03 by an unspecified amount in the latest budget update. Ripping almost $400 million in profits out of water industry"

And

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20803191-601,00.html

"They are paying massive dividends and tax payments to their state and local government owners.
"I have no objections to water companies making profits or indeed paying dividends, but I do object to the state government owners of these water companies managing them for cash, restraining demand through restrictions so that expensive investment in new water supplies can be postponed.''

What is the source of the dividends which were misappropriated form the Victorian state owned water companies – it was the excess of rates charged to metropolitan users over the costs of supplying them with water.

Where did the money come form – well iut was the money set aside by depreciation charges which was not reinvested into water management assets.

How could this be if we are paying too little for water?

I have worked in commerce for 40 years. My understanding of the commercial cycle tells me, if a company is paying dividends, according to the accounting standards, a company must have retained earnings and some form of positive cash flow.

In common terms is a cash-cow.

What a perversion of morality and common sense is it that submits water companies to being raped by state governments of their financial resilience through special dividends and at the same time it is claimed we are paying too little for water?

SBS had a show, I think it was called 'Liquid Gold'.

Basically it was about how the belief was that the private sector could produce safe drinking water for the worlds poor.

It involved the private sector building and controlling a water supply system and then profiting from the proceeds.

In Australia water is a public assest, not a private business.

The SBS show, showed the failure of privatising H20.

Privatising H2O would be like suddenly putting tolls along the hume and princess highways, the money goes straight into the pockets of Australia's rich and elite.

Goods, especally food suddenly become more expensive, if we are lucky wages increase to meet the new prices and a spiral of inflation occurs.

Basically it is legalising 'Highway robbery' as the worlds elite think of new and inventive ways making money from the public purse. Some State governments have failed dismally in protecting it's citizens from exploitation by Australia's rich and influential people.

Sure, waterboards should have invested dividends back into infrastructure, and not have it hidden in general revenue, but whether the government gets their money from GST, stamp duty or any other source, we all pay for what we use in the end, directly or indirectly to pay for hospitals, schools, roads etc that we all want. We all vote for the government that we feel gives us the most, so the money has to come from somewhere. It's just that all governments like to manipulate the tax system so that it appears that they are giving us something for nothing. There's no free lunch.

Malcolm Turnbull’s “solution” is just another attempt to take our eye of the fact that Australian politicians have been grossly incompetent, acting like thieves in taking money from water authorities to help their credit ratings instead of putting it back into infrastructure, and sitting on their padded bums because drought - nothing new in Australia – has generally hit only a small percentage of the population. The same old election-to-election mentality rules, with each of the major political no-hopers keeping their fingers crossed that it will be the other side that gets caught. Unfortunately for all of them, the federal Coalition looks bad, and the state Labor governments have been caught out too. All of the bastards should pay. Now that all Australians are affected, maybe they will be made to pay at the polls. It’s a good chance to get rid of the rusted on career politicians and replace them with people with brains and loyalty to Australia and the people.

Water might be too cheap, but it is absurd to up the price when there is little to be had. And the deadhead politicians of all colours have had plenty of time to store water – rainwater in good years, water running out to sea, storm water, sea water desalination and many other ways.

But no. They have been too stupidly self-interested to do that, and cities like Adelaide have only 30% of the storage capacity needed. Without the River Murray, Adelaide would become a ghost town.

Price, like every other whacko idea coming from the real villains of the uncessarry water crises, is just another bleat to keep the heat of them.

Let’s not allow them get away with it any more. If they did increase the price, they would bandicoot the extra money in the same way they do now, continuing to sit on their bums, making little old pensioners hand water one of the few pleasures they have left, in the middle of the night, with a bucket!

The price of water should definately go up as there becomes less and less. This will provide incentives for everyone to use less water. Of course because water is so cheap now, it would have to go up quite significantly. The price could for example be based on remaining dam capacity. So if it was full the price could be at a low price while near empty it could be much higher.

For example, I know you can get a 5600l tank for about $500. This tank full of water would probably hold about $5 worth of water. From this it would take about 100 fills to make it pay for itself. The payback period of the tank would be several decades at least at the most optimistic circumstances. A tank allows you to manage your own water supply though. The other thing about tanks is that they scale as the community grows (if everyone puts in a tank).

One final point. Do you want to leave the supply of water to people who have proven that they are incapable of managing the supply of water?

In response to some of the comments above, I wish to point out that this article is about pricing water to provide incentives for investment.

