Billy wrote:

David, you still going to be able to grow a garden, after the
Americans buy up your water rights?


Yes

"Australia has privatized its water totally, and basically it¹s now
for sale. And there¹s a big American investment firm that¹s actually
buying up water rights. It was supposed to be, originally, just to
get the farmers of the big farm conglomerates to share, to trade, but
now it¹s all gone private and international, so they¹re hardly going
to support something that says that water, is a human right, when
they¹ve commodified it and said it¹s a market commodity."
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2...declares_acces
s

This is a complex issue. The rights to the water that falls on the
catchment to public water supplies is broadly not for sale, the Government
holds onto that by excluding most of it from being a tradeable commodity.
In a city/suburban situation you can do whatever you like with the water
that falls on your property (and the grey water you generate provided you
don't poison people with it) but you cannot sell it.

In the rural situation (which is me) every property owner has a "harvestable
right". Roughly speaking you can impound and use 10% of the water that
falls on your land but not from permanent waterways. Additionally you can
extract from permanent waterways an unlimited amount for no cost for "bona
fide domestic purposes". So I could use that to grow whatever I like
provided it is not a commercial venture, this last constraint does in
practice limit how much you can extract. Neither of these rights are
saleable.

In addition I own a water licence which permits me to extract a specified
amount of water from permanent waterways per annum for a fairly nominal
cost. This licence is saleable but only applies to the specified catchment
so it is not possible to buy up water licences and use them wherever you
like.

It is essential for proper long term water management for water to be given
a genuine and realistic value at least in commercial quantities. In the
past it was pretty much free in all circumstances. What do people do with
a resource that is "free"? They over use it. I think you are familiar with
the phrase "the tragedy of the commons". So we have the absurdities of
growing rice and cotton in dryland areas by massive (and wasteful)
irrigation and more water being allocated from the Murray-Darling than is
actually available except in flood years. The sooner this water is given a
sensible value the sooner this kind of abuse will be gone.

As you can see the above quote is very misleading regarding the ownership of
water in Australia. As for the motivation of the Gov to not want to vote
for water as a basic right I have no clear idea but Oz does vote with
America on many issues for reasons that may have nothing to do with the
issue itself.

David

On Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:42:16 +1000, "David Hare-Scott" wrote:

[...] So we have the absurdities of
growing rice and cotton in dryland areas by massive (and wasteful)
irrigation and more water being allocated from the Murray-Darling than is
actually available except in flood years.

Agreed for cotton given the overproduction of it and its thirst
comparable to other fibre plants (e.g. hemp). Rice (and maize grown in
the same general area) is a little different, I reckon. Or at least, it
has the potential to be so, given an assumption of a fair price for
irrigation water. This is because it can be planted opportunistically,
e.g. when there's good flows in the rivers, and just not planted when
there isn't.

Contrast that with all the MIS-backed plantations of fruit and nut
trees, and grape vines, along the Murray-Darling system -- trees that
require water to keep them going and thus demand water even when there
is a drought. That was one of the big issues during the latest drought,
with lots of water bought up by (tax avoiding) MIS plantations and
little remaining for anyone else, leading to lots of fruit trees being
grubbed out or bulldozed.

Malcolm Turnbull (yes, him!) covered this quite well (for a mainstream
politician) on Insiders some time back:

http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/conte...7/s1856319.htm

[...]
BARRIE CASSIDY: Does the plan adequately address the obvious issue that
Australian farmers are growing crops in the wrong places?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, that's not actually true, Barrie. In fact, that
statement is obviously wrong. Let me explain. Everybody says that the
conventional wisdom is that you shouldn't grow rice in Australia, you
shouldn't grow cotton. Now, there are areas where there is over-
allocation and there are areas where cotton is grown and rice is grown
that there are -- it's no doubt over-allocation. But if everybody grew
fruit trees, or almonds or olives, grew permanent crops, which obviously
have a higher yield per megalitre of water, we would be in a terrible
jam because the key thing to understand about our rivers is that the
flows are very volatile. And so if all of your plantings are permanent
plantings how do you sustain them during the dry years? You need to have
a mix of crops and you need to have annual crops so that when there's
water around you plant them, and when there isn't you don't plant.

You see, the problem we face in the basin at the moment is not with rice
and cotton because it's not being planted because there isn't any water.
The problem we face is keeping alive the permanent plantings, the
horticulture which need to get a drink whether it's a dry year or a wet
year.

BARRIE CASSIDY: But isn't the problem that rice and cotton is grown in
areas where there are water shortages, quite regularly?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: But that's well, OK, I'll start again. Because our
water is volatile, because some years you get a lot of water and some
years you don't get any, it's important to have annual crops that you
can plant opportunistically when there is water, but you don't have to
plant, you don't need to plant when there isn't any water. If all of our
crops were horticulture, were permanent plantings, then in dry years we
would have an even bigger problem than we do now.

