I don't really think this is OT but I have labelled it as such in case.
Many aspects of the future of this country are tied up in this - not the
least of which is whether or not the ratbags in Canberra can ever put aside
party politics to get on with actually governing.

Here is the executive summary

http://www.thebasinplan.mdba.gov.au/...cutive-summary

One point to note about the process, as opposed to the content, is that both
Parties voted for the Water Act of 2007 that specifies what the Commission
must do. So any polly who now says the Commission is not doing what they
should be doing is either ignorant or a liar or both. Similarly any who say
there is a solution that will make everybody happy should go back on to
their medication and preferably resign public office.

I feel confident that we will now see a rush of populism as those who need
to shore up shaky numbers will snatch some headlines by taking the part of
the irrigators who are currently feeling pain whether or not it is in the
irrigators' or the nation's long term interest to do so.

David

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...
I don't really think this is OT but I have labelled it as such in case.
Many aspects of the future of this country are tied up in this - not the
least of which is whether or not the ratbags in Canberra can ever put aside
party politics to get on with actually governing.

Here is the executive summary

http://www.thebasinplan.mdba.gov.au/...cutive-summary

One point to note about the process, as opposed to the content, is that
both Parties voted for the Water Act of 2007 that specifies what the
Commission must do. So any polly who now says the Commission is not doing
what they should be doing is either ignorant or a liar or both. Similarly
any who say there is a solution that will make everybody happy should go
back on to their medication and preferably resign public office.

I feel confident that we will now see a rush of populism as those who need
to shore up shaky numbers will snatch some headlines by taking the part of
the irrigators who are currently feeling pain whether or not it is in the
irrigators' or the nation's long term interest to do so.

i suspect that if there were to be a noticably big rush of populism you'd
have seen it by now (from the liberal party of course - not the nationals as
they can't seem to manage to participate in big rushes of anything at all,
really :-) it's not clear to me that any self-serving... oops, i mean,
self-respecting politician is going to get too animated about a bunch of
disrespectful angry rednecks having town meetings & putting on a bit of
performance art when all that has happened is that the matter is finally
open for discussion. there's no mass of public support either way really -
which makes it hard to fit a definition of "populist", you must agree.

on some level, everyone knows that if the river dies then all the towns
along it are going to die anyway, water entitlements notwithstanding. there
will always be groups of people who argue voraciously against their own
self-interest (as well as the interests of everyone else) & it's frankly
time to ignore that sort of carry-on in the pursuit of a solution that helps
everyone & where everyone has to change some of their behaviours or
expectations. being ridiculously optimistic at times, i hope to see such a
solution at the end of this process!

philosophically, it completely exasperates me that country people & farmers
especially, long regarded as the biggest whingers the world has ever seen or
ever will, are acting out that stereotype for the cameras yet again, &
cannot gain anything at all by doing that, instead of trying to participate
helpfully & help solve the problems for themselves & everyone else.

i grew up in an irrigation area & there, whingeing is like fresh air or
sunshine, they apparently need a little every day just to be going on with -
it must be something in the water g. (i don't live in such an area now, &
there's not much to whinge about here, except the local council :-) i am
tired of such people purporting to be representative. we don't live in a
world where it's just 1953 every day of one's life - it's time to move on &
make some changes & make real plans for the future.

thanks for listening to me whinge! g
kylie
p.s. i think bob katter is fairly adorable in many ways really, but i also
disagree with the perennial idea (one of his personal favourites) that
"rural areas" are all going to drop dead within weeks without endless
subsidies, special treatment, big water entitlements, gobs of middle-class
welfare, and so forth. if that were really true, the kindest thing to do
would be to let them die, ... which i very much doubt would actually happen.
it is probably past time to call the bluff of some of these people. the
irrigators merely should be going first.

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...

I used to be a constituent of Bob's, he is not universally loved
there, but he is a noisy axle (needs greasing). I admired his stand
when the other 2 supposed rural reps went commo. I prefer to eat
Australian rice, first the drought and now maybe faceless cityites
will prevent that. I want this country to grow it's own food.

Amen to that. That doesn't mean necessarily that we should grow all foods
regardless of the climatic suitability or cost effectiveness of it.

that's right. i'd rather buy australian any day, but _should_ we be buying
australian rice?

having said that, i think rice is about the only food we possibly should not
be growing. there is somewhere in australia for every crop - it's offensive
that other foods are imported when we grow it ourselves. at a minimum, food
security is actually really important; "food miles" are an important
consideration, and so forth. and to address the original issue, any
irrigators who are growing (for example) wine grapes for export probably
should just shut up right now.

