Being an early teen during the Whitlam government explains your misunderstanding of the situation.

Your “suit yourself” quip, and “your problem not mine,” indicates that you are still using teenage patter. I have no problems, even with people like you putting up their heads to be chopped off.

Who knows, you might learn something. Life would be very boring if people like you didn’t present your naïve ideas from time to time.

If you have studied or even read about Connor, it is hard to believe that you would not deem him to be incompetent. I alone haven’t judged the Whitlam government to be incompetent. A majority of voters did that in 1975, and history has proved it. Whitlam himself was a very clever and engaging man – still is, for that matter. But he made the mistake of surrounding himself with ideologues and nincompoops, then trusting them while they stabbed him in the back.

I dug out my old copy of “The Dismissal” the other day, and once again felt sympathy for the only politician I have ever felt that emotion for.

The Hamilton article is interesting, thankyou. High immigration is another reason why I’m having trouble choosing the “better of the two worst”. Both parties are high immigrationists. It’s a pity that the Australia First Party couldn’t drop some of its more extreme ideas and present itself as a viable option

Leigh,

My “suit yourself” quip and statement that it is “your problem not mine” were perfectly in order given your unreasonable and unbalanced hostility towards me.

Until you are able to write posts that don't include any personal denigration, I have nothing further to discuss with you.

dagget, personal attacks shouln't be a part of an opinion forum because thats what we have, opinions. It's the basis for those opinions which should be discussed, not who hold them.
I've had a read through the transcript and Pearse is generally correct although a little vague on figures. One of concern is that Australia uses "80%" of it's water for irrigation. This is not right, irrigation accounts for 70%(or so) of water extracted for consumptive purposes ie irrigation, cities, industry etc. Total water extracted is in the region of 54%(Murray/Darling).

Anyway we were mainly focused on groundwater systems. There is no doubt that groundwater is being mined throughout the world, mainly because property rights mean different things in different countries. In the US farmers are pumping from greater depths each year. Their rights entitle them to whatever is under their ground and apparently they plan to get it all with little respect for neighbours/towns. In China large areas of land have subsided by 1-2 metres through groundwater over extraction and the aquifers have collapsed. I'm not familiar with India etc .

Australia's groundwater (well NSW in paticular) has had it's allocations adjusted in line with aquifer recharge as well as allowing 15% for environmental needs not yet identified. There have been cutbacks of up to 87%(of potential allocation) in some regions. I'd say we are doing it pretty well in addressing the sustainability issues.

I don't know whether we have overshot sustainable population or not, but I think not. I do think we have to go where the water is as opposed to transporting it. Plenty of cities around the world have been built from scratch (thinking along the lines of Canberra, Alice springs , Brasillia, Vegas) for one reason or another. Why not begin one to utilise water availability.
(continued)

daggett I'm heavily involved in agriculture and hope for my sake that I have a realistic view upon it, and I think from my travels that Paul Sheehan doesn't have the full story. Sure if it never rains again we could classify our land as the desert, but given the inherant variablity of our weather and the frequency of severe drought I think we are going through a phase. I hope

Leigh,

You are entitled to an opinion.

But if you come here, decry Howard's immigration policy, do not put forward reasonable solutions to the problem AND IGNORE valuable opportunities to discuss the 'Vote CONTRAY' solution THEN people are justified in assuming you are a Howard quisling. Worse still, people are likely to get the impression you are trying to stack, obscure and neutralise this thread the way you have done on others in the past.

That's my opinion!

First of all: I came to this country as a migrant some thirty seven years ago because Australia was seen as a land of opportunity, freedom of (decent) speech and relaxed rules and regulations with the opportunity and moral demands to totally intertwine with the Australian habits and living standards which by the way was still under "white policy" rule.I think that it was a big mistake to let different races make Australia their home as Australia was not capable of even looking after their own indigenous problems and people.
To revitalize Australia: Take back large parcels of land which are being ruined by mono-culture and foreign ownership.As with decentralisation of industries in the seventies and eighties, whole families (who came from desert countries) should be assisted to implement organic systems,as the knowledge already exists.To go back in history to go forward, one could look at windmills to do any work with horse,bullock and camel to do labouring and toiling.So friggen what is the problem with desalination driven by wind power? What about
starting at homes in the cities? What is the problem starting a garden patch to grow your own, if only every tenth house in a street supplies different organic food to the whole street there would not be a supermarket takeover but a supermrkt distruction,which is really needed.They are poison to any society with the crap they are selling,with the profits going to overseas co's let alone the tax ripp-offs they're enjoying, we the people are subsidizing their tax advantages.The biggest problem here in Australia is we are being dummified by poisoning of our drinking water, you better believe it!
It is outright stupid to stuff up our own drinking water.A famous Texan expression is: "DO NOT DRINK DOWNSTREAM FROM THE HERD" How appropriate! Hasn't anyone noticed the diversion principals the governments are applying and as soon as someone knowledgeable speaks out they will apply the "delphi" method to alter the herds opinion?
I can go on for hours so...grab the stage.