So you see, if you go to Deniliquin where they grow a lot of rice, there
is very little rice being plant this had year, virtually none. Why is
that? Because there isn't any water. You go down to Mildura where it's
mostly horticulture. The same trees and vines are there, Barrie, in this
very dry year as would be in a wet year and they will be struggling, if
this coming season is as bad as the last one, to get enough water to
keep those trees and vines alive. So annual crops are a very important
part of the mix.

You see, you've got to recognise that the key, sort of, feature of our
river system is its variability. The range of the ratio between high
flows and low flows on the Murray, over since records began, 100 odd
years ago is 30 1. So you could get, in one year, 30 times more inflows
than you got the year before. And that means you have to have an
agricultural mix that meets that.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Well, at the risk of having you to start again, when
Senator Bill Heffernan says that cotton and rice is better suited to the
north where it does rain then he's on the wrong track?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No, that's not what I'm saying at all. Bill is right
if I mean, I know - Bill Heffernan's a very good friend of mine, and I
talk about water all the time. The point that Bill is making is there is
a great deal of water availability in northern Australia and there are a
number of crops, water intensive crops, that can be grown up there that
where -- in circumstances or in situations where there isn't a lot of
agriculture at the moment. Certainly we will have more agriculture in
the north as time goes on because there's more water available there,
but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have any annual crops in the Murray
Darling Basin. Because if I get back to that fundamental point if --
you'd really need to have a mix of crops and it's not for the government
to tell farmers what crops to plant. I can tell you, farmers have enough
trouble making the right decisions with all of their experience and
insight. The idea that you'd have some central crop selection committee
sitting in Canberra telling people what to grow is just too ludicrous
for words.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Yeah, I suppose not a question of forcing them but to
encourage them.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Barrie, the world, the market encourages them. Farmers
change their crop decisions all the time. They react to markets. You
know, the do you really think that a group of politicians and
bureaucrats are better able to determine what to grow than farmers,
people who've spent their whole lives working on it, who've got access
to all of the science and meteorological information? I mean, come on,
really, this is a it's a crazy idea.

You've got to let farmers make their decisions, let water trade, let the
market sort it ought, and have a mix of crops that reflects the
variability of our weather.

We live in Australia, we don't live you know, we live in Australia, we
are the lands of droughts and flooding rains. We get bad droughts, then
we get floods and you've got to have water management practices and
agricultural practices that reflect that and if you don't you'll get
into a great deal more trouble than even the problems we have at the
moment, believe me.

[... continued]

The sooner this water is given a
sensible value the sooner this kind of abuse will be gone.
[...]

That, and removing the silly tax subsidies affored to MIS, which greatly
distort the agriculture scene by encouraging corporations to establish
land, water and nutrient hungry plantations that have little to no
chance of turning a profit in their own right and exist simply as tax
scams for the filthy rich (and those who'd like to be).
--
Ross McKay, Toronto, NSW Australia
"Read beans and rice, I could eat a plate twice" - Spearhead

Ross McKay wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:42:16 +1000, "David Hare-Scott" wrote:

[...] So we have the absurdities of
growing rice and cotton in dryland areas by massive (and wasteful)
irrigation and more water being allocated from the Murray-Darling
than is actually available except in flood years.

Agreed for cotton given the overproduction of it and its thirst
comparable to other fibre plants (e.g. hemp). Rice (and maize grown in
the same general area) is a little different, I reckon. Or at least,
it has the potential to be so, given an assumption of a fair price for
irrigation water. This is because it can be planted opportunistically,
e.g. when there's good flows in the rivers, and just not planted when
there isn't.

Contrast that with all the MIS-backed plantations of fruit and nut
trees, and grape vines, along the Murray-Darling system -- trees that
require water to keep them going and thus demand water even when there
is a drought. That was one of the big issues during the latest
drought, with lots of water bought up by (tax avoiding) MIS
plantations and little remaining for anyone else, leading to lots of
fruit trees being grubbed out or bulldozed.

Malcolm Turnbull (yes, him!) covered this quite well (for a mainstream
politician) on Insiders some time back:

http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/conte...7/s1856319.htm

[...]
BARRIE CASSIDY: Does the plan adequately address the obvious issue
that Australian farmers are growing crops in the wrong places?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, that's not actually true, Barrie. In fact,
that statement is obviously wrong. Let me explain. Everybody says
that the conventional wisdom is that you shouldn't grow rice in
Australia, you shouldn't grow cotton. Now, there are areas where
there is over- allocation and there are areas where cotton is grown
and rice is grown that there are -- it's no doubt over-allocation.
But if everybody grew fruit trees, or almonds or olives, grew
permanent crops, which obviously have a higher yield per megalitre of
water, we would be in a terrible jam because the key thing to
understand about our rivers is that the flows are very volatile. And
so if all of your plantings are permanent plantings how do you
sustain them during the dry years? You need to have a mix of crops
and you need to have annual crops so that when there's water around
you plant them, and when there isn't you don't plant.