As a separate issue, it is clearly vital that there is significant investment from government in publicly owned projects, and that there is significant reinvestment in infrastructure using revenues from water.

The problem with this water crisis is that farmers don't want to adapt to a changing climate. They want to maintain their place in a remote dry land and still get first class access to water. That is simply unrealistic and expensive for the government who has to subsidise their stubbornness.

Another problem is high water consuming crops. It is not practical and extremely inefficient management of water resources. If you had one glass of water, you would not put a sponge in it? That is the effect of those crops on Australia's finite water supply.

Thirdly people also have a stubborn opposition to drinking recycled water. It's probably in every major city in the world, but Australians are so parochial and ignorant they act all indignant at the suggestion, like idiots living in the stone age.

The environmental costs are already apparent. Rather than all of us being able to travel these rivers and enjoy some form steam boat tourism with deep rivers like in the old days, the water has all but vanished so it looks like a water drain. People just have to face up to the REALITY that water is very scarce in Australia and you can't plunder the land to the extent you can in other parts of the world. And if that means we have to import food (or God forbid....cotton [/sarcasm]), then that's the reality. Other countries like Japan have to import a lot of resources. It's a fact of life and Australia has to adapt to it's limitations. These farmers have to start migrating out of country areas.

For goodness sake you rednecks opposed to the pricing of water. Think of the pricing of water like the GST - there is NO real cost until the end user. The cost is TRANSFERRED. The world has gone to GST (or VAT) as it makes for accountability, transparency and is fairer.
So then too pricing water. It is being UNFAIRLY allocated by any measure with the legacy of history and political influence allocating more of it to some quarters than to others.
Pricing water promotes visibility and fairer allocation. The cost of its introduction, like the GST, miniscule compared to the benefits.

Those opposed to pricing of water, are like those opposing the GST. It is a passed on cost and tiny as a percentage of the value added to cotton, sugar etc (though of course the losers will scream).

It's a shame it took Malcolm Turnball to show some leadership after so long without anyone else in power lifting a finger. Hopefully this will be implemented in the right way..

Three years ago severe water restrictions were placed on the residents of Canberra and surounding districts.

So good were the affected people in this region at conserving water that the water supplier, ACTEW/AGL sought an increase in the price of water because their margin was down - significantly.

The people of the region are now rightly skeptical about seriously conserving water.

I was taught never to mention religion, politics or sex in polite conversation. In 2006 in rural areas one doesn't mention water in polite conversation. Farmers are smarting under their reduced water allocations and increased usage water fees. I heard one bloke moan that he had to pay $46,000 for his water rights and this year his water volume was reduced to nil. I was told that would be for about 3 rice holdings. So he has a big investment in laser levelled fields, irrigation input channels and waste water drains, as well as machinery like tractors, harvestors etc

If we have less water then obviously land is going to be taken out of farm production. Do we want to leave the land as overgrown weedy desert or should it be rehabilitated back to some form of ground cover suitable to the environment.

Does Australia want to let the market decide what land remains under agriculture and what we produce or should there be some government direction?

I think that government should provide some direction. It was government action that put the Murrumbidgee and Murray Darling irrigation areas in southern NSW in place and it will take cooperation between the states to ensure that Cubby Station doesn't use all of the Darling water flow.

I foresee that Turnbull's market determine's scheme would allow high value crops to be grown under irrigation while all our food is imported from New Zealand, Tasmania and China at a time when we face massive increase in transportation costs as we pass peak oil.

You know Steel, I can think of much better uses for Queensland water, than to let it run down the Darling, just to provide you with steam boat holidays.
Leigh, further to your post, is any place, like Adelaide, that demands 70% of its water be supplied by other states, realy entitled to exist. All that water, just to keep a bunch of old churches on the tourist rout, is a terrble waste.
In times like these we have to make sacrifices, & I believe Adelaide is the best bet. Upper Darling water will keep Brisbane going, & NSW, & VIC can use all the Snowy water axailable.
Yes ,we have to make sacrifices, & I nominate THEM, as my personal sacrifice

Narcissist,
The same thing happened in Newcastle during the restrictions years ago.

If water is now considered a commodity rather than a shared resource, then you should be entitled to use all the water you can afford to pay for and restrictions should not be possible under those conditions.

Raising the price is an artificial means of controlling supply when good will alone doesn't work.

