Water draws opportunists

Having little political rating 20 years ago, water is now a battleground area in the Federal election campaign.

Farmers use 70 per cent of the water that is available from dams and, especially in the Murray-Darling area, increased access to water has lifted rural prosperity.  It has even allowed them to stay in business during the worst drought in a century.  Not long ago a hollowing out of Australia was on the cards as all but the coastal strip faced economic decline.  Now, thanks to the greater productivity of irrigated agriculture, we are talking of food processing industries expanding on the back of low cost quality produce.

For green activists water has presented an opportunity to pursue political influence at the cost of curbing prosperity.  They are tugging urban heartstrings with fabrications about a dying Murray River, a continent engulfed in salt and disappearing fish.  No such reality is evident -- salt levels in the Murray have actually halved over the last 20 years.

However, pressing political buttons is having its effect.  We can see this with the gymnastics the Bracks Government is engaged in.  These include curbing Melbournians' use of water and avoiding new dam building even though this is far and away the most cost-effective approach.

The effect can also be seen with the governments of NSW, South Australia and Victoria taking back 500 gigalitres from Murray irrigators.  This is equivalent to a Sydney Harbour and represents about 7 per cent of the irrigators' water.  The governments want this water to flush down the river and to feed "stressed" environmental iconic sites conjured up by green campaigning.

An early volley in the present federal election has been served by the Nats against a South Australian Liberal.  The member for Barker, Patrick Secker dared to speak the truth about the Murray-Darling system in a Parliamentary report.  He agreed that there was no evidence to justify the scheduled 500 gigalitres new environmental flush for the Murray River.  Apparently, though, the politics of water brooks little room for honesty, even amongst allies.

The ALP says it would up the 500 gigalitres ante to 1500 gigalitres (21 per cent of irrigators' use).  Proving they can never be outbid in the wealth-destroying stakes, the Greens have come out with a whopping 3000 gigalitres that they would take from farmers.  A recent report from the respected Centre for International Economics has costed this at $800 million a year but has left them undaunted.  To start the ball rolling the Greens would take all the water from the nation's largest and most productive cotton farm, Queensland's Cubby Station.

To court the green vote, John Howard is offering $2 billion for efficiency improvements, sewerage infrastructure and the like.  Most of this is for measures already planned but it includes a long overdue funding for research into water supply needs and quality.

The states have cried foul because much of the $2 billion is to be funded from Commonwealth funds they had earmarked to spend on their own vote-gathering projects.  Be that as it may, a Latham victory would not bring greater generosity from Canberra.

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