Dracula Rising and David Hicks {video}

Taking water for irrigation from the Murray-Darling Basin [poll]

The Essential Report for 25 October 2010 had this result on the subject of water extraction in the Murray-Darling Basin:

Click on image to enlarge

47% agreed that “strong action must be taken to restore the health of the Murray Darling river system even if it means some job losses or other economic impact “ while 31% agreed more with the statement “protecting the economic well being of local communities and jobs must be the first priority”.
A majority of Labor (52%) and Greens voters (74%) agreed that “strong action must be taken to restore the health of the Murray Darling river system even if it means some job losses or other economic impact” while Liberal/National voters were split (42%/42)%.

# The survey was conducted online from 19th October to 24th October 2010 and is based on 1,002 respondents.

Oi, Nick! How many rivers will you kill?

A Clarence Valley Protest wonders about Nick Xenophon’s maths abilities, attention to detail and motives:

Sunday, 24 October 2010

Exactly how many coastal rivers systems would Senator Xenophon like to lay waste?

South Australians Senator Nick Xenophon and Family First Legislative Council Member Robert Brokenshire are calling for the Gillard Government and Federal Parliament to look at damming and diverting the Clarence River across the Great Divide and into the Murray Darling river systems.

Xenophon appears to believe that the total volume of additional annual environmental flow (which the Murray Darling Basin Authority has identified as being required to stop the Basin rivers and wetlands irreversibly failing) can be found through interbasin water transfer.

Brokenshire envisions water diversion on a similar scale to the Snowy Mountains Scheme which ruined the iconic Snowy River.

Both men clearly have the Clarence River in their sights.

In 2004 a South Australian state government water diversion investigation decided on the basis very limited data that the average annual discharge for the Clarence River system is 3,700,000 ML/year and the 2007 SMEC desktop study gave a very optimistic top annual freshwater figure of 100,000 ML/year allegedly available for diversion [www.waterproofingadelaide.sa.gov.au,March 2004,"Water Proofing Adelaide: Large Scale Water Supply Schemes",information sheet,pp.3-4 and Australian Parliament,Senate 2007,RRAT Committee, Inquiry into Options for additional water supplies for South East Queensland,Report].

While according to The Clarence Environment Centre; the Lilydale gauge readings (which provide the most accurate flow figures available) indicate that water discharge into the sea is less than two million megalitres per year on average [Submission No. 214,May 2007].

Senator Xenophon mentions a water volume of 4,000 GL/year as the diversion level required to ‘save’ the Murray Darling Basin:

Going in to bat for farmers in the basin, he said diverting 4000 gigalitres annually into the river system would alleviate the need for irrigation cuts and secure environmental flows.

Now 4,000 gigalitres is 4,000,000 megalitres – so at first glance Xenophon is either supporting future zero flow in the Clarence River and its inevitable death or he has more than one coastal catchment in mind.

So how many rivers would Senator Xenophon like to lay waste in order to satisfy the greed of Murray Darling Basin irrigators?

The water madness continues.....

Reported in The Daily Examiner on October 23 2010:

THE grab for Clarence water continues in political circles with South Australian independent Senator Nick Xenophon calling for the Murray Darling Basin Authority to examine the viability of diverting the river.
Senator Xenophon was joined by Family First Legislative Council Member Robert Brokenshire in pushing for diversion as a solution to irrigation problems in the Murray Darling Basin.
With the massive social impacts to communities in the basin and the enormous cost of water buybacks estimated at $6 billion, plus an agricultural production loss of between $1 billion and $2 billion, Senator Xenophon said diversion was becoming a financially attractive proposition.
Going in to bat for farmers in the basin, he said diverting 4000 gigalitres annually into the river system would alleviate the need for irrigation cuts and secure environmental flows.
Mr Brokenshire said the Clarence River scheme could deliver the same amount of water to the Murray Darling system as utilised by the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric scheme, by building a 25km network of tunnels across the Great Dividing Range.
This week, Senator Xenophon asked independent New England MP Tony Windsor, the head of the inquiry into the social impact of irrigation allocation cuts in the Murray Darling, to look at alternate water sources for farmers in the basin.

Around the traps in the last few days.....

A bit of free promotion APN didn't need?
With the euthanasia debate heating up, I was amused to see that APN Outdoor received a bit of free promotion on the nightly news last week after one of its outdoor billboards advertising in Yagoona ran a large advert promoting the pro-choice position. Probably won't please the bishops.

