Melbourne could run out of water in ten years because of population growth and climate change

Wotta lotta bore-water!  For a start, Melbourne already has a big desalination plant that is hardly used. 

Secondly, global warming will produce more evaporation off the oceans and hence MORE rain, not less. 

Thirdly, the Snowy scheme already pours lots of dammed water into the sea for "environmental" reasons.  That water could easily be diverted inland into the Murray river. There is already a tunnel for that purpose. And again there is already a pipeline linking the Murray to Melbourne's water supply. 

The galoots below would seem not to have a clue about the Melbourne water supply.  They are however Greenies so are probably just frauds who want to frighten people. The only threat to the Melbourne water supply is the Greenies who want to send already-dammed water out to sea


One of the world's most livable cities could be facing an acute water shortage problem in the next ten to 15 years time no thanks to climate change and population growth.

Water supply in Melbourne may fall and reach a crisis point if no precautionary methods are taken to contain the problem from today, reports The Age.

The publication says demand for water in the state is expected to exceed the supply by 2028.

According to projections made by City West Water, Yarra Valley Water and South East Water demand for water is projected to surge to about 75 percent in the next 40 years, the publication reports.

Some water corporation produced the probable scenario for the state's water supply, Environment Victoria's acting chief executive, Nicholas Aberle told Daily Mail Australia.

Mr Aberle said there was a bunch of things that Melbournians can do to address the situation by incorporating several water saving habits.

He said people should learn ways on saving storm water and turning that into a valuable water resource. 'During the drought (1997 to 2009) people were managing water efficiency by only using 155 litres a day.

'People should have a behavioural change and use 100 litres of water a day and handle the water resources efficiently,' he said.

Melbourne Water spokesman Joseph Keller told the publication that people living in the state were 'encouraged to limit their consumption to 155 litres per person per day.'

At present Melbourne Water reports that residents in the state use 162 litres of water per person per day in 2016-17.

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Liberal Party leader reveals his plans to help Aboriginal communities in South Australia's APY Lands

The APY is an Aboriginal tribal area.  The Leftist government is just spending money on more bureaucracy rather than doing anything practical to help Aborigines

PLANS for Aboriginal treaties in South Australia are a “cruel hoax” that will not be supported by the Liberals, Opposition Leader Steven Marshall says.

In a move that will set the tone for how a Liberal Government would handle Aboriginal issues, Mr Marshall says symbolism will be scrapped and health, education, jobs and safety prioritised.

Speaking to the Sunday Mail during a three-day trip to the APY Lands last week, Mr Marshall said treaties were unworkable and not a priority for Aboriginal communities in South Australia.

“Treaties are a cruel hoax because they promise hope but don’t deliver practical outcomes,” he said.

“We have been here three days and nobody has raised the issue. The Anangu people want practical solutions and that is what we will be doing.

“The Government has neglected (health, education, jobs and safety) over the past 15 years while they have focused on gestures that are not practical for Aboriginal people across South Australia.”

Aboriginal Affairs Minister Kyam Maher last year announced the State Government would begin treaty discussions with Aboriginal South Australians as the next step towards reconciliation.

But Mr Marshall, who has vowed to become the first SA Premier to hold the Aboriginal Affairs portfolio if elected in March, said the Liberals will not support Labor’s treaty plan.

“Federal Labor governments from Hawke to Keating to Rudd and Gillard have talked about a treaty for 30 years,” he said.

“The problem on the APY Lands is there have been too many groups trying to provide solutions on complex issues but these are being done without any useful co-ordination whatsoever.”

Mr Marshall knows his attitude will be criticised by some in the Aboriginal community, which has previously supported the State Government’s treaty plans.

“Labor have done a lot more of the symbolic recognitions. The Liberals, by contrast, have proved to be very practical in terms of management of Aboriginal Affairs,” he said.

Mr Marshall said his Stolen Generation Bill, which was knocked back by Labor in 2014 before being reintroduced by the State Government in another form, showed his commitment to good outcomes for Aboriginal people.

Under Mr Marshall’s plan, about 300 Aboriginals would have been awarded $50,000 compensation in-line with the maximum amount payable from the Victims of Crime fund.

“The South Australian Government has still not paid a single cent to the people,” he said.

The State Government has set aside $4.4 million over five years to support the treaty process, the appointment of an independent Treaty Commissioner and governance training and support for Aboriginal nations to participate in the treaty negotiations.

Legislation underpinning Labor’s treaty plans are set to be debated in State Parliament in coming weeks.

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New Leftist government already plunging Western Australia into more debt

Shades of Kevvy Rudd and Julia Gillard

THE McGowan Government is splurging more than $7 million a day on delivering election promises.

Figures compiled by the State Opposition show that in the 130 days since the March 11 election, Labor has committed to spending nearly $1 billion in projects.

