No?

Well then, as we have grown accustomed to saying (but why?), “Google it … Google is your friend”.

Er … perhaps not.

In our world of digital everything, no one is your friend.

From Zero Hedge, a must read (reproduced in full, all emphasis in original … and watch carefully for the “Telstra” reference):

The rabbit hole just got deeper. A whole lot deeper.

On Sunday we predicated that “there’s one reason why the administration, James Clapper and the NSA should just keep their mouths shut as the PRISM-gate fallout escalates: with every incremental attempt to refute some previously unknown facet of the US Big Brother state, a new piece of previously unleaked information from the same intelligence organization now scrambling for damage control, emerges and exposes the brand new narrative as yet another lie, forcing even more lies, more retribution against sources, more journalist persecution and so on.”

And like a hole that just gets deeper the more you dug and exposes ever more dirt, tonight’s installment revealing one more facet of the conversion of a once great republic into a great fascist, “big brother” state, comes from Bloomberg which reports that “thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the process said.”

The companies extend far wider than the legacy telcos, such as Verizon, that launched the entire NSA-spying scandal a week ago: “Makers of hardware and software, banks, Internet security providers, satellite telecommunications companies and many other companies also participate in the government programs. In some cases, the information gathered may be used not just to defend the nation but to help infiltrate computers of its adversaries.”

Many of these same Internet and telecommunications companies voluntarily provide U.S. intelligence organizations with additional data, such as equipment specifications, that don’t involve private communications of their customers, the four people said.

And since what goes on behind the scenes is confidential, literally anything goes: “Along with the NSA, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and branches of the U.S. military have agreements with such companies to gather data that might seem innocuous but could be highly useful in the hands of U.S. intelligence or cyber warfare units, according to the people, who have either worked for the government or are in companies that have these accords.”

Some of the back and forth is innocuous, such as Microsoft revealing ahead of time the nature of its exposed bugs (ostensibly providing the government with a back door into any system using a Microsoft OS, but since it’s don’t ask, dont’ tell, nobody really knows). However the bulk of the interaction is steeped in secrecy: “Most of the arrangements are so sensitive that only a handful of people in a company know of them, and they are sometimes brokered directly between chief executive officers and the heads of the U.S.’s major spy agencies, the people familiar with those programs said.”

More on this “company within a company”:

Typically, a key executive at a company and a small number of technical people cooperate with different agencies and sometimes multiple units within an agency, according to the four people who described the arrangements.

If necessary, a company executive, known as a “committing officer,” is given documents that guarantee immunity from civil actions resulting from the transfer of data. The companies are provided with regular updates, which may include the broad parameters of how that information is used.

Remember how they say conspiracies are impossible because too many people know about them, and the information always eventually leaks? Well not if you contain it to a handful of people in any organization, and force them to sign a bloody NDA, pledging one’s first born in the case of secrecy breach.

An example of a company that is happy to “communicate” with tht the government is Intel’s McAfee internet security unit, which in addition to everything is one giant backdoor entrance for the government. If need be of course:

Intel Corp. (INTC)’s McAfee unit, which makes Internet security software, regularly cooperates with the NSA, FBI and the CIA, for example, and is a valuable partner because of its broad view of malicious Internet traffic, including espionage operations by foreign powers, according to one of the four people, who is familiar with the arrangement.

Such a relationship would start with an approach to McAfee’s chief executive, who would then clear specific individuals to work with investigators or provide the requested data, the person said. The public would be surprised at how much help the government seeks, the person said.

McAfee firewalls collect information on hackers who use legitimate servers to do their work, and the company data can be used to pinpoint where attacks begin. The company also has knowledge of the architecture of information networks worldwide, which may be useful to spy agencies who tap into them, the person said.

Google, another participant in PRISM, already lied about its participation in the covert-op:

Following an attack on his company by Chinese hackers in 2010, Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder, was provided with highly sensitive government intelligence linking the attack to a specific unit of the People’s Liberation Army, China’s military, according to one of the people, who is familiar with the government’s investigation. Brin was given a temporary classified clearance to sit in on the briefing, the person said.

According to information provided by Snowden, Google, owner of the world’s most popular search engine, had at that point been a Prism participant for more than a year.

Google CEO Larry Page said in a blog posting June 7 that he hadn’t heard of a program called Prism until after Snowden’s disclosures and that the Mountain View, California-based company didn’t allow the U.S. government direct access to its servers or some back-door to its data centers. He said Google provides user data to governments “only in accordance with the law.”

Ah yes, the law that no mere mortal can observe in action, and which has zero popular checks and balances. So what specifically does Google provide to the government? “Highly offensive information” it appears.