You see, the problem we face in the basin at the moment is not with
rice and cotton because it's not being planted because there isn't
any water. The problem we face is keeping alive the permanent
plantings, the horticulture which need to get a drink whether it's a
dry year or a wet year.

BARRIE CASSIDY: But isn't the problem that rice and cotton is grown in
areas where there are water shortages, quite regularly?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: But that's well, OK, I'll start again. Because our
water is volatile, because some years you get a lot of water and some
years you don't get any, it's important to have annual crops that you
can plant opportunistically when there is water, but you don't have to
plant, you don't need to plant when there isn't any water. If all of
our crops were horticulture, were permanent plantings, then in dry
years we would have an even bigger problem than we do now.

So you see, if you go to Deniliquin where they grow a lot of rice,
there is very little rice being plant this had year, virtually none.
Why is that? Because there isn't any water. You go down to Mildura
where it's mostly horticulture. The same trees and vines are there,
Barrie, in this very dry year as would be in a wet year and they will
be struggling, if this coming season is as bad as the last one, to
get enough water to keep those trees and vines alive. So annual crops
are a very important part of the mix.

You see, you've got to recognise that the key, sort of, feature of our
river system is its variability. The range of the ratio between high
flows and low flows on the Murray, over since records began, 100 odd
years ago is 30 1. So you could get, in one year, 30 times more
inflows than you got the year before. And that means you have to have
an agricultural mix that meets that.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Well, at the risk of having you to start again, when
Senator Bill Heffernan says that cotton and rice is better suited to
the north where it does rain then he's on the wrong track?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No, that's not what I'm saying at all. Bill is right
if I mean, I know - Bill Heffernan's a very good friend of mine, and I
talk about water all the time. The point that Bill is making is there
is a great deal of water availability in northern Australia and there
are a number of crops, water intensive crops, that can be grown up
there that where -- in circumstances or in situations where there
isn't a lot of agriculture at the moment. Certainly we will have more
agriculture in the north as time goes on because there's more water
available there, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have any annual
crops in the Murray Darling Basin. Because if I get back to that
fundamental point if -- you'd really need to have a mix of crops and
it's not for the government to tell farmers what crops to plant. I
can tell you, farmers have enough trouble making the right decisions
with all of their experience and insight. The idea that you'd have
some central crop selection committee sitting in Canberra telling
people what to grow is just too ludicrous for words.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Yeah, I suppose not a question of forcing them but to
encourage them.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Barrie, the world, the market encourages them.
Farmers change their crop decisions all the time. They react to
markets. You know, the do you really think that a group of
politicians and bureaucrats are better able to determine what to grow
than farmers, people who've spent their whole lives working on it,
who've got access to all of the science and meteorological
information? I mean, come on, really, this is a it's a crazy idea.

You've got to let farmers make their decisions, let water trade, let
the market sort it ought, and have a mix of crops that reflects the
variability of our weather.

We live in Australia, we don't live you know, we live in Australia, we
are the lands of droughts and flooding rains. We get bad droughts,
then we get floods and you've got to have water management practices
and agricultural practices that reflect that and if you don't you'll
get into a great deal more trouble than even the problems we have at
the moment, believe me.

[... continued]

The sooner this water is given a
sensible value the sooner this kind of abuse will be gone.
[...]

That, and removing the silly tax subsidies affored to MIS, which
greatly distort the agriculture scene by encouraging corporations to
establish land, water and nutrient hungry plantations that have
little to no chance of turning a profit in their own right and exist
simply as tax scams for the filthy rich (and those who'd like to be).

Hey Ross

Nice of you to come and help with the heavy lifting sometimes.

As I said when I started this: water in this country is a complex subject, I
didn't cover more than one quarter and that was superficial. If they can
stay out of the local political issues those who read Turnbull's extract
here may get some more of an idea of the complexities. El Nino (La Nina)
can twist your life any way you didn't want it twisted if you live in
eastern Oz.

Turnbull (who is OUT incidentally) has a brain and uses it unlike most of
the current crop from both sides of the parliament.

David

On Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:12:02 +1000, "David Hare-Scott" wrote:

As I said when I started this: water in this country is a complex subject, I
didn't cover more than one quarter and that was superficial. If they can
stay out of the local political issues those who read Turnbull's extract
here may get some more of an idea of the complexities. El Nino (La Nina)
can twist your life any way you didn't want it twisted if you live in
eastern Oz.