This is another continuing problem. Many towns and cities were
established in the most fertile part of the region - usually near rivers.
Our planning people keep allowing them to grow and plant houses instead of
food. At some point the comparably little good soil we have in reasonable
rainfall areas needs to be protected. Right now it is more profitable to
dig it up for coal or subdivide for building lots.

i think this is actually the more important issue here imo. farmland can NOT
be given up for mcmansions or coal. THAT is obscene. how can this be allowed
to happen??!
kylie

"terryc" wrote in message
...
SG1 wrote:

The commo bit is my take on the 2 twits. When in a country electorate you
ate least have some country leanings. The Snot (greens) & Labor have none
at all. The snot want to lock all of the country up so we produce
nothing.

no they don't. they are inherently pro-australian farming for reasons of
economic and food security, and in terms of the welfare of farmers
themselves & rural communities in general. (i.e. they do NOT support
petrochemical agri-corporation farming, they do NOT support farmland being
flooded for dams, built up with mcmansions, or allowed to be destroyed by
harmful farming practices.)

furthermore, you'd have noticed a lot of country electorates have labor
members. duh!

terry c
Whereas a **** like you just keeps preaching watermelon propaganda without
really looking at the policies of parties. Unions are ditiching Labor and
moving support to the greens as they are better for union members. The
greens inherently support small business( = most family farmer?)

they support all things country in general (famously forests, but also all
the other stuff). the _perception_ of right-wing people who aren't paying
attention is that they hate the country & country people. this idea is
clearly delusional, however, the greens probably need to work a bit harder
on correcting this misinterpretation - that's just the reality of politics.

If you think their policies need fine tuning for the bush, join
the party. At least they still have a system where their policies are
decided by the party members and not back office party hacks.

"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message
...
"0tterbot" wrote in message

on some level, everyone knows that if the river dies then all the towns
along it are going to die anyway, water entitlements notwithstanding.

I'm so glad you mentioned 'some' level of knowledge. I think I'd rate
that level of 'some' as being very low, even if everyone who spends a
small amount of time thinking about the isue should recognise the truth of
that river 'death'. All the bloody whingers give every appearance of
being happy if it happens to someone else's town, someone else's job,
someone else's farm - in fact anything so long as it's not them or theirs.

yes. staggering, isn't it? the really bad bit being that they genuinely want
to profit at someone else's expense!

p.s. i think bob katter is fairly adorable in many ways really,

Splutter!!!! He's as mad as a two bob watch. I admit that is part of his
charm, but he's barmy.

yeah, but so is tony abbott, & HE'S got no redeeming qualities whatsoever!

i don't think total sanity has ever been a requirement for politics :-)

some of bob's ideas are very good, & there's no doubt he genuinely means
well (even when he is being bonky). he kind of undermines himself with the
really out-there stuff, but i admire him for always being prepared to be out
there, quite frankly. (i'm much less impressed with his wholesale revival of
the pointless word "paradigm", but there it is).
kylie

"terryc" wrote in message
...
0tterbot wrote:
the irrigators merely should be going first.

That could use a lot of fine tuning. The reason irrigation areas were set
up in the first place was that not enough food could be grown from
rainfall.

i'm not sure about that. it's more likely to have been that in those
locations, there was a resource to exploit & so they did. it has meant that
no thought went into doing things alternatively.

i should say, i don't have a problem with irrigation per se. it's a smart
way to do more with less. what i object to is HOW it is done - for decades,
it was done so heartbreakingly inefficiently that most of the water went
anywhere but on the crop (those massive boom sprinklers that send out a fine
mist - which apparently one is only allowed to use at midday in summer
during a high wind ;-). by irrigating inefficiently, then naturally they are
going to want to use great quantities of water that could & should stay in
the river; so over-allocation has happened, to no net benefit in the end.

Frankly, it isn't the irrigators that are the problems, but the pocket
lining pollies, who should loose their pension over their creation of this
catasstrophe.

well, no. i'd suggest the irrigators are the problem :-) they've just been
abetted by pollies selling water rights that simply shouldn't exist.