That metadata includes which version of the operating system, browser and Java software are being used on millions of devices around the world, information that U.S. spy agencies could use to infiltrate those computers or phones and spy on their users.

“It’s highly offensive information,” said Glenn Chisholm, the former chief information officer for Telstra Corp (TLS)., one of Australia’s largest telecommunications companies, contrasting it to defensive information used to protect computers rather than infiltrate them.

Going back to Obama’s promise on live TV that nobody was listening in to any conversations, one wonders: why did the major telecom companies “ask for guarantees that they wouldn’t be held liable under U.S. wiretap laws.” Because if the companies demanded a waiver, they obviously were wiretapping, i.e., eavesdropping, and doing so on US citizens, or those protected by US laws. And that’s why Obama should have just kept his mouth shut, instead of having to explain what he meant and that he never said what he said.

Before they agreed to install the system on their networks, some of the five major Internet companies — AT&T Inc. (T), Verizon Communications Inc (VZ)., Sprint Nextel Corp. (S), Level 3 Communications Inc (LVLT). and CenturyLink Inc (CTL). — asked for guarantees that they wouldn’t be held liable under U.S. wiretap laws. Those companies that asked received a letter signed by the U.S. attorney general indicating such exposure didn’t meet the legal definition of a wiretap and granting them immunity from civil lawsuits, the person said.

Ah, the US Attorney General – because what is another Obama scandal that doesn’t involve his primary henchman Eric Holder…

Mark Siegel, a spokesman for Dallas-based AT&T, the nation’s biggest phone carrier, declined to comment. Edward McFadden, a spokesman for New York-based Verizon, the second-largest phone company, declined to comment. Scott Sloat, a spokesman for Overland Park, Kansas-based Sprint, and Monica Martinez, a spokeswoman for Broomfield, Colorado-based Level 3, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

No need to comment – it’s quite clear.

The last question remains: what do companies get out of this proactive betrayal of their clients? Well, in some cases, such as those of IBM and Amazon as we described yesterday, they get lucrative government (CIA) contracts for billions of dollars. But that’s just taxpayer cash. Where it gets worse is when the kickbacks are yet more secrets.

In exchange, leaders of companies are showered with attention and information by the agencies to help maintain the relationship, the person said. In other cases, companies are given quick warnings about threats that could affect their bottom line, including serious Internet attacks and who is behind them.

In other words, what is going on behind the scenes is nothing more than one vast, very selective, extremely secretive, symbiotic and perfectly “legal” giant information exchange network, which allows corporations to profit off classified government information either in kind or in cash, and which allows the government to have all the information at its disposal, collected using public and private venues, in order to protect itself, to take out those it designates as targets, or simply said – to get ever bigger.

The loser in all of this?

You.

UPDATE:

From the UK Express -

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden not welcome in the UK

THE whistleblower behind the largest leak of classified information in the history of the US National Security Agency (NSA) is not welcome in Britain, the Home Office has said because he is “detrimental to the public good.”

Edward Snowden has not been welcomed to come to the UK

The Government has issued an alert to airlines around the world, urging them not to allow Edward Snowden to fly to the United Kingdom.

The alert, on a Home Office letterhead, said carriers should deny boarding to Snowden because “the individual is highly likely to be refused entry to the UK.”

…

Snowden, 29, revealed himself last week as the source of top-secret documents about controversial American surveillance programs.

He said he revealed America’s snooping of citizens’ internet use for a “better world”.

“I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things … I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under,” he said.

Bill Shorten, who is doing the dance of the seven veils, says publicly he still supports Julia Gillard.

But he will only support her until he doesn’t. And that could be very soon.

Shorten’s choice of words this week was telling.

When asked if he thought Gillard would still be leader by the time of the election, he said: “I believe so.”

These are not the words of a powerbroker confident in the survival of his leader.

As The Daily Telegraph revealed, Shorten is now counting numbers. And those numbers are falling Rudd’s way.

The mood even among many of Gillard’s supporters is bleak. And, after this week’s performance, their support is said to now be soft at best.

One senior Labor MP said that, unless something happens, he was prepared to walk into caucus on Tuesday next week and challenge the PM himself.

“I’ll blow the bloody show up,” they said.

Do it.

Do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it.

So without further ado, here are 5 compelling reasons why the PM deserves an extra $11.9k (now $507k per annum), and why dozy backbench MP’s deserve an extra $4.5k ($195k per annum):

1. Low paid workers were last week awarded a 2.6% pay rise ($821.60 per annum), taking the minimum wage to $622.20 per week ($32k per annum)

2.

3.

4.

5.

Ain’t percentages grand?

