Melbourne Water

I found what struck me personally as egregious growthist propaganda dressed up as an academic research article on The Conversation, yesterday: "Blaming immigrants for unemployment, lower wages and high house prices is too simplistic." [February 23, 2018 11.26am AEDT]. The article was headed up by professor of economics, Robert Breunig from the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, and co-authored by Mark Fabian, Postgraduate student, Australian National University. Professor Breunig disclosed that he receives funding from the Productivity Commission, which I think is a leopard with continuously changing arrangement of spots according to whatever political background it needs to blend into for survival. Leith van Onselen's debate with Migration Council's CEO Carla Wilshire of the on the ABC’s National Wrapdocumented here, seems to illustrate this, but for all I know the professor and his student actually believe what they write.

Animals are losing their trees in droves. The cause is population growth. There is a new tree removing policy for all dams and retarding basins in Victoria, treating small retarding basins as if they were big dams, and treating trees as problems, where previously they were considered desirable. See inside for locations. This policy applies in other states as well. VicRoads is also suddenly removing trees en-masse from roadsides and median strips! None of these policies gives adequate consideration to wildlife habitat or cruelty impacts. There is no overall coordinating policy for Australia to ensure the preservation of wildlife and wildlife corridors at local, state and national levels, nor to avoid heat-island creation and local climate change, or citizen despair. With constant clearing for new suburbs and roads all over habitable Australia, tree removal by governments and contractors is reaching the level of a national civil emergency.

AWPC writes that only two of its questions were answered satisfactorily. It asks Melbourne Water what happens to the wildlife after the clearing? “The AWPC, wildlife rescuers and shelters regularly experience the fallout of such projects. Consultants and wildlife handlers are contracted at a premium price, only to hand over displaced, orphaned and injured wildlife to either vets or local wildlife shelters who are then expected to deal with these sentinel beings at their own cost. Quite frankly this is unacceptable and needs to stop, which is why the AWPC ask you the following questions once again.” Inside, full correspondence to date.

Jan Beer, Plug The Pipe spokesperson and environmental activist in opposition to North-South Pipeline, is taking legal action against Government Agency Melbourne Water for alleged infringements of her right to privacy over a 2 year period.

The original case for Labor's controversial $1 billion food bowl upgrade was rejected by state cabinet because the government's promised water savings could not be achieved for the price tag of $1 billion, it has been revealed.
Farmers have slammed an independent report that says Murrumbidgee and Murray irrigators should make big sacrifices to help revive the Murray-Darling Basin. The cut would drain at least $2.7 billion out of the basin's economy.
The north-south pipeline has provided a mere 16.7 billion litres. That translates to a piddling 1% of Melbourne’s current water supply.

Earth Matters, 31 Aug 2009
On the pristine coast of southern Victoria construction of one of the world’s biggest desalination plants is set to go ahead. Earth Matters talks to local campaigner Stephen Cannon, oceanographer Jochen Kaempf and water expert Peter Coombes about the risks of and alternatives to this ‘silver bullet’ approach to water supply problems. File Download (28:58 min / 13 MB)

Fresh water dam capacity is a known determinant of a dependent population's capacity. Once dam levels drop below critical levels, water demand has clearly exceeded supply. So logically, rationally, naturally, excessive demand ought to be tempered and curtailed. This is what rationally follows in macroeconomics, like when Australia's Reserve Bank increases interest rates to dampen excess demand. It doesn't suggest we import more.

But governments spin their own reality and now employ communication consultants to evangelise that spin.