The natural drainage from Bendigo ends up in Cow Swamp a bigtime Bird Habitat

Yes, this type of argument has been put forward before, what happens to the oceans and lakes if the water is suddenly taken away.

Well, before storm water was collected, much of it soaked into the ground until saturation point, then, the 'run off' would find its way into the rivers, steams and oceans. So essentially you would not be taking much away, rather, taking it back.

Cornflower
How long before there is a water collection tax on privately owned water in dams.

Actually, nobody owns the water in their dams. You own the land, the dam, but not the water.

As for water tanks, some suggest that the rebate system was a way for governments to find out who owned tanks so they can charge for the water at some point.

There is also talk of charging for water pumped from dams and bores. This may have already started with regards to bores.

One area of thought is that perhaps someone will invent an affordable, 'in house' water recycling plant. Perhaps it could be solar powered. I would certainly use it if it ment having a decent shower after a long days work.

Rehctub My understanding is that when you apply for the grant for a water tank then your allowance for the cheaper tariff is reduced by the size of your tank. Effectively you then pay more for that proportion for ever after. A bit like buying a five dollar note for twenty dollars a year forever after. If someone other than the State government did it it would be exposed and called fraud!
So no they are not going to "Do anything" the goose has already been killed, skinned and cooked lol and an everlasting feast it is too.

At our rate of population growth, we in Australia will have over 50 million by 2050. This means that to support the food and other water needs of this number of people, water supplies will have to increase at the same rate - at about 2% extra each year. How will this happen? Are we to keep adding desalination plants and destroy marine biodiversity and coastlines, not to mention all the greenhouse gases that they will emit!
Our government has no population plan - it is growth at all costs to please their business sponsors and create more "vibrant" economy that will not see our lives more vibrant but see struggling to survive and make ends meet!

VivKay
My suggestion is that the answer to your question lies in one of the following two options.

1. We find an affordable way to re-use some of the 90+% of the water we waste daily, or

2. We find an affordable way to collect the water that we don't currently collect, e.g. stormwater run off.

Correction, we collect it, but then dump it. How crazy is that!

There is always a problem with water recycling; Gravity.
Where the dirty water ends up is always lower than where you need to
send the cleaned up water.
Water is heavy and needs a lot of energy to get it back up to where it
is needed. This makes the process expensive.

Desalination plants have the same problem, but they only have to
remove the salts. Renewable energy sources can be used to drive the
pumps.

VivKay said;
At our rate of population growth, we in Australia will have over 50
million by 2050.

That is a business as usual statement and such population will be
unsustainable by 2050. What must be borne in mind is that all
projections of the future by almost all future planners is based on
an unlimited supply of energy. It ain't gunna happen.

There is an increasing amount of evidence that peak oil may have
occurred in July 2008 when oil reached US$147 a barrel.
Whether it did or not does not really matter, in the time scales
being discussed here we just cannot plan on increasing city sizes
but on a gradual dispersion of our current city populations into the
regions. Likewise our food production will become local and
sustainable locally. Everything will become local.
The 1500km salad will be a thing of the past.