Line crossed as Gillard cracks under election strain

It is the time when former senator Steve Fielding dressed up as a bottle, it is the time when former senator Len Harris dressed up as a knight in armour, it is the time when former Senator Andrew Bartlett went bungee jumping and it is the time when current Prime Minister Gillard gave a speech on blue ties and abortion.

It is less than 100 days to an election. This is a time when those behind get jumpy and desperately try anything to get a disengaged electorate to listen.

What is different this time is that it is not minor party leaders jumping for the spotlight, it is a sitting Prime Minister.

If the Prime Minister wants to play the philosophical civil war card, because the electorate and her own party have given up on her, then she will achieve nothing more than the disdain of the electorate at the end of her political career. To say that people were disgusted and gobsmacked by the pure unadulterated parochialism and naivety of this ploy is an understatement.

The vast majority in politics get furious when conscience issues are used for personal political appeal. When debate is called for on the sensitive issue of abortion, it is a conscience issue that both sides co-ordinate together on bipartisan approaches for either side of the debate.

There are very strict, but unwritten, rules of engagement and Ms Gillard broke the lot. Virtually all people have strong and indelible views on this, but how many have pulled this arrow from their quiver during this campaign? None but Ms Gillard.

The anarchy that has beset the nation is further illuminated by Mr Tony Windsor, who states that he will only work with Ms Gillard. One could be so bold to suggest that the nation might come first before personalities.

If Mr Windsor does pull the trigger, that is the end of the referendum into financial recognition of local government. Section 128 of the constitution requires that a law to amend the constitution be passed not less than two months before the referendum. On the current election timetable that law must be passed by June 25 because pre-polling opens on August 26.

Therefore, any election before September 7, in effect, would mean that this referendum would not occur. I thought the recognition of Local Government was part of the independent’s, so-called, “deal”.

As the government has basically ceased operating, it goes to show the good job the bureaucrats do as the wheels of service to the public continue. The issue is more with the private sector.

This nine-month Labor caravan of confusion, otherwise known as the 2013 election, has destroyed business confidence. As National Australia Bank chairman Michael Chaney pointed out on Tuesday, Labor’s decision to hold such a long election campaign has created a perfect storm of consumer pessimism and economic instability.

A lack of business confidence translates into a lack of investment, and an inability for the economy to change gears. As the mining boom tapers off, we need other sectors of the economy – like agriculture, construction and tourism – to pick up.

But no one is going to take the risks necessary to make this change with the “who knows what they’ll do next” crowd that we have in Canberra.

We need a fluid economy. Instead we have a deadlocked government. The general public has gone from not listening to the Prime Minister to disdain.

If you watch people’s faces at waiting rooms, there descends a set look and audible groans as Ms Gillard creates a parody of her office on the rolling news coverage.

We are a better nation than this. As John Howard used to point out there are many more things that unite us than divide us. We have been blessed to generally have leaders that have stressed consensus over division.

Bob Hawke was another example. Indeed, when Julia Gillard first became Prime Minister she claimed that she wanted to govern in the consensus style of Hawke. That’s just another promise that she has failed to keep.

It is disappointing that people, complete strangers, have no hesitation in offering free character assessments of the Prime Minister of Australia. It is not that they disagree with her beliefs, it is the way she keeps returning to the bank of public trust and discerning acumen and dragging it through the mud.

Keynote Address: Politics and Water Policy

You can’t understand water unless you understand politics. This is true the world over. The Chinese character for “politics” is derived from root words meaning flood control.

Water is political because it has all the elements that make politics real for people. It involves competing uses, trade-offs, it does not respect state or international boundaries and humankind has been engaged in a centuries-long battle to control water flows against the random destruction of nature.

All of those elements have been in place in Australia over the past decade, as we have swung from our worst drought to the most destructive floods in our history.

Today, I want to argue that while we have got many things right in this country, the politics of water has at times let Australia down in the management of its water resources.

It has become fashionable to talk about the “consumption” of water, mostly in reference to its over-consumption. Indeed, in the Murray-Darling irrigation is referred to as a “consumptive” use of water, in comparison to the environmental uses of water that are apparently more benign.

We use the word consume without thinking too hard about its relevance to water. Water is not like other products or commodities. Burning coal means there is less coal to use, refining oil brings us closer to peak oil but using water does not reduce the amount of water there is in the world.

We only have one allotment of water, and that was delivered to us 4.4 billion years ago. There is no more water being created or destroyed. As the author Charles Fishman has observed, every glass of water you drink has had a rich history, most likely it has been through the digestive systems of dinosaurs, other animals and perhaps other humans before arriving in your glass.

So water cannot be used or consumed, and it is misleading to prosecute rice growers, cotton farmers or urban gardeners as consuming too much. The problem with that analysis is that it implies that the use of water to grow rice in Deniliquin, takes water away from people being able to water their garden in Melbourne but that is not the case.

