In the evocative words of Martin Luther King Jr., ‘I have a dream.’
It is a dream I have had for several decades. It is a dream that could so easily be real. It is a dream that could dramatically lift Australia’s productivity. It is a dream that could make Australia a more secure country. But government inaction makes it a continuing mirage.
My dream is that on this the driest inhabited continent on Earth, we would build dams on most of our rivers. These dams would have multiple purposes. They would store excess water in times of flood flow. Reduce flood damage, release water in dry times for irrigated agriculture, and produce low-cost hydropower. Mankind has yet to find a better way of doing this than building dams.
It is now over 40 years since we built our last major dam, which was Wivenhoe Dam on the Brisbane River. During the intervening period, our population has grown by over 12 million people. If Australia continues on this path, we may be headed for water shortages and, as our population blooms, likely very severe shortages.
The time for dam building is now. Starting with not one, but several. Most of the preliminary work on siting and size has been completed for years and construction could start soon. Preferably, today.
If it does not and we continue into a drought cycle, then much of southern Australia will be drastically short of water this summer. This will initially affect annual crop irrigators like rice, corn, and cotton growers. It would quickly lead to rationing of water to other users like grape and fruit growers. The results would be large-scale employment lay-offs in regional centres.
This in unison with rising interest rates will plunge Australia into a prolonged recession.
A recession that most present-day politicians could not manage. The ‘lucky country’ would become the doomed country. Previously thriving communities would become welfare recipient slums. With our major dams in the south now sitting on an average of 53 per cent and the irrigation season due to start in the next month and now likely snow-melt being very low, it is not surprising that ‘general security’ allocations are presently only 22 per cent. Unless there is a soon-to-be-announced large increase in this figure, there will be widespread lay-offs as the production of rice, corn, cotton, and vegetable crops drop dramatically.
I do not believe that either the Federal government under the lacklustre Murray-Darling Basin Plan, or the NSW State government have any suitable plans to prevent potential disaster.
How do we better manage the water resources we have?
We begin by recognising that Commonwealth intervention in water management remains a point of contest between stakeholders, unnecessary, and counter-productive. The existing system should be wound up and water entitlements held by the environmental water holder should be sold back to end users in the valley from which they were purchased.
We then set about constructing the dams we should have been building over the last 40 years. In no specific order these dams are now urgently needed.
The Welcome Reef Dam on the Shoalhaven River, to secure Sydney’s water supply.
A dam and a weir on the Mitchell River to guarantee Melbourne’s water supply.
The Chowilla Dam on the Murray to harness this vast resource.
Implement the Bradfield Scheme on the Burdekin River in Queensland.
A dam on the Namoi River and several weirs on the Darling River.
Many more are needed and planning and assessment should start now.
The Federal government should stop chasing the ‘Rainbows’ of climate change and AI and instead implement real, needed policy that will provide future generations with reliable and cheap power and water. They are and always have been the catalysts of production.
The people will do the rest, Australia will prosper, and my dream will come true.