Fine print on the back of that NBN envelope?
NATIONAL Broadband Network users will not be able to use their telephones in a power failure unless they pay for a back-up system.
Telstra copper lines will be replaced by NBN fibre as part of the $11 billion deal with the federal government.
NBN Co has a hands-off approach to ensuring lines will be available at all times.
Customers will rely on the fibre network for broadband and fixed telephone services. Each home and business will need a network termination unit for power.
The unit needs a standard 240 volt, 10 amp power outlet and without that it cannot work.
If the unit loses power, telephone lines will not work unless NBN users have a back-up battery system, an optional item under NBN Co guidelines.
The peak electrical body says NBN Co and the government must ensure service providers guarantee basic telephone services or people's lives could be in danger in emergencies.
The company says it will not supply, install or maintain the battery back-up. That means network users will have to purchase a back-up unit and battery, and ensure the unit is next to a power outlet.
Users must buy the back-up unit from their NBN service provider. The 12V 7.2Ah sealed lead acid battery for the back-up costs about $50. {The Australian 22nd October 2010}

NSW water raiders using #agchatoz to tweet their displeasure....
nswirrigators: 464 pages of Volume Two of #basinplan just released online. Saving the environment by ruining a forest? http://tinyurl.com/3x4umuw #agchatoz
nswirrigators: 3.30pm on the day #basinplan volume two was meant to be released and nothing yet. These people do not learn... #agchatoz #abcrural

A victim of friendly fire
"This is a debate that Australians need to have about the future of banking, and the banks now are clearly ignoring the government," Mr Hockey has said. "The Australian people need to know where the banking system is going."....
Liberal MP Don Randall launched into a withering attack on Mr Hockey's suggestion, labelling a "typical lunatic fringe idea" from the Greens - until it was pointed out that it came from the Coalition's top money man. "It's really going to have a negative effect on our economy ... it's really a worry". {news.com.au 21st October 2010}

Ad astra takes on Tony
Take the attack on the Government by Tony Abbott over the contemporary court martial of three Australian soldiers in Afghanistan. In a particularly contemptible assault he accused the Government of ‘stabbing the soldiers in the back’ and not giving them the support they deserved, of abandoning these men fighting as they are for their country. It was a powerful and aggressive strike. Yet what did the mild-mannered Stephen Smith say? He said Abbott’s words were ‘unfortunate’. Too right they were, but in the hurly burley of politics, words hardly like to make headlines, hardly likely to effectively rebut the Abbott charges.
I would have preferred him to say to Abbott: “How dare you have the temerity to make such outrageous accusations. It was the Howard Government, in which you were a minister that created the process for such trials of servicemen thought to be in contravention of the rules of engagement, and it had bipartisan support from Labor. You know perfectly well that in this process Government has no part to play, nor have politicians or politics. You know that this Government wants the process YOU established to bring about a considered outcome and that it wishes to play no part in it. Yet you come along with this completely illegitimate accusation which you know is dishonest, in order to score political points. And you were only too willing to enlist Alan Jones to promulgate this deception, something he was only too ready to do. Worse still, you allowed him, without contradiction, to denigrate the female prosecutor for laying the charges, even although you knew that she was acting completely in accordance with the process the Howard Government established. How dare you behave in this disgracefully disingenuous way, cast aspersions on those involved, and the Government too, although it is NOT involved. This is worse even that the usual low standards of political discourse which you employ. You are a disgrace.” {The Political Sword 22nd October 2010}

Too much fiction in Pollieville, U.K.?
A BRITISH MP enraged her constituents and her party after letting slip that her blog, which tells people how hard she works, is "70 per cent fiction".
Nadine Dorries, a Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire in southern England, made the admission to investigators during a sleaze inquiry that cleared her of abusing the Government's expenses system but found that she misled voters. {news.com.au 22nd October 2010}

The atheist and the ancient lamp

Source: The Fitz Files, The Sun-Herald, 24/10/10

Australia's Great Divide

Source: The Readers Panel, SMH, 23/10/10

Face it, Howard. You lost bigtime

John Winston Howard’s publicist is obviously out doing a bit of a beat up for the imminent release of the former Oz PM’s memoirs.
From what’s been written in the meeja so far it seems that Howard is looking to place the blame for the Coalition’s resounding 2007 general election defeat elsewhere than at his own feet.
Howard probably just can’t face the fact that he lost both his seat and government because enough Aussies thought he was a dangerous, jumped-up little shite.

What is interesting about Howard's publicity teasers was not the predictable Costello response they were designed to elicit, but the fact that Mrs. Bucket encouraged Howard to tread that ruinous political path.

The little woman behind the man seems to have nurtured some of his worst features and supported unwise decisions right to the bitter end.

In 2010 nothing much has changed.

Cartoon from Google Images

A fact that all those living in the Murray-Darling Basin need to consider

Photograph of Clarence River displayed at abc.net.au,15 October 2007

With Senator Nick Xenophon now on the interbasin water transfer bandwagon and yet more discussion about damming and diverting Clarence River catchment water into the Murray-Darling river systems, it is once again time to actually look at the physical reality.

This is a photograph of the freshwater flow in the upper reaches of the Clarence River.

Most of the popular images of the Clarence River showing what appears to be a wide full river, are from within the approximately one third of its length which is salt and strongly tidal.

When are all those local councils, communities, primary industries and irrigators in the Murray Darling Basin going to open their eyes and finally admit that extracting anymore fresh water from the Clarence and its tributaries is nothing more than an unsustainable pipe dream?