Drought is drought. Climate change is climate change. There is no connection between the two. El Ninio and La Nina are still alive and well, hence the drought. These phenomena have been doing the job long before climate change occurred. Australia always has had and always will have droughts; it is criminal that successive federal governments have totally ignored the fact.

Apart from that point, I agree with Mr. Haigh: control of water should be wrested from the states, particularly the rogue administrations of Victoria and Queensland whose misuse of water is mindboggling.

The management of water in Australia must be controlled by the Federal Government but, with Labor in all states but one – and WA doesn’t use the water the rest of us fight over – it’s very unlikely that there will be a federal take over any times soon.

Howard said he intended to do it. I think Rudd said something about 2011, but there is no firm commitment, and Victoria seems to be still calling the tune.

In the meantime, the idiots in both state and federal government are calling for more growth and larger populations when we do not have the water to sustain the people and industries we have.

Mr Right is so wrong!
Dry weather is intimately connected with global warming and climate change. The word "drought" implies a temporary period of dryness. But with global warming, the change in sea temperatures. and hence in patterns of upswelling of cold water - results in changed wind and rainfall patterns - the El Nino effect.
Where a drought might last for 2 years, Australia can now expect dry weather in some areas that will be virtually permanent - "droughts" lasting for 10 years become a regular dryness.

Bruce Haigh has courageously said it like it is - with the Australia- wide history and current practice of mismanagement of our precious water basins.
But let's not forget Australia's greatest water resource, the Great Artesian Basin, from which BHPBilliton's Olympic Dam's copper and uranium mine at Roxby Downs takes 33 million litres a day. The proposed future take would see the company extracting more than 150 million litres a day - around a third of the artesian water that flows into South Australia.
And BHPB guzzles this water for no fee!
Add to this guzzling of water the inevitable leaching of radioactive materials into the GAB - which will result in a virtually permananet pollution. Christina Macpherson www.antinuclear.net

I must correct myself - Mr Right is not so wrong, about everything.
Indeed - he is so RIGHT about Australia not needing more growth and larger populations.
Perhaps the present financial chaos will eventually cause us to change the prevailing religion of growth, consumerism, and so-called "progress", and to aim for a more rational conserver society.
Christina macpherson www.antinuclear.net

please can we agree on the terms [droudt is a normal cycle]
climate change is normal [we have winter /summer
we have hot and cold

the earth is moving into a hot spot [or a cold spot]
but know the sun puts more heat into the earth in one day [than a year of mans polutions

but what is polution? [certainly not carbon, we breath it in [drink it in our softdrink and the plants convert it into timber [celulite]
in time it becomes coal or crude oil etc

polution is breathing in clorine [and drinking it in our water [along with flueride
[a known carconogen]flueride being a product with no other use from the petro chemical refining process ,

totally poisenous
yet flueride is any metal flueirised [oxydised]out of the refining process

water is the means to control us further[so much gets wasted to cool the water heated up by the coal
[=so much more is wasted to stop dust polution ,so we have clean coal to send overseas
[yet another buzz word, clean coal]

is clean coal dirty coal washed clean?

refining petro chemical [and coal based generation] use massive ammounts [and polute massive ammounts of our water

[ok not our water since states gave it away[after the councils put in water meters! USING OUR RATES MONEYS]

when people going to wake up to buzz words
and making the REAL abuser's pay

we dont need petro chemical [nor coal generation]
the average mine uses billion's of liters of water each week FOR FREE]
make coal pay its way[double or tripple its price[same with petrol

lump[ insurance tolls roaD TAX ETC INTO ONE FUEL LEVY
[i just need to get the right buzz words

water warming?[compression heats water most efficiently]
evaporation [into the sky] cools it faster

tax REAL POLUTION

water belongs to ALL OF US
even gods rivers and lakes ,seas and trees and fishes, gods animal and man [kinds] ,those using below their share get it for free
those using more pay double[but not for private proffit]nor favouritism nor licence

Nicely written article and about time for some clear speaking.
Drought is indeed the wrong word, as are the weasel words "climate change" (as dictacted to the UN by the US because "Global Warming" was too scary. "Man made forced rapid change" would be more honest description of what is ocurring)
Corruption should never be underestimated in state politics: We know that Victoria and Qld are being run by thugs behind the scenes so the sooner the MDB is administered by a federal agency the better.
(Who controls the agency is a big issue)
The ability of large corperations to recieve free water while households pay more and more is a disgrace too.
I can see an upcoming election being fought around these issues. It will take more of a disaster than the death of the Murray (!) to stop the rot.

Yes, yes and yes,

The answer is not state and the answer is not yet federal, but Greens MP Parnell and Independant again in SA, Nick Xenophon - straight speaking good guys on the side of PEOPLE and the ENVIRONment VERSUS in the other corner Corp-orate Greed, proudly sponsored and endorsed by the Australian Government.

The truth is that we need to reform our government...the government know this but are not telling..its a game of give and take, but the more people know and the more supported the smart candidates in the political industry, more graceful transition and change and less stress on everyone including the environment.

The government must be responsible to the people of Australia, which implies they must be responsible for the environment in which they live..it would be a nice change?