Most everything in society is allocated by one thing, PRICE! The exceptions are where the government directly or indirectly seeks to allocate so then eg. a shortage of nurses in hospitals and teachers in schools where wages are artificially suppressed (hey there's no shortage of plumbers are there and we dont have to import them).

Those opposed to water being priced in an OPEN market should ask themselves, why water should be exempted from the operation of the market place. It is a scarce and essential commodity.

Those seeking the hand of government, should look at their track record.

Water is too important a commodity to be exempted from everything else in society.

I gotta say, you can't really argue with the point of this article.

There's an old phrase that goes something like "supply and demand."

That's the way it works I'm afraid.

That being said, while we obviously need to look at upping water costs, there needs to be some kind of assistance for businesses that require large quantities of water to operate - a sudden increase in costs would bankrupt too many and cause damage to numerous sectors of the market.

No doubt I'll be viewed as an agri-socialist here, but if we were to charge the water intensive industries similarly, numerous market sectors would be affected and it would drive up more thna water prices and have a larger ripple effect than intended.

There does need to be an increase in water prices, and yes, it needs to be extended to the majority of industries, but on an appropriate scale.

Staged increases would also be wise.

What has not been discussed is the primary reason about building the dams was to drought proof the country.

Then governments sold water licences, but did they sell too many? As a consequence demand eventually exceed the ability of the network of dams to supply the water.

Now better late than never, more efforts are being made to conserve water, open channels are now being enclosed etc. It is a shame that it took this water crisis to get the bureaucratic monster moving.

New areas were opened for irrigation by politicans and it obvious that the allocation of water exceeded the ability of the dams to meet those needs.

Once privatisation of water occcurs the private companies will come up with new and inventive ways of separating people with the dollar, some possibilities such as charging water users like fishermen and skiers for the right to put boats on what was once totally free water.

The only aim of this charging the public for public use of a once public assest, would be to provide dividends to private shareholders.

Teri, it depends what Shire you live in, how high your water charge is rated.

What we have here is 'failure to disclose'.

Water is more expensive because state and federal governments are overpopulating Australia, especially the east coast property markets, to boost their own personal power profiles and market shares for a few rotten to the core CEOs who deem our country their playground. Government spinbull doctors are cleverly 'omitting disclosure' of this truth in their abject push to blame their constituents for water shortages.

Cut immigration and water prices will fall as demand reduces. Prices for water will tumble. The notion we have to pay more for basic necessities so an elite minority can live better is tantamount to slavery. We have had enough of this TurnBULL or SPINBULL, as I call it!

On a similar vein, the FABRICATION that Sydney has to be the New York of the Pacific for OUR benefit needs to be nutted. If the elite minority who want this will pay all the excess water costs 100%, including desal plants then they can have their New York-Sydney. othewise F-OFF!

That includes this Iemma and his bloody city wide wi-fi BS that benefits domestic & international business and immigrants at the cost of NSW taxpayers. Unless Iemma puts wi-fi all over NSW for the people wo are PAYING for it then he can find himself another job because his employer is not Packer and Co, his employer is the people of NSW.

Wake up NSW! You are being shafted bigtime. Keep voting the major parties around so they are denied pre-eminent domain over our lives.
Liberal for 2007 and labour back in 2010. After a while they'll start to wake up that WE run this country.

A comment posted in response to Kevin Cox's article "What price recycled water?" of 16 March 2006 by hyetal has proven indirectly useful in shedding some light on this question of the adequacy of the price for water, in that hyetal gave a link to his/her home page. http://www.goldcoastwatercrisis.info/ It seems to provide photographic and other evidence of spin. Specifically, http://www.goldcoastwatercrisis.info/gpage1html.html indicates the intention to construct significant mains pipelines for Gold Coast supply augmentation from Wivenhoe dam.

Great discrepancy seems to exist between the quantities of water supposedly available for the Gold Coast (currently under level 2 restrictions with Hinze dam full) from Wivenhoe, with the apparent unwillingness to make water available to Toowoomba (currently under level 5 restrictions) from Wivenhoe.
http://www.goldcoastwatercrisis.info/gpage10html.html refers.

It would seem the potential of Wivenhoe as a cash cow to the State government far outweighs that government's perception of duty to make reasonable supplies available where it is really needed, and where that water is collected in a catchment near Toowoomba.