Indeed. And you'd have a far better grasp of that than I would, living
off tank water and what you're allowed to water your veges and trees
with. It is much easier for me to pontificate when connected to a steady
municipal supply

Turnbull (who is OUT incidentally) has a brain and uses it unlike most of
the current crop from both sides of the parliament.

Yes, and that would be why he's unpopular with the current crop of
knuckle-draggers in his party. That, and being told to dump him by the
anti-ETS lobby groups. (The issue that has knobbled two Prime Ministers
and two opposition leaders... so far)
--
Ross McKay, Toronto, NSW Australia
"If ye cannae see the bottom, dinnae complain if ye droon"
- The Wee Book of Calvin

In article ,
Ross McKay wrote:

On Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:12:02 +1000, "David Hare-Scott" wrote:

As I said when I started this: water in this country is a complex subject, I
didn't cover more than one quarter and that was superficial. If they can
stay out of the local political issues those who read Turnbull's extract
here may get some more of an idea of the complexities. El Nino (La Nina)
can twist your life any way you didn't want it twisted if you live in
eastern Oz.

Indeed. And you'd have a far better grasp of that than I would, living
off tank water and what you're allowed to water your veges and trees
with. It is much easier for me to pontificate when connected to a steady
municipal supply

Turnbull (who is OUT incidentally) has a brain and uses it unlike most of
the current crop from both sides of the parliament.

Yes, and that would be why he's unpopular with the current crop of
knuckle-draggers in his party. That, and being told to dump him by the
anti-ETS lobby groups. (The issue that has knobbled two Prime Ministers
and two opposition leaders... so far)

I wanted to say, that's a beautiful bay you have next to Toronto :O)
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

On Sat, 31 Jul 2010 10:13:31 -0700, Billy wrote:

I wanted to say, that's a beautiful bay you have next to Toronto :O)

And that lake is lovely from every angle and in all types of weather and
times of day!
--
Ross McKay, Toronto, NSW Australia
"Nobody ever rioted for austerity" - George Monbiot

In article ,
Ross McKay wrote:

Good read Ross. Thank you. There must be a series of dams to store the
rains, so that a farmer can tell whether it is a good year for annuals
or not.

Front page of the local paper heralds the planets human population as
reaching the 7 billion level. There is certain to be tension between
resources and needs.

To me it just seems so bloody damn stupid that we have supported these
profane wars, which cause people to hate us, when a fraction of the
money would have given clean water and sanitation to the worlds
underprivileged (previously colonized), and they would have loved us.

On Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:42:16 +1000, "David Hare-Scott" wrote:

[...] So we have the absurdities of
growing rice and cotton in dryland areas by massive (and wasteful)
irrigation and more water being allocated from the Murray-Darling than is
actually available except in flood years.

Agreed for cotton given the overproduction of it and its thirst
comparable to other fibre plants (e.g. hemp). Rice (and maize grown in
the same general area) is a little different, I reckon. Or at least, it
has the potential to be so, given an assumption of a fair price for
irrigation water. This is because it can be planted opportunistically,
e.g. when there's good flows in the rivers, and just not planted when
there isn't.

Contrast that with all the MIS-backed plantations of fruit and nut
trees, and grape vines, along the Murray-Darling system -- trees that
require water to keep them going and thus demand water even when there
is a drought. That was one of the big issues during the latest drought,
with lots of water bought up by (tax avoiding) MIS plantations and
little remaining for anyone else, leading to lots of fruit trees being
grubbed out or bulldozed.

Malcolm Turnbull (yes, him!) covered this quite well (for a mainstream
politician) on Insiders some time back:

http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/conte...7/s1856319.htm

[...]
BARRIE CASSIDY: Does the plan adequately address the obvious issue that
Australian farmers are growing crops in the wrong places?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, that's not actually true, Barrie. In fact, that
statement is obviously wrong. Let me explain. Everybody says that the
conventional wisdom is that you shouldn't grow rice in Australia, you
shouldn't grow cotton. Now, there are areas where there is over-
allocation and there are areas where cotton is grown and rice is grown
that there are -- it's no doubt over-allocation. But if everybody grew
fruit trees, or almonds or olives, grew permanent crops, which obviously
have a higher yield per megalitre of water, we would be in a terrible
jam because the key thing to understand about our rivers is that the
flows are very volatile. And so if all of your plantings are permanent
plantings how do you sustain them during the dry years? You need to have
a mix of crops and you need to have annual crops so that when there's
water around you plant them, and when there isn't you don't plant.

You see, the problem we face in the basin at the moment is not with rice
and cotton because it's not being planted because there isn't any water.
The problem we face is keeping alive the permanent plantings, the
horticulture which need to get a drink whether it's a dry year or a wet
year.