Like politics, all water policy, is local.

Pointing this out does not mean there is not water scarcity in some areas, or that there are not competing uses of water. But what is important is that the lessons and issues regarding water in one area cannot easily be translated to other areas.

Murray-Darling

The Murray-Darling debate is a perfect example of this. There is a too common view that the Murray-Darling is a system of interconnected garden hoses. There is a misconception that you just need to add water to fix the Murray-Darling’s problems and it doesn’t matter all that much where that water came from.

It was most evident in the controversy that engulfed Cubbie Station for many years. Queenslanders were blamed for the problems of the Lower Lakes. And the reverse was true too. The Lower Lakes were blamed for all of the problems of the Murray-Darling.

Cubbie is just 200 metres above sea level; it is more than 1500 kilometres from the mouth of the Murray. Water that travels from Cubbie to the Great Australian Bight must travel this entire flat distance over sun-drenched areas and thirsty plains. The CSIRO estimates that, in normal conditions, just 18 per cent of the water from the Balonne system, where Cubbie is located, makes its way to the mouth of the Murray.

It reached its zenith when the Adelaide Advertiser declared on its front page that the 2011 Brisbane floods had led to three years of water being wasted! The claim was that the floodwaters that had flowed into Moreton Bay could have been put into the Western Corridor pipeline, sent up the range to Toowoomba, put in the Condamine and magically meandered its way to South Australia.

Putting aside the laws of physics, the laws of irony were breached first. Here was an article arguing that water was being wasted because it was left to flow out to sea near Brisbane, when it could have been, at great cost, sent more than 2000 kilometres away, to … flow out to sea near Adelaide.

Such thinking has real policy outcomes too. It has led to some disastrously wasteful decisions on water recovery in the Murray-Darling. For instance, the government spent $23 million buying Toorale station, shutting down 4 per cent of Bourke’s economy and 10 per cent of Bourke’s rating base. Barely any of the water from Toorale has been delivered to the environment because an environmental assessment conducted after the purchase concluded that the water storages could not be removed without damaging the wildlife that rely on the artificial water storages to survive. As reported by The Australian, Toorale has effectively become Australia’s biggest and most expensive birdbath.

Like in the Toorale purchase, too often governments ignore the wider economic and social costs of their decisions. This should be no surprise. Governments are simply maximising their returns like anyone else would. So it should be no surprise that when water needs to be recovered they would choose the cheapest option available.

There are really two options to save water for the environment in the Murray-Darling.

First, we can buy the water back from licence holders, take the water out of production and return it to the environment. This option does reduce water use in rural Australia. It will reduce food production and mean fewer jobs and economic development in regional towns.

Second, we can invest in more efficient ways of using water, thus being able to return water to the environment without reducing the amount of food produced or regional economic activity.

Water buybacks are cheaper. They typically cost about $2000 per megalitre, whereas infrastructure investment can cost anywhere from $2000 to $5000 per megalitre.

So it should be no surprise that a cash-strapped government has gone for the cheaper option. So far Labor has invested just 10 per cent of the funds available for water infrastructure investment. In contrast, it has spent 70 per cent of the funds available to buyback water.

The Coalition believes that this approach is too skewed. Governments should be made to consider the wider economic and social impacts of their decisions. If society would like to take 2750 gigalitres of water out of agricultural production, then it should be willing to face up to the full social cost of that change, including the loss of jobs and regional development.

Requiring at least some of the water recovery to come through infrastructure investment makes governments face up to those costs.

That is why the Coalition has proposed capping water buybacks at 1500 gigalitres. The government has already recovered around 1250 gigalitres through water buybacks. That means that the maximum additional buyback that Murray-Darling communities would face would be an additional 250 gigalitres.

It should be noted that this is the government’s own water recovery strategy too. At the moment, they plan to get 1500 gigalitres of the required water through buybacks. It is just that the Labor Party, unlike the Coalition, will not commit to this target.

Last year, the Coalition tried to amend some of the legislation enabling the Basin Plan to insert this cap as a legally binding rule. The Government did not support us, and neither did the country independents, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott.

We believe that a cap on buybacks will provide the 2.1 million people who live in the Murray-Darling Basin the certainty to get on and plan for their futures. While the threat of future water buybacks is there, that cannot happen.

We are constantly told that there are enormous opportunities for Australia to export food to the rising middle class. Given that the Murray-Darling produces 40 per cent of our agriculture, that area has to be part of any strategy to boost exports to Asia.

