We can get lost in side issues like population growth or the quality of our leadership, but why waste the water?
And we can if we are truly lost, consider the nature of our country and say leave it as it is, but why?
We can change for the better some of our country, to think we ever could divert all the flood waters inland would indeed by the birth of an inland sea , but not with todays technology's.
Once this country stood in awe as plans for the Snowy river scheme came true.
We can indeed and must on day send some flood waters inland, we can and will one day send sewage other than into the sea.
Australians must get some of that can do attitude we once had and understand the love of money is never a reason to stop actions that make our country better.

This is the wrong sort of “can do” attitude Belly. In fact it is the same of attitude that has led us into the massive problems we now have with the Murray/Darling and much of our agricultural belt; overdevelopment without understanding the consequences of our actions.

The sort of ‘can do’ attitude that we desperately need is the sort that brings us into a genuine balance with our life-supporting resource base, with very large safety margins to see us through the hard times.

When we overcome our innate desire to be forever larger in terms of numbers and levels of human activity, and to respect the land instead of trying to subdue it, then and only then will we be on the right track to making “our country better”.

pericles, i commend to you a study of the word 'democracy', and the political ideal it represents.

Demos, when it comes to democracy, remember I'm pericles.

Athenian democracy had one big plus: officials were personally responsible for performing their duties, and were punished - even executed - for failure and dishonesty.

Sure as anything, the populace wouldn't have allowed them to get away with a tiny fraction of what we let ours screw up.

Belly

So the Hunter River floods about once in how many years? So you build all the pumping equipment and pipelines which otherwise are idle. And you keep everywhere flooded for several months (a novel use for a levee system) and use massive amounts of electricity while you pump the sewage contaminated water inland at a cost of about $1 per kilolitre per 300 kilometres. Then the water dries up within a couple of years.

I reckon spouting a scheme like that could get you locked up in a nut house, which is quite an achievement in Australia these days. There might be some very cost effective ideas, but the idea of taking Mohammad to the mountain might be a bit simpler.

Fester is your self assurance miss placed? do you not understand even in drought water runs into the sea?
And while not all rain is flood water once at sea it is not doing anyone much good?
Taking your lets do nothing ,let us not try to improve anything idea do we abandon all but the coastal land?
Ludwig yes I understand you are concerned at population growth and long term damage it brings, and unplanned growth may be our downfall but.
While reluctant to divert the discussion can we be assured it will always be us who occupies this country?
I wounder what others would do if we one day lost control of it?
Not every change man has made has proved to be wrong , the food we could grow by truly farming water this way would if used properly be a great asset to us.
It is clear we will have growth in population want it or not ,it is also true the world will need more food.
Just maybe this country one day can have income generated by timber and food grown from many new ways of harvesting and using water.