Spooky blogname! Brings back my childhood political memories!

Agree on the hardyhead and local and regional irrigator reaction to allocating water to save it. The South Australian Labour Government simply tossed its hand in the air and said the hardyhead is buggered in South Oz. Congrats to Brumby Government for sticking to its guns on this one. Now, if you had to lose your job, your business and your home for a tiny fish that almost no-one sees: really what would you do?

Taking it from the top:

1. A federal system of governance which is dysfunctional when it comes to addressing cross-border issues.
2. A first past the post voting system which gives nats a disproportionate lower house outcome compared with, for example, the greens.
3. State governments of all colours which have basically lacked the courage and competence to: (a) recognise that all was not well (b) do something effective about it.
4. Because of history of trade agreements that exclude farm produce, Australian farmers who have to compete against internal and external tariff barriers, other trade barriers as well as external subsidies. There is a direct connection between what farmers need to do to make a living and subsidies and tariff barriers for vehicle manufacturers.

There might be an argument that the nats have been the worst perps. But there is no escaping accountability by state labour governments. They have mostly been asleep at the wheel on this one until far too late.

Its stuffed anyway so why prop it up? You are however right. there goes one of the worlds great river systems, on our watch, gone, kaput, finito, dead. Its is dead sir, your parrot is stuffed. It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. These idiots and their mates in the National party should be taken out the back and flogged.

Well, as a potential seller of a water licence, I find the last sentence interesting, but I will content myself by observing (as I have elsewhere) that I have a bit of a conflict of interest here. I should also state that they were married at the time of my birth. *grin* But, it is all a bit academic this year. There is no water to allocate to the my licence *fatalistic shrug*

Your general proposition of letting the system break down completely is an interesting one that I had not considered. It is an unfortunate side-effect of social/political/economic systems breaking down that one of the last acts on the way out is to completely stuff the environment. Basically, the participants have no real choices left. Haiti is a classic example. It is also why fishing communities will fish a species out of existence.

I suspect the MDB would be another complete environmental disaster if left to its own devices. It is well on the way now. So, I would support an orderly transition supported by government.

Yep, I think we are in fairly furious agreement. I hope you don’t think I am a nat supporter *sound of dry reaching*

It is true that the numbers generally mean that south of the divide wins every time. But in the interests of good governance, governments should govern for all, which means that they should be listening even to the folk who mostly vote against them and who sometimes don’t like what they are doing. My attempted contribution to this was to give some insights into what I believe folk north of the divide are thinking.

There is a sad irony that it is somewhat likely that the world’s first global warming refugees (irrigators who have gone broke this year for lack of water and have been forced off their farms) are internal refugees and that they are fleeing Nat electorates.

Good detail concerning the water management boards and what can only be described as corrupt behaviour, even if ‘legal’. Mind you, in practice, they needn’t have worried about the latter too much. As I pointed out in another post in relation to some skulduggery in northern NSW and southern Qld – I am unaware of prosecutions of water thieves. The local bureaucracies appear to be too close to the perps.

I wholeheartedly support your call for a Royal Commission into water management in Australia. It is a national disgrace, and the closer you look at any part of it, the worse it gets. However, since both labour and libnat governments have contributed to the current mess, I think that a Royal Commission would be very unlikely. Too many skeletons in too many closets. Even just the Senate enquiry TOR will already be difficult for the libnat senators to control – they have so much that they would prefer being kept in dark corners.

However, I would caution you against a view that somehow or other irrigators are generally more isolated from their country neighbours than so-called ‘reasonable’ country people are from city people. Many country towns float or sink on irrigators’ economic activity. Although not very visible to outsiders, there will be long-term extended family relationships, sometimes going back five or six generations. Anyway, this supposed separation is not generally so in my experience; intuitively, it is not likely either. And we all know where complacency and guessing about what rural folk were really thinking got Kennett.

Most of the owners of water recieved it from their Dad who’s grandfather put a pump into the river and pumped until the grass grew. The size of many allocations is simply a reflection of the size of grand daddys pump. They paid nothing, or next to nothing, for many of these allocations and when you consider that the price of water ‘rights’ has gone from about $200 per mg to over $1000 in the last 4-5 years they are really pushing the envelope.
There are water boards in the north of the state who as long ago as 2002, (Yes that was 2002) allocated to their own board member over 12 gigs of high quality ground water for about $120 per meg, Thats the “right” not one years price. One of these then famously offered to sell his 4 gig water right to a near by town for about 5 million. Huge profit huge hypocracy, some of the Nat pollies know these people and get all huffy when they are called liars, which in many cases they clearly are.
I firmly believe that the Governments should call for a royal commision into the running of these water boards, but I suppose you don’t ask the question unless you know the answer, and people who are aware of the above facts will say things like, “well yes that is all true, but they didn’t actually break any laws.”
One last rant about some of these millionaire irrigators, they in many cases grow lucerne for race horses ,for rich mens recreation yet scorn pensioners in the city who want a bit of water to grow thier tomatoes. This is why they are spectacularily unsuccessful in thier protests. Yesterday their rally outside the office of Jacinta Allen in Bendigo attracted 150 people, all wearing acubras. Country people know they are complete hypocrites and regional people understand it as well.