How will we take those opportunities though if we won’t give agricultural communities the certainty of how much water will be available for productive use? How much mining investment do you think we would attract if we said, we will sell you this tenement but we will decide annually how much coal you can export each year, and that amount may change depending on the political environment of the time?

This is especially so in water where many people have lost trust in this government to manage the $10 billion the Coalition put aside for the Murray-Darling in 2007. In 2011, a bi-partisan committee, chaired by Tony Windsor, concluded that:

The Committee heard of grave mistrust of this department across Basin communities resulting from the failure of the department to identify and respond to community concerns on a range of issues. In addition, this department has demonstrated a consistent failure to deliver water programs, including strategic water buyback, which is in the best interests of productive communities. This department should no longer be responsible for delivering these programs.

Remember that this comment was not a partisan one; it was signed off by Liberal, National, Labor and Independent members. It is often remarked that overseas investors have a more positive view of Australian agriculture than domestic investors. But if they can’t trust their own government, why would they invest?

Northern Australia and Dams

In my view the same blindness to economic and social impacts has contributed to the fact that Australia has not built a dam for more than 20 years. Bert Kelly once remarked that every time he heard funding for a dam announced, he could feel an election coming on. You could almost say the reverse now. Every time you hear a proposed dam being scrapped, you can feel an election coming on.

There are some good reasons why we are not building more dams in the more developed parts of Australia. For one, where we have developed the best dam sites have been taken. For instance, this was evident in the Queensland Government’s proposal to build a dam at Traveston on a geological fault line in an area that would have delivered a dam with an average depth of only around 5 metres. A more than $2 billion cost for a yield of only around 100 megalitres was not value for money.

But there have been some very poor reasons why we have not built dams.

Another reason we have not built dams is because we were told that it would not rain again thanks to climate change. Those predictions have been far off the mark, and a study the other day now claims that climate change will lead to more flooding in the Murray-Darling not less.

Another of those reasons is that we have not looked at the local costs and benefits of building dams. As I said above, all water issues are local issues. But we have been too ready to take the advice on dam building from other countries, or more developed areas of Australia, and apply them to the entire country; such as when areas of our country that are not as developed still have lots of potential for a variety of water supply options. No one option, be it dams or something else, should be pre-emptively vetoed.

That is why the Coalition established the Dams and Water Management Task Group that I am the Deputy Chair of. That group has travelled to every state and territory in the country looking at potential sites and investigating water supply options. A leak earlier this year suggested that the Coalition is going to build 100 dams but we are not about to let 100 flowers boom.

More than 100 potential dam sites have been suggested to us but only a fraction of these will ever be built or even considered. Some of the suggestions are just ideas, others are more substantial but have not been looked at since the days of Surveyor-Generals and Public Works departments. A lot more work will need to be done on most before a dam can be built. All the more reason we should start now.

Water is wealth and dams put water away when it rains to ensure that it is available in drier times. Dams throughout Australia help produce Australia’s food, support towns and communities, produce the majority of Australia’s renewable energy, act as an essential input to our manufacturing and mining industries and help mitigate the impacts of floods.

Australia experiences a highly variable rainfall climate and therefore the use of dams to moderate the impacts of this cycle are more important here than in most other countries. For example, Melbourne’s water supply system has 10 times the per capita storage volume of London’s water supply system for this very reason.

In 1980 Australian dams could hold enough water to supply Australia’s water needs for almost seven years. Today, our dams can hold enough water to store less than six years of water supplies. If no new dams are built, Australia’s storage capacity will fall to below four years’ of supply by 2050.

The Coalition will announce its response to the work of the Dams task group closer to the election but some early findings are clear.

Australia can make better use of its water resources. While Australia is the driest inhabited continent in the world, more water is available for use per person in Australia than in North America, Western Europe or Asia.

Australia uses just 6 per cent of its available water, compared to a world average of 9 per cent. Most of that water use goes to produce food and Australia produces enough food to feed 60 million people worldwide. If we increased our water use to equal the world average, Australia could feed almost 100 million people — even before accounting for any future increases in agricultural productivity.

But doing so will take the real vision to invest in our water resources to help the world deal with the future food task. The world population is set to grow by more than 2 billion people in the next half century. As a result, world cereal production will need to increase by three 3 tonnes a year and meat production would need to increase by 200 million tonnes per year.

Achieving any substantial increase in Australia’s agricultural production will need to involve investment in more irrigation. Irrigation generates 50 per cent of Australia’s agricultural profit from less than 2 per cent of our agricultural land. Irrigation produces food more efficiently and in doing so benefits the environment because more food is produced using less land.

That is not to ignore that too much water is used in some parts of Australia. As discussed earlier, over a number of decades, water has been over-allocated in the Murray-Darling, more than 40 per cent of the water available in the Murray-Darling is used for productive purposes and that will be reduced to 33 per cent after the implementation of the Basin Plan.