BARRIE CASSIDY: But isn't the problem that rice and cotton is grown in
areas where there are water shortages, quite regularly?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: But that's well, OK, I'll start again. Because our
water is volatile, because some years you get a lot of water and some
years you don't get any, it's important to have annual crops that you
can plant opportunistically when there is water, but you don't have to
plant, you don't need to plant when there isn't any water. If all of our
crops were horticulture, were permanent plantings, then in dry years we
would have an even bigger problem than we do now.

So you see, if you go to Deniliquin where they grow a lot of rice, there
is very little rice being plant this had year, virtually none. Why is
that? Because there isn't any water. You go down to Mildura where it's
mostly horticulture. The same trees and vines are there, Barrie, in this
very dry year as would be in a wet year and they will be struggling, if
this coming season is as bad as the last one, to get enough water to
keep those trees and vines alive. So annual crops are a very important
part of the mix.

You see, you've got to recognise that the key, sort of, feature of our
river system is its variability. The range of the ratio between high
flows and low flows on the Murray, over since records began, 100 odd
years ago is 30 1. So you could get, in one year, 30 times more inflows
than you got the year before. And that means you have to have an
agricultural mix that meets that.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Well, at the risk of having you to start again, when
Senator Bill Heffernan says that cotton and rice is better suited to the
north where it does rain then he's on the wrong track?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No, that's not what I'm saying at all. Bill is right
if I mean, I know - Bill Heffernan's a very good friend of mine, and I
talk about water all the time. The point that Bill is making is there is
a great deal of water availability in northern Australia and there are a
number of crops, water intensive crops, that can be grown up there that
where -- in circumstances or in situations where there isn't a lot of
agriculture at the moment. Certainly we will have more agriculture in
the north as time goes on because there's more water available there,
but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have any annual crops in the Murray
Darling Basin. Because if I get back to that fundamental point if --
you'd really need to have a mix of crops and it's not for the government
to tell farmers what crops to plant. I can tell you, farmers have enough
trouble making the right decisions with all of their experience and
insight. The idea that you'd have some central crop selection committee
sitting in Canberra telling people what to grow is just too ludicrous
for words.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Yeah, I suppose not a question of forcing them but to
encourage them.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Barrie, the world, the market encourages them. Farmers
change their crop decisions all the time. They react to markets. You
know, the do you really think that a group of politicians and
bureaucrats are better able to determine what to grow than farmers,
people who've spent their whole lives working on it, who've got access
to all of the science and meteorological information? I mean, come on,
really, this is a it's a crazy idea.

You've got to let farmers make their decisions, let water trade, let the
market sort it ought, and have a mix of crops that reflects the
variability of our weather.

We live in Australia, we don't live you know, we live in Australia, we
are the lands of droughts and flooding rains. We get bad droughts, then
we get floods and you've got to have water management practices and
agricultural practices that reflect that and if you don't you'll get
into a great deal more trouble than even the problems we have at the
moment, believe me.

[... continued]

The sooner this water is given a
sensible value the sooner this kind of abuse will be gone.
[...]

That, and removing the silly tax subsidies affored to MIS, which greatly
distort the agriculture scene by encouraging corporations to establish
land, water and nutrient hungry plantations that have little to no
chance of turning a profit in their own right and exist simply as tax
scams for the filthy rich (and those who'd like to be).
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

On Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:24:48 -0700, Billy wrote:

Good read Ross. Thank you. There must be a series of dams to store the
rains, so that a farmer can tell whether it is a good year for annuals
or not.

There is a complex arrangement of water catchment authorities that
monitor rainfall, plus local and state authorities that monitor river
flows. The information they gather helps formulate whether the already-
sold water allocations can actually be "delivered" to the irrigators.
Overselling allocations (especially to tax-avoidance-based MIS
plantations) has meant that irrigators who did the "right thing" and put
off drawing on their allocations until later in the season actually got
no water, and thus had paid for an abundance of nothing.

The current fiasco^H^H^H^H^H^H government effort is an attempt to
establish water allocations based more on actually how much water is
likely to flow, and allowing for some to come out at the ends of the
system too.

Front page of the local paper heralds the planets human population as
reaching the 7 billion level. There is certain to be tension between
resources and needs.

To me it just seems so bloody damn stupid that we have supported these
profane wars, which cause people to hate us, when a fraction of the
money would have given clean water and sanitation to the worlds
underprivileged (previously colonized), and they would have loved us.

But the OECD world needs to secure the oil and the gas pipelines! I
mean, bring peace and democracy to the middle east and expunge terrorism
from the planet!
--
Ross McKay, Toronto, NSW Australia
"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" - Wizard of Oz

In article ,
Ross McKay wrote:

On Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:24:48 -0700, Billy wrote:

Good read Ross. Thank you. There must be a series of dams to store the
rains, so that a farmer can tell whether it is a good year for annuals
or not.