A good start would be to put all irrigators on the same water supply
levels, then factor down unessential irrigators (wine, export crops,
massive mono cultres) as the need arises to ensure the rivers have a
normal flow.

which of those people are going to accept they are unessential? i personally
would suggest that wine is unessential entirely, but then, i don't normally
drink wine (although i bunged one on last night, so that's not completely
true g ) if wine is unessential, then surely canola is as well! (olive oil
being tastier, nutritious, & able to be grown dry). how do we decide?! where
would it end?

but your basic idea is a good one. i think what needs to happen is for the
less-essential people to be able to make that decision for themselves. with
time, that does seem to happen. they just need a hurry-up, but hurry-ups
make them angry & defensive. sigh.
kylie

"0tterbot" wrote in message
.com...
"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...
I don't really think this is OT but I have labelled it as such in case.
Many aspects of the future of this country are tied up in this - not the
least of which is whether or not the ratbags in Canberra can ever put
aside party politics to get on with actually governing.

Here is the executive summary

http://www.thebasinplan.mdba.gov.au/...cutive-summary

One point to note about the process, as opposed to the content, is that
both Parties voted for the Water Act of 2007 that specifies what the
Commission must do. So any polly who now says the Commission is not
doing what they should be doing is either ignorant or a liar or both.
Similarly any who say there is a solution that will make everybody happy
should go back on to their medication and preferably resign public
office.

I feel confident that we will now see a rush of populism as those who
need to shore up shaky numbers will snatch some headlines by taking the
part of the irrigators who are currently feeling pain whether or not it
is in the irrigators' or the nation's long term interest to do so.

i suspect that if there were to be a noticably big rush of populism you'd
have seen it by now (from the liberal party of course - not the nationals
as they can't seem to manage to participate in big rushes of anything at
all, really :-) it's not clear to me that any self-serving... oops, i
mean, self-respecting politician is going to get too animated about a
bunch of disrespectful angry rednecks having town meetings & putting on a
bit of performance art when all that has happened is that the matter is
finally open for discussion. there's no mass of public support either way
really - which makes it hard to fit a definition of "populist", you must
agree.

on some level, everyone knows that if the river dies then all the towns
along it are going to die anyway, water entitlements notwithstanding.
there will always be groups of people who argue voraciously against their
own self-interest (as well as the interests of everyone else) & it's
frankly time to ignore that sort of carry-on in the pursuit of a solution
that helps everyone & where everyone has to change some of their
behaviours or expectations. being ridiculously optimistic at times, i hope
to see such a solution at the end of this process!

philosophically, it completely exasperates me that country people &
farmers especially, long regarded as the biggest whingers the world has
ever seen or ever will, are acting out that stereotype for the cameras yet
again, & cannot gain anything at all by doing that, instead of trying to
participate helpfully & help solve the problems for themselves & everyone
else.

i grew up in an irrigation area & there, whingeing is like fresh air or
sunshine, they apparently need a little every day just to be going on
with - it must be something in the water g. (i don't live in such an
area now, & there's not much to whinge about here, except the local
council :-) i am tired of such people purporting to be representative. we
don't live in a world where it's just 1953 every day of one's life - it's
time to move on & make some changes & make real plans for the future.

thanks for listening to me whinge! g
kylie
p.s. i think bob katter is fairly adorable in many ways really, but i also
disagree with the perennial idea (one of his personal favourites) that
"rural areas" are all going to drop dead within weeks without endless
subsidies, special treatment, big water entitlements, gobs of middle-class
welfare, and so forth. if that were really true, the kindest thing to do
would be to let them die, ... which i very much doubt would actually
happen. it is probably past time to call the bluff of some of these
people. the irrigators merely should be going first.

I used to be a constituent of Bob's, he is not universally loved there, but
he is a noisy axle (needs greasing). I admired his stand when the other 2
supposed rural reps went commo. I prefer to eat Australian rice, first the
drought and now maybe faceless cityites will prevent that. I want this
country to grow it's own food. I do not support waste in any industry. I
lived in the Victorian wheat belt for a while and in southern inland Qld as
well as up north with Bob. We don't sell enuf overseas to be able to afford
to be net importers of food. I am watching a local farmer increase the size
of my little village by selling the odd paddock or 3 to developers. More
people less productive land, catch 22?????????

SG1 wrote:
"0tterbot" wrote in message
.com...
"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...
I don't really think this is OT but I have labelled it as such in
case. Many aspects of the future of this country are tied up in
this - not the least of which is whether or not the ratbags in
Canberra can ever put aside party politics to get on with actually
governing. Here is the executive summary

http://www.thebasinplan.mdba.gov.au/...cutive-summary

One point to note about the process, as opposed to the content, is
that both Parties voted for the Water Act of 2007 that specifies
what the Commission must do. So any polly who now says the
Commission is not doing what they should be doing is either
ignorant or a liar or both. Similarly any who say there is a
solution that will make everybody happy should go back on to their
medication and preferably resign public office.