The level of water use in the Murray-Darling cannot be compared to undeveloped parts of Australia, and any attempt to do so is a gross distortion of the facts. For instance, just 5 per cent of our water resources in northern Australia are used, even though 60 per cent of Australia’s water falls there.

In the north of Australia there is significant potential for new water storages.

Those that are anti-development often claim that the soils in northern Australia are too poor, as if anywhere north and west of Brisbane must be a desert. This is simply incorrect. The CSIRO estimates that there is between 5 and 17 million hectares of arable soil in northern Australia. When the task group visited Go-Go Station in Western Australia, we were advised that there was 100,000 hectares of blacksoil on this property alone.

To put these figures in context, Australia only irrigates 2 million hectares across the entire nation.

The Ord is already expanding to more than double its area under irrigation, and future opportunities may lie in the West Kimberley as well, although these will be further away.

In the Northern Territory there are opportunities to expand the use of groundwater. The Northern Territory’s groundwater resources are poorly understood, and it would appear that the current approach errs on the side of caution because of this lack of knowledge.

Off-stream storage has real potential in the Gulf. The Queensland Government recently sold 80,000 megalitres of water in a tender that was over-subscribed in the Flinders catchment.

In north and central Queensland there are plenty of options some of which will be needed to provide more water to the coal industry.

Decisions on urban water

Most of these immediate water needs will be focused on water for agriculture or mining. The CSIRO estimates that most of our capital cities will not need further water supply augmentations for 10 to 15 years. Although there will be exceptions. Darwin’s population is rapidly growing and a response will probably be needed before then.

While that might seem some time off Australia needs to start planning for new water storages now. It can take 10 to 15 years for a dam to progress from concept to construction completion. We need to start planning for new water supply solutions today before it is too late.

The most recent drought put immense strain on Australia’s urban water resources. Dam levels in Sydney and Melbourne fell below 40 per cent, and below 20 per cent in Brisbane. Governments were forced to make rushed decisions to increase water supplies, and over $10 billion was invested in desalination plants to deliver 500 gigalitres of new water. It is partly because of these investments mean that Australia’s major cities have sufficient supply to meet demand for probably the next 15 years.

Yet it is clear now that mistakes were made. Too much was spent unnecessarily on desalination capacity. Only the desalination plants in Perth are being regularly used to supply water needs, while desalination plants in South-East Queensland, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide lie dormant at great cost to water consumers. Water prices have increased by 64 per cent since 2007.

These flawed decisions imposed higher water prices on consumers and potentially cheaper alternatives, such as dams, were ignored or given little consideration.

I don’t want to be too critical of those governments because those decisions were made under political pressure, and no government can afford for a major city to run out of water when facing a drought crisis.

The lesson for us though is a stitch in time saves nine. If we had done the preparation on what should be the future water supply options, then governments could readily evaluate a range of options, rather than jump for those that provided the quickest fix.

That is why the Coalition has committed all infrastructure investments of more than $100 million, that are supported by the Commonwealth, will require an analysis by Infrastructure Australia. That includes the investments that the Coalition will make in dams and other water infrastructure. That approach will be consistent with the National Water Initiative that the former Coalition Government put in place.

The Coalition will also ensure that we conduct feasibility studies now on future water supply options so that we are ready when our future water supplies dwindle. We will have more to say on that in our response to the Dams task group.

Conclusion

As a Senator I have been based in St George for almost eight years. St George is a town that is built on irrigation. A town of no more than 5000 in the district produces more than $500 million of cotton every year, around $200 million in grain and then melons, onions and other produce.

That is all there because we built a dam on the Balonne River and a weir downstream. The result has been a massive increase in productivity.

We are often told that Australia needs to do more to increase its productivity. Well, irrigation is a productivity booster. It turns water into “white gold”. Around 50 per cent of the value added in Australian agriculture comes from the 2 per cent of our land that is irrigated.

As a country we have come through the worst drought in our history. Rightly, much of our water policies over that time have focused on managing water shortages and conserving water for the environment.

But we must also recognise that water has more than just environmental uses. Our policies must be balanced to ensure that we protect the environment, develop our economy and sustain those towns and communities that rely on the use of water to survive.

That is why a Coalition Government will invest water efficiency not just buybacks, that is why a Coalition Government will build new dams to open up new areas of our country to agricultural and mining development and that is why a Coalition Government will start planning today to tackle the water shortages that will come in our future.

Conservative blogger Andrew Bolt has called it right – “Is this the most stupid, divisive and dishonest speech in Australian politics?”