Rather than water being underpriced, could it be that its supply is seen as a government facilitated opportunity to first create artificial shortage for at least some users (like the people of Toowoomba), and then bunt the price up for supply to an essentially guaranteed captive market? Is this the business model that Malcolm Turnbull wishes to see Australia-wide for water supply? http://www.goldcoastwatercrisis.info/gpage5html.html

Hyetal's link dealing with attempts to introduce recycled water into the Hinze dam seems to indicate that the present price for municipal reticulated water is relatively attractive by comparison with what might be received for recycled water as such. Here is hyetal's link on this. http://www.goldcoastwatercrisis.info/gpage8html.html Under a so-called privatized water supply regime, the 'smart' operator gets ALL the cheapest water (the sewerage effluent), processes it as cheaply as possible, then sells it ALL back at the highest prices. Money, for short!

Why dont you guys stop talking about "government" as if it is the saviour? Can anyone point to government doing the right thing in allocations, controls, assistance etc that is not politically expeditious or disguised distributed costs?

Why instead dont you share why water, as an essential commodity, should be exempted from the operation of the market like everything else? What is so special about water, in contrast to all other inputs, that should render it outside the market and hence unfairly allocated.

Instead of your diatribes about government, need, unfairness, essential etc, talk about inclusion as an essential commodity that therefore cannot be allocated by geography, history etc but by its value. A value that is passed on like the GST to the end user.

Yes there will be the vociferous losers and quiet winners. Yes there will be some increased costs (to be passed on and by SOME), there will also be gains (that will not be shouted around).

RemGlobalCorp

""Yes there will be an overwhelming number of the vociferous losers and a handful of quiet winners. ""

And THAT IS NOT DEMOCRACY and WILL NOT BE TOLERATED in AUSTRALIA.

When the majority are railroaded by corrupt politicians into paying for the water of people who have not arrived yet, amidst a chronic shortage in a desert land, you have Neo-Feudalism. Add rotten CEOs scooping up all the profts from this iniquity as living standards rise in dollar terms but FALL in REAL terms (social stress, gridlock, lousy services etc) and you have the beginnings of FASCISM.

Morris Iemma's recent 'state plan' is a roadmap to this neo-FASCISM and NSW Labour must be tossed out in the March 2007 elections. They have been around too long and have forgotten that is is the PEOPLE of NSW whom they must serve rather than a few staggeringly wealthy CEOs at whose feet they so overtly grovel, as seen in shonky policies from Botany Bay Euro-developments to desal and every kind of human money-funnel that can make their masters richer.

NSW has had enough!

Mark My words!

PS 'The Castle' is on Ch9 tonight. Watch it!

Well said Kaep.

Governments and the media continually champion the great benefits and huge wealth resultant from population growth, and obviously community support for population growth must be around 100% as all major political parties seem to share the enthusiasm. But how is it then that with being so fabulously wealthy as a result of a bsllooning population, Australians suddenly are being told that there is not enough public money to build the infrastructure to cope?

I agree that the calls for private funding amount to no more than an undemocratic scam on Australian citizens for the benefit of private interests that will compulsorily extract huge profits for services and resources that would otherwise be cheap and plentiful if Australia's population were not manipulated.

"You know Steel, I can think of much better uses for Queensland water, than to let it run down the Darling, just to provide you with steam boat holidays"
This would bring money to communities on the river system. Rather than them making money off wasting the outrageously almost-free water as they currently do with high-consumption crops, they could make some off tourism and restore a once beautiful river system as well as engage in historical restorations and cultural events.

The price of water will only go up for those who do not invest in their own water tank. Without your own water you are at the mercy of some of the sleasiest spivs on the planet.

For the average family in the average year in Brisbane (1050mm year) using 255Kl of water, an 8000 litre tank will have 33 tank fulls flow into it from a 250m2 roof. There will be 6 tank fulls over flowing in the wet season and 6 tank fulls needed from the mains supply in the dry season.

This tank will cost $1400 and, even if all the council rebates were spent on plumbing etc, it will supply 27 tank fulls each year at an annual interest cost (7%) of $98pa which works out at $3.62 per tank full or $0.45/kilolitre. If we add in the 48Kl of mains water at $1/Kl the average cost of all water will be $0.56/Kl.

The house will only source 15% of its needs from the "water mafia" and even if they doubled their price to $2/Kl the average price to the tank owning household will only increase to $0.74/Kl.

But the moment the water mafia lift their prices, the economics of water tanks will sink into the minds of more and more consumers and the water mafia will sell less and less water until the economics of even the existing storage infrastructure is compromised.

