So, what do we do. Agribusiness doesn't employ many people. Mining is stuffed, and we don't make anything.

We describe countries as developed, developing and undeveloped. Perhaps Australia could be described as an 'unravelling' country, be given the way we are heading.

The Murray Darling is our only extensive irrigation system. One percent of the land. Government meddling is tearing it down.

Hasbeen,
I was very pleased with your first post in this thread, which injected a lot of sense into the debate.
I was equally disappointed with your second, which seems to have restored the stupidity!

>Cubby station collects it's water from overland flows, which are only going to waste if not collected
They're not "only going to waste". They would otherwise revitalise farms downstream before replenishing the Darling, the Menindee Lakes and the Murray. Only if all of those were already full would the water go to waste.

>I have never been able to understand the Greens, so anti dams,
>don't object to this effectively damming of the river mouth,
That's because you wrongly assume them to be motivated by malice rather than genuine care for the environment. But if you dare to reverse that assumption then you'll find the answer is blatantly obvious: they're not intrinsically anti dam, but they're very concerned about the ecosystems which are lost to flooding when a dam is constructed, and also the effects of the dam on the river ecosystem.

The Lower Lakes were originally brackish, but ecologically it was mostly more similar to freshwater than marine conditions. Then the Barrage was built and the freshwater and marine ecosystems were separated. With hindsight it should have been built near Wellington on Murray instead. But it is where it is, and changing it now would be quite destructive to the ecosystem that's developed, so it's hardy surprising the Greens want to avoid that.

As long as we let "experts' have a say in such matters, such problems will perpetuate !

Actually, it's too late to fix the problem with the Murray-Darling Basin. Nothing can get done because the consensus is that it will always be business as usual.

Most people believe that things like environmental degradation, global warming, climate change, species extinction, etc., are lies created by academics and conservationists. They believe that God gave mankind dominion over the world and all living things to be used as they see fit.

So keep going the way you are and sooner than later the Basin rivers will be dead and the irrigated fields will be suffocated with salt turning the landscapes across NSW and Queensland into complete deserts.