Unprecedented resistance by irrigation farmers and regional communities to proposals by the Federal and State governments to remove a sizable amount of farmers’ water entitlements has seen the Federal government shift its position on The Living Murray environmental flow proposals. The Living Murray proposed taking up to 15% of water entitlements from farmers over 10…
John Howard has warned his party of complacency as it would take only the loss of eight seats to lose government, following a Federal electorate redistribution. His vulnerability is on domestic economic issues, in the absence of any major security threat to Australia. This stems from the 25 year destruction of Australian industries that has left the nation with a massive, electorally volatile underclass, and a foreign debt of over $360 billion. Speaking at the 32nd Conference of Economists in Canberra recently, Professor Sue Richardson pointed out that 35% of men aged 35-44 years were not in full-time work and…
Trading of irrigation water is being proposed as a means to shift water from low value farming to high value farming. The reasoning behind this proposal is fundamentally flawed, as Pat Byrne explains. The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) – encompassing the Federal and State governments – announced in August its intention to examine the possibility of a widened water trading market “to ensure that water is put to higher value and more efficient use”. To this end, COAG issued a communiqué saying that the objective of its National Water Trading Initiative was to “expand [water] markets to their widest…
The photos of the Murray River at the Swan Hill bridge (below) show the river in 2003 during the worst drought in 100 years, and the river during the drought of 1914. The difference is stark. The dams, locks and weirs that were built over the past 80 years mean that today the river is…