So all this crap about the need to raise prices is based on the assumption that there is no cheaper alternative source of supply. There is. The assumption is dead wrong so don't go investing your superannuation in any water infrastructure that isn't in your own yard under your own control.

Malcom Turdbull can afford it.

How about the thirty percent of the populations affluent paying more for it?

Business is a high user of this precious resource and is compensated by their ability to tax deduct this expense.

When we think of products which take high volumes of water to produce, such as fruit and vegetable export, we are virtually shipping our water overseas.

Here is the latest Sea Height Anomaly(SHA) map for Australia.

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/trinanes/tmp/sha1165581629.gif

East Coast: There are large SHAs indicating primarily thermal disturbances most likely associated with heat trapping colloidal pollution. They are consistently associated with plumes out of (nth to sth):

Princess Charlotte Bay,
Cairns,
**Mackay/Shaolwater Bay,
Bundaberg,
Maroochydore/Brisbane
Macleay River to Port Macquarie
**Sydney to the Gong
Cape Howe

Thermodynamic imbalances, reinforced by gravitational collapse of high to low ocean SHA movements and tides create atmospheric Energy above staggered sections of the Australian East coast. Because of the immense pollution loadings, that energy does not enter the atmosphere as fast as if heat trapping colloidals in the sea surface were absent. This means the High entropy pollution in the sea surface has effectively transferred to atmospheric layers.

NSW/Victoria: Now we know that Low entropy inland heat, carrying moisture and topsoil is attracted to those now Higher entropy atmospheric zones. This is the reason for Australia's drought. El Nino is irrelevant in comparison to this localised or REGIONAL thermodynamic system.

North Qld: The higher coastal entropy will attract heat from tropical waters to the Nth East. QAs summer is fading and water temperatures are maximum Cyclones WILL form. Currently, Mackay is the prime target.

I will update these prognoses regularly from now till cyclone season begins in earnest. The Drought? It will continue till NSW Labor stops funnelling voters taxes into lucrative DESAL deals that promise to underwrite Botany Bay casinos and subsequently Sydney as the Crime capital of the Sthn Hemisphere.

Neither Iemma or Howard will lift a finger to stop the drought while big business corrupt money-funnels are in the offing.

CONSTRUCTION of a desalination plant to sustain Sydney's water supply seems inevitable ..

After an INDEPENDENT? advisory panel urged the State Government to start building as soon as dam levels hit 30 per cent - which is likely to happen within months.

Peter Debnam said. "The desalination plant was environmentally unsound, is expensive and it is in a location that the community does not want."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/saltwater-plant-gets-backing/2006/12/10/1165685553908.html

Comment:

The latest SHA maps show a DISTURBING increase in pollution plumes off the NSW coast CONCURRENT with the above INDEPENDENT? reprort.

DEC 1 through DEC 8:
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/trinanes/tmp/sha1165755161.gif
shows relatively high but constant levels of pollution off the NSW coast.

But from DEC 9 to today, corresponding to the report::
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/trinanes/tmp/sha1165751258.gif
There is a notable MAJOR increase in coastal pollution density and coverage.

This has the implications that:

* The NSW government KNOWS that polluted coastal SHA anomaly fields are thermodynamically inducing NSW drought

* They are deliberately augmenting the pollution levels to worsen the drought and lower Dam levels to below the 30% level so a DESAL plant will be timed to be shoehorned into legislation BEFORE the imminent March 2007 elections. The expectation being that if an INDEPENDENT? panel has authored the DESAL plant then the government will not lose votes over its introduction into law.

* My allegations about the DESAL plant being a necessary infrastructure and investment momentum tool for large scale casino and gaming opportunities along Botany bay and Cook's River foreshores are probably correct.

This is REAL CEO sponsored TERRORISM in action.They are subverting an elected government with what can only be assumed are substantial FUTURE rewards post office.

No recognised Terrorist group has been able to do as much damage to a western economy as this NSW Labor government, anywhere in the World.

But the NSW Government forgot one thing: We are watching the SHA maps and soon they will be held accountable not only for corruption but also for creating conditions that are CAUSING drought, bushfire and hardship for the citizens of NSW.

Kaep

I suspect that if the entropy/drought theory was proven there would be a rash of wetland developments associated with all populated areas. Maybe the inaction simply reflects the lack of empirical evidence. WHo wouldn't want the theory to be true as it would mean a very chea and achievable end to the drought and municipal water shortages? It might even send the water vultures away for a while.