I feel confident that we will now see a rush of populism as those
who need to shore up shaky numbers will snatch some headlines by
taking the part of the irrigators who are currently feeling pain
whether or not it is in the irrigators' or the nation's long term
interest to do so.

i suspect that if there were to be a noticably big rush of populism
you'd have seen it by now (from the liberal party of course - not
the nationals as they can't seem to manage to participate in big
rushes of anything at all, really :-) it's not clear to me that any
self-serving... oops, i mean, self-respecting politician is going to
get too animated about a bunch of disrespectful angry rednecks
having town meetings & putting on a bit of performance art when all
that has happened is that the matter is finally open for discussion.
there's no mass of public support either way really - which makes it
hard to fit a definition of "populist", you must agree.

on some level, everyone knows that if the river dies then all the
towns along it are going to die anyway, water entitlements
notwithstanding. there will always be groups of people who argue
voraciously against their own self-interest (as well as the
interests of everyone else) & it's frankly time to ignore that sort
of carry-on in the pursuit of a solution that helps everyone & where
everyone has to change some of their behaviours or expectations.
being ridiculously optimistic at times, i hope to see such a
solution at the end of this process! philosophically, it completely
exasperates me that country people &
farmers especially, long regarded as the biggest whingers the world
has ever seen or ever will, are acting out that stereotype for the
cameras yet again, & cannot gain anything at all by doing that,
instead of trying to participate helpfully & help solve the problems
for themselves & everyone else.

i grew up in an irrigation area & there, whingeing is like fresh air
or sunshine, they apparently need a little every day just to be
going on with - it must be something in the water g. (i don't live
in such an area now, & there's not much to whinge about here, except
the local council :-) i am tired of such people purporting to be
representative. we don't live in a world where it's just 1953 every
day of one's life - it's time to move on & make some changes & make
real plans for the future. thanks for listening to me whinge! g
kylie
p.s. i think bob katter is fairly adorable in many ways really, but
i also disagree with the perennial idea (one of his personal
favourites) that "rural areas" are all going to drop dead within
weeks without endless subsidies, special treatment, big water
entitlements, gobs of middle-class welfare, and so forth. if that
were really true, the kindest thing to do would be to let them die,
... which i very much doubt would actually happen. it is probably
past time to call the bluff of some of these people. the irrigators
merely should be going first.

I used to be a constituent of Bob's, he is not universally loved
there, but he is a noisy axle (needs greasing). I admired his stand
when the other 2 supposed rural reps went commo. I prefer to eat
Australian rice, first the drought and now maybe faceless cityites
will prevent that. I want this country to grow it's own food.

Amen to that. That doesn't mean necessarily that we should grow all foods
regardless of the climatic suitability or cost effectiveness of it.

I do
not support waste in any industry. I lived in the Victorian wheat
belt for a while and in southern inland Qld as well as up north with
Bob. We don't sell enuf overseas to be able to afford to be net
importers of food. I am watching a local farmer increase the size of
my little village by selling the odd paddock or 3 to developers. More
people less productive land, catch 22?????????

This is another continuing problem. Many towns and cities were established
in the most fertile part of the region - usually near rivers. Our planning
people keep allowing them to grow and plant houses instead of food. At some
point the comparably little good soil we have in reasonable rainfall areas
needs to be protected. Right now it is more profitable to dig it up for
coal or subdivide for building lots.

David

"0tterbot" wrote in message

on some level, everyone knows that if the river dies then all the towns
along it are going to die anyway, water entitlements notwithstanding.

I'm so glad you mentioned 'some' level of knowledge. I think I'd rate that
level of 'some' as being very low, even if everyone who spends a small
amount of time thinking about the isue should recognise the truth of that
river 'death'. All the bloody whingers give every appearance of being happy
if it happens to someone else's town, someone else's job, someone else's
farm - in fact anything so long as it's not them or theirs.

there
will always be groups of people who argue voraciously against their own
self-interest (as well as the interests of everyone else) & it's frankly
time to ignore that sort of carry-on in the pursuit of a solution that
helps everyone & where everyone has to change some of their behaviours or
expectations. being ridiculously optimistic at times, i hope to see such a
solution at the end of this process!

philosophically, it completely exasperates me that country people &
farmers especially, long regarded as the biggest whingers the world has
ever seen or ever will, are acting out that stereotype for the cameras yet
again, & cannot gain anything at all by doing that, instead of trying to
participate helpfully & help solve the problems for themselves &
everyone else.