Some very interesting comments — from those most un-likely — are quoted at that link. Worth a look.

Jaunt through colourful past brings future into focus

Politics at the federal level has lost much of its lustre. The Labor Party are screaming at us through the nightly news that they are for the high jump. You can almost tell that they are past caring.

They do care about preselections in their dwindling number of safe seats, though. So there is a high degree of interest in whether Senator David Feeney the “faceless man” can become “Batman” (i.e. member of) after the retirement of Martin Ferguson. I suppose he will then be the “faceless batman”.

When the present situation in Australian politics gets you down, there is respite in our past.If you are a politics junkie then Tenterfield, in the northern New England, is a must. Tenterfield is the place where our continent was united, where our states joined to become one “indissoluble Federal Commonwealth”, in the words of the preamble to our Constitution.

We are the only island continent not burdened with the divisions and demarcations of national borders.

Tenterfield gets its name from the home in Scotland of the Donaldsons, Stuart Donaldson being a pioneer in the area and also the first premier of NSW.

Tenterfield was prepared as a battle site to defend Australia from invasion by Japan in World War II and tank traps can still be seen in the country nearby. Not to be parochial it was also the home of Robert Mackenzie, the third premier of Queensland. It was the last major railway station going north before the ultimate tariff, narrow-gauge railway lines, brought things to a grinding halt in Queensland. It was the home of Major James Thomas, who defended Breaker Morant, a seminal action in our history, Australia taking one of its first steps away from English oversight.

Dr Earl Page and John Hynes started the NSW Country Party in Tenterfield in around 1918, today Australia’s second-longest established party, after the Australian Labor Party.

Most noted of course is the 1889 federation debates held at the School of Arts on Tenterfield’s main street, and the paternal role that Sir Henry Parkes played in those debates. Edward Whereat withdrew from election for the NSW seat of Tenterfield to allow Sir Henry Parkes to make one of his many re-entries to Parliament. It is said that Parkes showed his gratitude by visiting Tenterfield perhaps twice during his tenure as the local member.

If politics drives someone in your party around the twist and they are searching for something lighter, well Peter Allen came from Tenterfield also.

Hanging in the School of Arts is the New England flag from the failed 1967 referendum to create a new state apart from NSW. The local member, until only very recently, was Richard Torbay. Even though he has resigned and been referred to ICAC, he was still polling at more than 50 per cent weeks out from a by-election he was not standing for.

To the west of Tenterfield is the derelict tobacco drying sheds, the casualty of a policy that says it is all right to kill yourself with smoking but you must do it with tobacco grown overseas. In town is one of Australia’s most successful hearse manufacturers, who are being killed by overseas tariffs.

The remainder of the world that excludes Australia lives in a pragmatic place away from the divine word of the free market gospel and premises their policies on bilateral arrangements of mutually negotiated benefit.

Drake to the east of Tenterfield used to have a timber industry which the Greens closed down. It once had a mining industry which the Greens don’t support, and it has a cattle industry which the Greens are trying to shut. Not surprisingly, the unemployment rate is through the roof. This is yet another iteration of current Australian politics.

The election that will be held in 100 days’ time will fundamentally be an election about the future, not the past, nor the present. Does Australia want a future where sensible government is returned to Canberra? Or will we continue to wallow in the morass of excessive promises, high debt and internal fascinations that have dominated federal politics for the last five years?

I think the Australian people have basically made their mind up on this question. The interest will turn to localised battles, where the margins for defeat are high, such as in New England.

In those seats, the people will ask themselves do they feel that the Labor Party, Ms Gillard and Mr Swan deserve endorsement of their current form of government? Or should they change to the alternative side, and most likely have a representative who is part of the solution to fixing their problems?

Love the sarcasm.

From Gary Gibson, editor of The Dollar Vigilante:

I feel like those who stayed in the Soviet Union right up until 1991… except that most Soviets actually knew their system was terrible. They had two governmental “news” outlets, the main Communist newspaper and the main Soviet newspaper, Pravda and Izvestia. Those names meant “the truth” and “the news” respectively… and a popular Russian saying was “v Pravde net izvestiy, v Izvestiyakh net pravdy” (In the Truth there is no news, and in the News there is no truth).

Here the local slaves still think the propaganda and drivel on CNN and other mainstream programming is actually both the truth and real news!

It’s a good thing I am still sitting in a bar and can drink the only government-approved intoxicating agent…even if it is the least effective and slowest of the various ways to make the world melt away. No wonder everyone here drinks so much!

It’s really looking like the final chapter of Atlas Shrugged with everyone clinging to centrally planned solutions even as those solutions accelerate economic collapse.

