Crikey

In discussing the endemic mismanagement of the Murray-Darling river system, a recent editorial in Australia’s national daily concluded: “The only way to ensure water can be quarantined to keep rivers alive, while making the best use of whatever is left, is to leave it to the market.”

This glib assertion must not pass unchallenged, as it appears to be a continuation of the well-orchestrated campaign promoting the privatisation-by-stealth of Australia’s water. It is also at odds with the reality that the private entities, now manically investing in the nation’s water resources, view the responsible management of water as secondary to their prime aims: unfettered infrastructure development and consumption-based profiteering.

Membership of their cartel is gained either by entering into murky public-private partnerships (PPPs) with state governments, integrally linked to the construction of desalination plants, pipelines, dams and water-bottling factories, promoted as high-tech “solutions to the water crisis” or by investing in water entitlements worth many millions of dollars and then luring desperate water users into lease-back arrangements, with little or no consideration of the use to which the water will be put.

Parties to the PPP arrangements are less keen to admit that these measures are untenably expensive, inefficient, environmentally damaging and, most importantly, unnecessary.

Communities on all continents bear deep scars as a result of the crusades of water privateers: a litany of corruption, including payment of bribes to government officials, litigation, social irresponsibility, environmental degradation — and soaring water prices. There is no reason to believe that Australia is immune to such diseases: at least one of these seriously tainted multinationals, Veolia, is now a major player in Australia’s water industry.

The upshot of these highly-questionable PPPs is that billions of dollars are being extracted from the public purse to conjure up relatively small amounts of “additional” water; monies debited to our account, despite the fact that, in most instances, these projects, destined to swallow our tax-dollars for years to come, were actively criticised in the electoral manifestos of the very administrations now responsible for their construction and promotion.

Governments also summarily dismissed the findings of the many independent reports that oppose these massive infrastructure developments; in some instances, reports that they themselves commissioned before the signing of contracts.

Now the same administrations, fighting for a semblance of credibility in the face of growing well-informed criticism, have circled the party wagons and resorted to the philosophy, “if you say something long enough and loud enough and often enough, the people will believe it”.

As part of this mantra, water ministers incessantly declare that desalination plants provide vital insurance against water restrictions: statements justifiably condemned by proponents of responsible water use. Moreover, cursory investigation reveals their true insurance value as diaphanous at best.

Water to be delivered by Australia’s multibillion dollar desalination plants comes at a price: up to five times that of conventional supplies — and at significant cost to the environment. It will also constitute a tiny fraction of that provided from existing sources. It will, however, result in considerable profit for those involved in the construction and ongoing operation of the required infrastructure.

The combined annual output of the plants in NSW, Victoria and South Australia is projected to total a mere 340 billion litres; less than 3% of the total water consumed by these states in 2004-2005 (12,280 billion litres); and less than 75% of the volume (more than 460 billion litres) that erstwhile cotton plantation, Cubbie Station, was permitted to extract annually from the Murray-Darling river system to cultivate its water-intensive crop in semi-arid country — an entitlement more or less donated to Cubbie by the Queensland government (It scarcely comes as a surprise that the chairman of Cubbie Group is a previous Treasurer of the Sunshine State).

The total price of the three water factories currently stands at about $7.8 billion, ignoring annual operational charges totalling many millions of dollars — which will also be borne by consumers.

Water speculation is already the cause of frenetic activity in the private sector, with billions of litres of water entitlements being scooped up by groups set to derive significant returns from water trading. With ever-increasing frequency, agribusinesses are coming to the understanding that there may well more profit to be made from buying and selling water than from concentrating on their previous agrarian pursuits.

The most recent evidence of this trend is the purchase of more than 3 billion litres of “high-reliability” Murray water by Tandou Ltd, for the princely sum of $5.6 million; the company envisages increased involvement in the investment in and lease-back of water from the Murray-Darling river system.

In a privatised setting, secure water supplies are only guaranteed to those able to foot the bill, with the public and the environment historically bearing the brunt of any shortfall.

Independent water experts now largely agree that, in the drier future predicted for Australia, our water security can be readily assured without ceding control of supplies to the private sector. There are also persistent and increasingly loud calls for water to be protected as a public “good” rather than treated as a marketable commodity.

Australia’s national water plan should be founded on this “water-commons” principle and an understanding of the fact that that globally only 10% of water used is required to be of potable quality. The massive wastage of high-quality water provided to industry and domestic bathrooms and laundries, which will only increase in a privatised, consumption-driven water future, should be an anathema to us all.

The once “alternative” approach to water management, accentuating storm-water sequestration, recycling and installation of rainwater tanks, in combination with the formation of a truly independent and appropriately empowered national body to manage our surface and groundwater resources, is now accepted by many as the most assured, cost-effective and transparent means of water management.

There is not a shred of doubt that, as part of the “demand and supply” philosophy of the privatised alternative, Australians will be constantly reminded of the need to respond to threats to our water security in the months and years to come. Governments and their PPP partners are already keen to denigrate any lack of community support for their “visionary” initiatives as being downright un-Australian: as exemplified by the increasing tendency for administrations to classify legal protests as criminal gatherings.

Government departments and their multinational partners now store images and files detailing those members of the community who, dismayed by the constant reneging on pre-election commitments and the lack of meaningful public consultation on matters of vital public interest, participate in legitimate protest.

Thankfully, electorates are rapidly becoming water wise and those who aspire to elected office ignore this fact at their peril.

In the current climate, environmental and electoral, whichever parliamentary candidates most clearly reflect the aspirations of 21^st century Australians with respect to the protection and careful management of their water resources, being termed the “new oil” in the corridors of predatory investment companies, will derive tangible benefits at the ballot box.

The time is right to show the privateers the door — together with the governments that share their lucrative water beds.