Yup!

i grew up in an irrigation area & there, whingeing is like fresh air or
sunshine, they apparently need a little every day just to be going on
with - it must be something in the water g. (i don't live in such an
area now, & there's not much to whinge about here, except the local
council :-) i am tired of such people purporting to be representative. we
don't live in a world where it's just 1953 every day of one's life - it's
time to move on & make some changes & make real plans for the future.

thanks for listening to me whinge! g
kylie
p.s. i think bob katter is fairly adorable in many ways really,

Splutter!!!! He's as mad as a two bob watch. I admit that is part of his
charm, but he's barmy.

but i also
disagree with the perennial idea (one of his personal favourites) that
"rural areas" are all going to drop dead within weeks without endless
subsidies, special treatment, big water entitlements, gobs of middle-class
welfare, and so forth. if that were really true, the kindest thing to do
would be to let them die, ... which i very much doubt would actually
happen. it is probably past time to call the bluff of some of these
people. the irrigators merely should be going first.

Yup.

"SG1" wrote in message
I used to be a constituent of Bob's, he is not universally loved there,
but he is a noisy axle (needs greasing). I admired his stand when the
other 2 supposed rural reps went commo.

LOL. Was poor old Katter silly enough to think they went commo? I didn't
hear that report but I was rather busy during that immediate post election
phase. I knew he was a silly sausage.

"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message
...
"SG1" wrote in message
I used to be a constituent of Bob's, he is not universally loved there,
but he is a noisy axle (needs greasing). I admired his stand when the
other 2 supposed rural reps went commo.

LOL. Was poor old Katter silly enough to think they went commo? I didn't
hear that report but I was rather busy during that immediate post election
phase. I knew he was a silly sausage.

The commo bit is my take on the 2 twits. When in a country electorate you
ate least have some country leanings. The Snot (greens) & Labor have none at
all. The snot want to lock all of the country up so we produce nothing.

0tterbot wrote:
any
irrigators who are growing (for example) wine grapes for export probably
should just shut up right now.

I think you will find that that is a major part of the water problem in
NSW. The allocated water was not being fully utilised in NSW, so the NSW
government sold it as high security water(first call) to people taking
advantage of the exceptional tax lurks given by the government during
the howard years(?) to the wine industry, which is basically all export
industry.

Rice at least is a staple food crop. also, All/most of the rice growing
areas were established by the government to provide food security.

We have a glut of cheap rice from overseas as global transport is cheap,
cheap, cheap, cheap.

SG1 wrote:

The commo bit is my take on the 2 twits. When in a country electorate you
ate least have some country leanings. The Snot (greens) & Labor have none at
all. The snot want to lock all of the country up so we produce nothing.

Whereas a **** like you just keeps preaching watermelon propaganda
without really looking at the policies of parties. Unions are ditiching
Labor and moving support to the greens as they are better for union
members. The greens inherently support small business( = most family
farmer?) If you think their policies need fine tuning for the bush, join
the party. At least they still have a system where their policies are
decided by the party members and not back office party hacks.

0tterbot wrote:
the irrigators merely should be going first.

That could use a lot of fine tuning. The reason irrigation areas were
set up in the first place was that not enough food could be grown from
rainfall.

Frankly, it isn't the irrigators that are the problems, but the pocket
lining pollies, who should loose their pension over their creation of
this catasstrophe.

A good start would be to put all irrigators on the same water supply
levels, then factor down unessential irrigators (wine, export crops,
massive mono cultres) as the need arises to ensure the rivers have a
normal flow.

terryc wrote:
0tterbot wrote:
any
irrigators who are growing (for example) wine grapes for export
probably should just shut up right now.

I think you will find that that is a major part of the water problem
in NSW. The allocated water was not being fully utilised in NSW, so
the NSW government sold it as high security water(first call) to
people taking advantage of the exceptional tax lurks given by the
government during the howard years(?) to the wine industry, which is
basically all export industry.


A major part of the problem is that water was administered by the States
separately and historically they have over-allocated it, that is the
allocations are so large that it is only in flood years that irrigators get
100%. This has been exacerbated in the last decade which has been very dry
compared to the base periods when the optimistic allocations were made.

Rice at least is a staple food crop. also, All/most of the rice
growing areas were established by the government to provide food
security.

That may have been true in the middle 20th century, however most of it is
now exported, production is quite seasonal but in good years we are big
exporters of rice. Also on the scale of dollars earned per meglitre of
irrigation water consumed rice is very low. Not to mention that the excess
water that percollates away from rice fields in the MIA contributes to
raising the water table and hence salinity problems.


We have a glut of cheap rice from overseas as global transport is
cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap.


But it will not be so for very long.

David