On All Fool’s Day 2013, this blog published the exposé — since cross-posted on globalresearch.ca — that G20 Governments All Agreed to Cyprus-Style Theft Of Bank Deposits In 2010.

It is telling to observe how politicians (and the media) worldwide are using the deceitful art of sophistry to obscure this truth.

As they all begin to pass the necessary legislation to enact what they have already agreed to — in secret, without providing clear and transparent advice to the public — they are seeking to subtly imply that these measures are needed as a result of what happened in Cyprus.

When the truth is, little Cyprus was just the first test case for implementing the Goldman Sachs-headed internationalist Financial Stability Board’s new bank “bail-in” regime, agreed to by all G20 Prime Ministers and Presidents nearly 3 years ago.

Ponder carefully the emphasised passage in the following Reuter’s news story:

EU draft bank rescue law would not shield big deposits

(Reuters) – A draft law that a group of European Union lawmakers voted for on Monday would shield small depositors from losing their savings in future bank rescues, but customers with more than 100,000 euros in savings when a bank failed could suffer losses.

A group of lawmakers in the European Parliament’s economics committee overwhelmingly voted that, from 2016, large depositors in the EU might suffer losses if a bank gets into serious trouble. The plan was similar to a deal in Cyprus, where wealthy depositors at two banks took hits to save the country from bankruptcy.

Under the EU proposal, a bank would dip into large deposits of over 100,000 euros once it had exhausted other avenues such as shareholders and bondholders. But deposits under 100,000 euros would be spared.

“The case in Cyprus showed how important it is to have clear procedures for making shareholders, bondholders and ultimately depositors foot the bill,” a press release from the committee said after the vote.

See what I mean? The Cyprus “bail-in” test case, deceitfully used as an example of why governments supposedly need to pass legislation for “similar” actions in their own countries … legislation that they already agreed to pass anyway, nearly 3 years ago.

EU finance ministers agreed last week that large, uninsured depositors should be subject to losses but some countries may still seek some flexibility on how they wind down their banks.

The “finance ministers” agreed, “last week”?

This is a deception.

As shown previously, the Prime Ministers and Presidents of the G20 nations all agreed to the policy framework laid down by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) at the Seoul G20 Summit, way back in 2010.

A framework that explicitly includes “bail-in” of banks, using the deposits (i.e, savings) of bank “creditors”:

“Carry out bail-in within resolution as a means to achieve or help achieve continuity of essential functions…”

Click to enlarge

There is something else that is very important to note.

The FSB, politicians, bankers, and bureaucrats all want you to believe that these new procedures might only place at some risk the savings of so-called “large” or “big” depositors.

This is untrue.

The FSB-recommended “powers” for the G20 nations’ new bank “resolution authorities” exhibit Orwellian deception and moral relativism at their finest. Embedded within their recommended “Safeguards”, is a caveat allowing those “resolution authorities” to act with impunity when it comes to the theft of depositors’ money:

“Resolution powers should be exercised in a way that respects the hierarchy of claims while providing flexibility to depart from the general principle of equal (pari passu) treatment of creditors of the same class…”

Click to enlarge

In other words, whether you have more than (say) 100,000 Euro/Dollars/Pounds deposited in a bank, or less, it is recommended (by Goldman Sachs’ FSB) that G20 governments legislate powers enabling their “resolution authorities” the “flexibility” to treat you any way they see fit.

“Equal treatment” is only a “general principle” to these people.

You may be wondering, if G20 governments all agreed to this way back in 2010, then why are we only now seeing nations from Canada to Europe beginning to draft and pass bank “bail-in” legislation, behind a smokescreen of lies and deceit?

As can be seen from the FSB press release of November 2011:

“Implementation of these measures will begin from 2012. Full implementation is targeted for 2019.”

Click to enlarge

Some nations’ politicians are simply moving faster than others, in the coordinated drive towards the ultimate goal of stealing your savings, in order to “bail-in” so-called “systemically important” banks:

Earlier on Monday, Bank of England Deputy Governor Paul Tucker said the EU law on bank recovery and resolution would be a milestone towards a global system.

Here we go again.

I encourage all readers to visit the nopowergrab.com.au website, and learn why you should vote NO to the referendum question that will be included with your ballot papers at the September election.

Has this referendum been proposed before?

Yes. Similar referendums were put by the Whitlam government in 1974 and the Hawke government in 1988. The 1974 referendum lost by 53.15 per cent of the total vote and
was only successful in New South Wales. The 1988 referendum lost with 66.39 per cent of the total vote and lost in all States. At both referenda the Australian people rejected Canberra’s power grab.

The fact that both of the major political parties support this referendum proposal, is yet another reason Why People Of Conscience Cannot Vote For Abbott.