There is a complex arrangement of water catchment authorities that
monitor rainfall, plus local and state authorities that monitor river
flows. The information they gather helps formulate whether the already-
sold water allocations can actually be "delivered" to the irrigators.
Overselling allocations (especially to tax-avoidance-based MIS
plantations) has meant that irrigators who did the "right thing" and put
off drawing on their allocations until later in the season actually got
no water, and thus had paid for an abundance of nothing.

The current fiasco^H^H^H^H^H^H government effort is an attempt to
establish water allocations based more on actually how much water is
likely to flow, and allowing for some to come out at the ends of the
system too.

Front page of the local paper heralds the planets human population as
reaching the 7 billion level. There is certain to be tension between
resources and needs.

To me it just seems so bloody damn stupid that we have supported these
profane wars, which cause people to hate us, when a fraction of the
money would have given clean water and sanitation to the worlds
underprivileged (previously colonized), and they would have loved us.

But the OECD world needs to secure the oil and the gas pipelines! I
mean, bring peace and democracy to the middle east and expunge terrorism
from the planet!

Sadly, there seems to be a connection between the oil and gas pipelines,
and peace and democracy. None of the countries involved drew their own
borders (with the exception of Iran) which was done primarily by the
British, and to a lesser extent, the French, with an eye towards keeping
the new states unstable. At the request of Britain, the US overthrew the
democratcally elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran. We
really haven't been modeling the appropriate behavior for the Middle
East.
Then we have
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5077984.stm
US 'biggest global peace threat'
----

Closely followed by Israel, and sadly, I find myself in agreement.

http://www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx?id=50080
http://www.time.com/time/europe/gdml/peace2003.html

To leave peace to market forces (which congers up neo-liberalism and
free markets) is insufficient. Either everyone gets a seat at the table,
or it is everyone for themselves, which I believe has got us to the
impasse that we face today in the Middle East.

Our agriculture is based on fossil fuel, which has peaked and the cost
of pesticides and fertilizer will rise. By 2050 topsoil will be a
memory, all the fossil water from aquifers will be gone, the oceans will
be fished out, and we will have hungry people in failed nuclear states.

Best thing we could do right now, would be to call off the wars, give
everyone seeds to plant, and offer every man $1000 (or more), if they
get a vasectomy.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:

Billy wrote:

David, you still going to be able to grow a garden, after the
Americans buy up your water rights?


Yes

"Australia has privatized its water totally, and basically it¹s now
for sale. And there¹s a big American investment firm that¹s actually
buying up water rights. It was supposed to be, originally, just to
get the farmers of the big farm conglomerates to share, to trade, but
now it¹s all gone private and international, so they¹re hardly going
to support something that says that water, is a human right, when
they¹ve commodified it and said it¹s a market commodity."
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2...declares_acces
s

This is a complex issue. The rights to the water that falls on the
catchment to public water supplies is broadly not for sale, the Government
holds onto that by excluding most of it from being a tradeable commodity.
In a city/suburban situation you can do whatever you like with the water
that falls on your property (and the grey water you generate provided you
don't poison people with it) but you cannot sell it.

In the rural situation (which is me) every property owner has a "harvestable
right". Roughly speaking you can impound and use 10% of the water that
falls on your land but not from permanent waterways. Additionally you can
extract from permanent waterways an unlimited amount for no cost for "bona
fide domestic purposes". So I could use that to grow whatever I like
provided it is not a commercial venture, this last constraint does in
practice limit how much you can extract. Neither of these rights are
saleable.

In addition I own a water licence which permits me to extract a specified
amount of water from permanent waterways per annum for a fairly nominal
cost. This licence is saleable but only applies to the specified catchment
so it is not possible to buy up water licences and use them wherever you
like.

It is essential for proper long term water management for water to be given
a genuine and realistic value at least in commercial quantities. In the
past it was pretty much free in all circumstances. What do people do with
a resource that is "free"? They over use it. I think you are familiar with
the phrase "the tragedy of the commons". So we have the absurdities of
growing rice and cotton in dryland areas by massive (and wasteful)
irrigation and more water being allocated from the Murray-Darling than is
actually available except in flood years. The sooner this water is given a
sensible value the sooner this kind of abuse will be gone.

As you can see the above quote is very misleading regarding the ownership of
water in Australia. As for the motivation of the Gov to not want to vote
for water as a basic right I have no clear idea but Oz does vote with
America on many issues for reasons that may have nothing to do with the
issue itself.