Fester,

Empirical evidence is on the way. March 07 will see another large cyclone strike Qld. I should be able to predict when and where it will strike from a combination of SHA and SST data maps.

Additionally, I believe the US are now on to cleaning wastewaters in Hurricane season. If I am correct there will not be any landfall US hurricanes in 2007 but I will be able to point out significant alterations in pollution plumes from major US rivers and ports after June Ist compared to earlier in the Year.

2007 will be a very valuable data collection period for RECCE theory and hopefully that data can be used here in Australia to put an early end to this incessant drought.

I will be posting results both here and on the NY Times on a regular basis provided the satellite maps remain available..

Thanks Kaep. I will be watching with interest. What measures might reduce pollution plumes, and if this theory is supported by observation, does it also raise the possibility of modifying the entropy of water bodies to increase the chance and quantity of rainfall?

Fester,

"What measures might reduce pollution plumes?"

Engineered wetlands, designed specifically for stormwater, industrial, sewage and agri applications. NSW would need around 10,000 such units to keep drought permanently at bay. Sewage and wastewater recycling are important too but are just a small sub-part of the applied wetlands strategy.

These specialised wetlands not only clean water and lower coastal entropy levels, they thermodynamically lower entropy around their particular catchment. Since entropy is equivalent to order or information or energy, these installations will ultimately pay for themselves in abstruse but nonetheless real $ ways.

"Does it raise the possibility of modifying the entropy of water bodies to increase the chance and quantity of rainfall? "

Of course. Lower coastal water entropy artificially. But the cost of lowering coastal water entropy levels artificially is enormous. Better to let nature and sunlight do the work for us. Its not only more efficient but more pleasurable to walk around an engineered wetland than a Desal plant or its accompanying coal fired power source.

I'll have more to say in March and after mid may next year, unless some menche starts to clean up the NSW coast in the meantime.

SHA map shows Nth Qld has cleaned up its pollution plumes ahead of the 2007 cyclone season.

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/trinanes/tmp/sha1165996992.gif

Australian Authorities have demonstrably cleaned up the pollution wastewater plumes off Mackay, Cairns and Princes Charlotte Bay in Nth Qld.

In contrast, the increase in pollution spils off the NSW coast into the Tasman Sea has risen dramatically in the last 24 hrs. This will dry out NSW and lower dams well below the 30% Desal trigger level well before the NSW Labor Party March 2007 election.

In the meantime Australian Coral reef scientists are playing catchup with RECCE theory: http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/racing-rate-of-reef-decay/2006/12/13/1165685752361.html

The recent pollution retraction I noted in Nth Qld ahead of the 2007 Cyclone season MUST have been pretty obvious to these scientists through their data collection instruments. No wonder they say " Human activity, including development, overfishing and pollution, has been blamed for episodes of coral death that have damaged reefs in recent decades". Previously they were all blaming Gobal Warming.

Its only when it (the pollution) STOPS that they notice its really happening!

I will be keen to see if the SHA maps show a continuance in cleaner Barrier reef waters off Nth Qld today.

Malcolm Turnbull is not right, he is dangerous.

He is the cheerleader for the big end of town, those property developers who have discovered that you can buy four blocks of land and put up a high rise apartment with 60 dwellings in it and flog them off for huge profit.

These people want to see Australia's POPULATION GROW WITHOUT LIMIT, because it means they'll be able to continue to flog off apartment blocks and increase their fortunes from 500 million to a billion.

They don't give a toss that they will ruin this beautiful country, ruin what used to be comfortable cities to live in, and make us pay for drinking our own piss.

Wake up Australia!

http://www.news.com.au/sundayheraldsun/story/0,21985,21057146-662,00.html

rainwater tax plan.

Not long after Turnbull's plan to privitize the water supply, now follows with the growth of rainwater tanks in backyards is a plan to tax the water collected in these tanks.

It's possible with the privatization that every time you flush the loo, you'll be taxed. What this means is more money for the private investor/shareholder.

The only ones to benefit will those who are rich enough to buy an big parcel of shares.

If people collect water in tanks and use it, it means that the private companies who invested in the water infranstucture will loose money because people will be using less of the water they are selling.

It's a bit like these private toll ways, where alternative routes of travel are made more difficult in an effort to funnel the traffic onto the toll ways to boost company profits and shareholder dividends.

The net effect is to channel public money into the pockets of private investors, in some countries this would be seen as corruption.