ACT Government acting too slowly on water?

I believe Australia has to realise that this continent is technically a desert – and the concept of ‘drought’ really does not apply. Lets change our way of thinking to make the best with what we have got.

Canberrans have been extremely responsible for the past 8 years – and we have had restrictions in place alot longer than the states.

Look Im sure that we will get less water, they will do another review as a means of making us pay more for our water, and help keep maintain cashflow of ACTEW whilst we ration water even further.

Hang on! Canberra is NOT in the Simpson Desert. As all the official reports say, the AVERAGED ACT rainfall is perfectly adequate. The problem we have is having and properly using storage for lean years. It’s no different to Joseph in Egypt – you can have 7 fat years and 7 lean years. Water is like wheat, a seasonally harvested crop. You build barns and dams to even out supply to cope with demand. That’s what we have paid for several times over – the dams which were emptied by idealogues.

It is entirely beside the point to talk about the parts of Australia where few people live and the rainfall is under 10 inches. 90% of Australians do NOT live in the desert and per capita our water supplies are amoung the highest in the world. The problem is with water harvesting not being done sensibly – for which our lunatic “governments” have no excuse – but it suits them to tell bigger and bigger lies so they can put their grabbing hands into our pockets to pull out billions in water charges for a scarcity they have created.

The shortage of water for urban use was indeed a manufactured scarcity created by the ACT Government and your last comment is spot on – they will think of ways of making us pay more BECAUSE it is bucketing down and they aren’t selling so much. Wonderful isn’t it? You pay more because water is scarce (after they have made it so) and you pay more when it rains and is not scarce and flooding (because you are not buying enough from the government monopooly.) Maybe the much-despised peasants should revolt!

I believe Australia has to realise that this continent is technically a desert – and the concept of ‘drought’ really does not apply. Lets change our way of thinking to make the best with what we have got.

Canberrans have been extremely responsible for the past 8 years – and we have had restrictions in place alot longer than the states.

Look Im sure that we will get less water, they will do another review as a means of making us pay more for our water, and help keep maintain cashflow of ACTEW whilst we ration water even further.

Canberra has been mad to allow itself to be screwed so that Adelaide and Melbourne (not even in the Basin) can pull out far more water (more than 10 to 15 times Canberra’s net consumption) and 2000 GLs a year are allowed to evaporate in a man-made unnatural freshwater lake at the Murray Mouth.

For a good summary of the lunacy see the Productivity Commission website urban water transcripts on day 2, 29 November at page 166

http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/104275/20101129-canberra.pdf

The only good thing about the Murray-Darling nonsense is that it is so bad even the stupid ACT Government is waking up to the fact that it will have a full-blooded revolt from ACT households who are sick to death of being screwed over water even as they see it flooding out of unmaintained drains and pouring out of dams full to overflowing.

The whole water scarcity nonsense is being exposed as a total con job. Yes there is drought and then there is flood – it’s called Australia.

There can be little doubt Canberra taxpayers and ratepayers are “..paying the price of this government’s inaction and diffidence. The ACT already has reduced its water consumption considerably and was a net exporter of water into the Basin system.”

There is a good graphic here showing how our water consumption has reduced over the last 7 years.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/

There can be little doubt Canberra taxpayers and ratepayers are “..paying the price of this government’s inaction and diffidence. The ACT already has reduced its water consumption considerably and was a net exporter of water into the Basin system.” There is a good graphic here showing how our water consumption has reduced over the last 7 years.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/