David

It does appear misleading. I can only hope that they are wrong about the
following as well.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2...declares_acces
s
At the global level, approximately one out of every eight people do not
have drinking water. In just one day, more than 200 million hours of the
time used by women is spent collecting and transporting water for their
homes. The lack of sanitation is even worse, because it affects 2.6
billion people, which represents 40 percent of the global population.
According to the report of the World Health Organization and of UNICEF
of 2009, which is titled "Diarrhoea: Why Children Are [Still] Dying and
What We Can Do," every day 24,000 children die in developing countries
due to causes that can be prevented, such as diarrhea, which is caused
by contaminated water. This means that a child dies every
three-and-a-half seconds. . .

Brand new World Bank study says that the (water) demand is going to
exceed supply by 40 percent in twenty years. It¹s just a phenomenal
statement. And the human suffering behind that is just unbelievable. And
what this did was basically say that the United Nations has decided it¹s
not going to let huge populations leave them behind as this crisis
unfolds, that the new priority is to be given to these populations
without water and sanitation.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

Billy wrote:
In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:

Billy wrote:

David, you still going to be able to grow a garden, after the
Americans buy up your water rights?


Yes

"Australia has privatized its water totally, and basically it¹s now
for sale. And there¹s a big American investment firm that¹s actually
buying up water rights. It was supposed to be, originally, just to
get the farmers of the big farm conglomerates to share, to trade,
but now it¹s all gone private and international, so they¹re hardly
going to support something that says that water, is a human right,
when they¹ve commodified it and said it¹s a market commodity."
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2...declares_acces
s

This is a complex issue. The rights to the water that falls on the
catchment to public water supplies is broadly not for sale, the
Government holds onto that by excluding most of it from being a
tradeable commodity. In a city/suburban situation you can do
whatever you like with the water that falls on your property (and
the grey water you generate provided you don't poison people with
it) but you cannot sell it.

In the rural situation (which is me) every property owner has a
"harvestable right". Roughly speaking you can impound and use 10%
of the water that falls on your land but not from permanent
waterways. Additionally you can extract from permanent waterways an
unlimited amount for no cost for "bona fide domestic purposes". So
I could use that to grow whatever I like provided it is not a
commercial venture, this last constraint does in practice limit how
much you can extract. Neither of these rights are saleable.

In addition I own a water licence which permits me to extract a
specified amount of water from permanent waterways per annum for a
fairly nominal cost. This licence is saleable but only applies to
the specified catchment so it is not possible to buy up water
licences and use them wherever you like.

It is essential for proper long term water management for water to
be given a genuine and realistic value at least in commercial
quantities. In the past it was pretty much free in all
circumstances. What do people do with a resource that is "free"?
They over use it. I think you are familiar with the phrase "the
tragedy of the commons". So we have the absurdities of growing rice
and cotton in dryland areas by massive (and wasteful) irrigation and
more water being allocated from the Murray-Darling than is actually
available except in flood years. The sooner this water is given a
sensible value the sooner this kind of abuse will be gone.

As you can see the above quote is very misleading regarding the
ownership of water in Australia. As for the motivation of the Gov
to not want to vote for water as a basic right I have no clear idea
but Oz does vote with America on many issues for reasons that may
have nothing to do with the issue itself.

David

It does appear misleading. I can only hope that they are wrong about
the following as well.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2...declares_acces
s
At the global level, approximately one out of every eight people do
not have drinking water. In just one day, more than 200 million hours
of the time used by women is spent collecting and transporting water
for their homes. The lack of sanitation is even worse, because it
affects 2.6 billion people, which represents 40 percent of the global
population. According to the report of the World Health Organization
and of UNICEF of 2009, which is titled "Diarrhoea: Why Children Are
[Still] Dying and What We Can Do," every day 24,000 children die in
developing countries due to causes that can be prevented, such as
diarrhea, which is caused by contaminated water. This means that a
child dies every three-and-a-half seconds. . .

Brand new World Bank study says that the (water) demand is going to
exceed supply by 40 percent in twenty years. It¹s just a phenomenal
statement. And the human suffering behind that is just unbelievable.
And what this did was basically say that the United Nations has
decided it¹s not going to let huge populations leave them behind as
this crisis unfolds, that the new priority is to be given to these
populations without water and sanitation.

I know less about this topic but I suspect that it is true.

David

g'day david,

In a city/suburban situation you can do whatever you like with the water
that falls on your property

not sure about other states in australia? but imagine they won't be
far different. under the new water regulations the gov' owns 90% of
the water that falls on you property that's any property. and now with
the setting up of the ready to be sold water districts in sth/east
qld, and once sold to profit takers these factors will come into play.
i would imagine that te gov will ahve ways say via sattelite imagary
to determine how much of the rain that falls on you property that your
garden and you might use, so then they would levy you against that
above 10% usage.

those of us who put in a tank and claimed the rebate (that makes us
known on records, so even those who didn't claim will come under the
spell of the water owners) are likely to be levied with an annual fee
for having a tank.

the irresponsible irrigation of unsuitable crops has little to do with
water ditribued in the cities, that's the side of agriculture that
runs incontrolled, they simply say if you want food this is what we
must do. and any charges levied against them gets added to the cost o
the food produced.

lots of controlling of whether people can put dams in or how many they
can have and fees being paid for a license to put a dam in etc.,.
already happening and has been for over the alst decade here in qld
and from what i've head victoria as well.

utilities should never be turned into commodities they should e
retained by teh people and managed for the people, and having the
right to use fresh wate responsibly should remain that a rite. once
commoditised it then can become too expensive for the poor to afford.

a person move to a property west of ipswich and wanted to start a
native plant nursery and where not allowed to as they has no water of
their own for irrigation, and also where not permited to put in a dam,
so teh rules are already bitting someone somewhere, saw about a decade
agao a victorian farmer wanted to put in a dam and was prevented from
doing so until he paid the approprite fee. also a bloke west of the
downs out in teh middle of the scrub put a dam in without seeking
permission, thinking out here no one will drive by and see it, the
local council paid him a visit armed with sattelite pics which they
produced when he told said office he didn't have a dam.

water is a rite to every person on the planet as i see it, yes that we
must use it wisely is another story. our usage here is less than 50
litres per person a day, the control target is 200 l/p/d, to us that
encourges waste. the gov does not own any water as such.

and in time as they tighten up for profits sake what you do with grey
water will come under the light.

On Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:42:16 +1000, "David Hare-Scott"
wrote:
snipped
--

Matthew 25:13 KJV
"Watch therefore, for ye know neither
the day nor the hour wherein the Son
of man cometh"

Mark 13:33 "Take ye heed, watch and pray:
for ye know not when the time is".

len

With peace and brightest of blessings,

"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

gardenlen wrote:
g'day david,

In a city/suburban situation you can do whatever you like with the
water that falls on your property

not sure about other states in australia? but imagine they won't be
far different. under the new water regulations the gov' owns 90% of
the water that falls on you property that's any property.

But does that apply to non-rural areas? I doubt it.

and now with
the setting up of the ready to be sold water districts in sth/east
qld, and once sold to profit takers these factors will come into play.
i would imagine that te gov will ahve ways say via sattelite imagary
to determine how much of the rain that falls on you property that your
garden and you might use, so then they would levy you against that
above 10% usage.


That's not how it's done in NSW and I suspect alsewhere. The 10% is
approximated by a formula which arrives at a rate per hectare depending on
the rainfall of the district, this multiplied by the number of hectares you
have then determines the maximum volume of water you can impound.

those of us who put in a tank and claimed the rebate (that makes us
known on records, so even those who didn't claim will come under the
spell of the water owners) are likely to be levied with an annual fee
for having a tank.


I think this is just speculation.

the irresponsible irrigation of unsuitable crops has little to do with
water ditribued in the cities, that's the side of agriculture that
runs incontrolled, they simply say if you want food this is what we
must do. and any charges levied against them gets added to the cost o
the food produced.


The crazy thing is that most of the cotton and rice I mentioned is for
export. The situation is different in the MIA as Ross said.


lots of controlling of whether people can put dams in or how many they
can have and fees being paid for a license to put a dam in etc.,.
already happening and has been for over the alst decade here in qld
and from what i've head victoria as well.


There is no license fee for a dam in NSW

utilities should never be turned into commodities they should e
retained by teh people and managed for the people, and having the
right to use fresh wate responsibly should remain that a rite. once
commoditised it then can become too expensive for the poor to afford.


Len with respect you have this completely backwards. We have had 150 years
of treating water a "free" and that has got us into this mess. Any time you
are doing a business case the cost-benefit analysis will lead you to over
use any resource that is too cheap. To ensure that water is put to good use
it must have a realistic price at least for commercial situations.


a person move to a property west of ipswich and wanted to start a
native plant nursery and where not allowed to as they has no water of
their own for irrigation, and also where not permited to put in a dam,
so teh rules are already bitting someone somewhere,

I would like to know the details, I suspect there may be more to this.

saw about a decade
agao a victorian farmer wanted to put in a dam and was prevented from
doing so until he paid the approprite fee. also a bloke west of the
downs out in teh middle of the scrub put a dam in without seeking
permission, thinking out here no one will drive by and see it, the
local council paid him a visit armed with sattelite pics which they
produced when he told said office he didn't have a dam.


The local council is not responsible for enforcing water laws it will be a
department of the State Gov. But they do use satellite images to check up
on dams.

water is a rite to every person on the planet as i see it, yes that we
must use it wisely is another story. our usage here is less than 50
litres per person a day, the control target is 200 l/p/d, to us that
encourges waste. the gov does not own any water as such.

and in time as they tighten up for profits sake what you do with grey
water will come under the light.


More speculation

David