This is despite the fact Premier Mark McGowan famously told West Australians within weeks of coming to power that “we now confront the worst set of finances since the Great Depression”.

Accusing the Government of “financial recklessness”, Opposition leader Mike Nahan said the $925 million spend was unacceptable given the new administration had yet to even deliver its first Budget, which is due on September 7.

He warned Labor’s spending would see State debt soar to more than $50 billion by the next election in 2021, close to double the $27 billion debt it inherited from the former Liberal-National Government.

“The McGowan Government has committed to spending more than $7 million every single day since it was elected,” Dr Nahan said.

“To commit almost a billion dollars expenditure without any Budget scrutiny is financial recklessness and anything but the gold standard transparency Mr McGowan promised.”
WA Opposition Leader Mike Nahan, who has accused the Government of financial 'recklessness'.

According to the Opposition’s figures, spending has included the Joondalup hospital extension ($167 million), a new inner-city college at Kitchener Park in Subiaco ($68 million) and education assistants ($40 million).

Dr Nahan said West Australians were being slugged big dollars — including water and electricity bill hikes — to help pay for Labor’s pledges.

“On June 22, the State Government hit WA families with massive increases in household expenses, which it said would raise an additional $200 million over the next four years,” Dr Nahan said.

“At its current rate of spending all of those savings have been spent in the last 30 days.”

WA Treasurer Ben Wyatt yesterday fired back by mocking Dr Nahan’s record as the State’s former financial chief.

“Today clearly marks the first day in his political career that Mike Nahan has been concerned about Government spending,” Mr Wyatt said.

“However, I won’t be taking any advice from the man whose disastrous track record of financial mismanagement delivered the tight financial position that he suddenly appears to be concerned about.

“Since inheriting the worst set of books in the history of WA, the McGowan Government has got on with the job of fixing the mess left behind while also delivering on our election commitments.

“We are proud to have invested in jobs, education, hospitals, public transport and country roads, while also making the tough decisions to go towards Budget repair.”

WA Premier Mark McGowan laughed off the opposition criticising his government for spending $7 million a day meeting election commitments, saying the Liberals were spending $81 million a day.

Mr McGowan says the cash has been well-spent on a new western suburbs school and expanding WA's busiest hospital.

"He talks rubbish. For him to suddenly claim the moral high ground when it comes to debt and deficit is laughable and also embarrassing for him," the premier told reporters in Fremantle on Sunday.

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Disgusting Queensland police show no regard for the law

They hate it that they don't have a total monopoly on gun ownership

FOR a Justice of the Peace, Gympie gun dealer Ron Owen has had a lot of run-ins with the police. This month he further increased his lead over all rivals for the self anointed title, “most charged innocent man in Queensland.” Claiming to have faced more than 2850 charges, he says he has beaten them all.

The Gympie Times reports that on Thursday Ron Owen revealed that he had now received one more vindication, when police withdrew an assault charge involving a person Mr Owen claimed was lawfully removed from his McMahon Rd gun shop.

The defence was that he acted lawfully, but that police did not when an officer seized the shop’s CCTV footage.

Mr Owen says the would-be customer had become agitated at the time staff took to finalise a eight-month old lay-by, so much so that Mr Owen refunded payments, rather than take responsibility for arming him. Yesterday Mr Owen said police wrote to him this week, saying the charge had been withdrawn.

But Mr Owen insists it is not a case of him beating the law. It has always been, he says, a case of the law protecting the citizen against sometimes mistaken agents of the state.

Some of his trouble started years ago, when he published a recipe for black powder, something which he says could also be found in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Then came the gun de-activation case, in which he was charged with de-activating guns other than by approved methods.

He made history (and The Gympie Times front page) by re-activating an approved replica in less than 15 minutes, at the bar table of the Gympie Magistrates Court, armed only with a screwdriver and pliers. The witness forced to acknowledge his point was the head of police Ballistics.

“I would have done it quicker if I’d remembered to put the firing pin back in the first time,” Mr Owen said later. “And did you notice I didn’t use the pliers?”

Then came the gun buyback in which he proved, using data from police computers (purchased second hand at a police auction), that he was being paid less than anyone else for “millions of dollars worth of gun parts.”

An attempt was once also made to cancel his gun dealer’s licence.

Once, after civil action in which police were ordered to pay costs, he says he had to take further action to force payment. At one point he and his family were offered witness protection by the then Criminal Justice Commission.

He refused, because it would have silenced him.

He wonders how many others, without such generous legal support, have suffered serious injustice.

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What will Canberra's Human Rights Commission outlaw next?

Mayhem and mad logic in the ACT

What to do when lying facedown on the floor, hands over head, when the neighbourhood is firebombed and houses are getting sprayed with an AK-47 automatic weapon?

It is a question residents in the Canberra southern district of Tuggeranong must have asked this week with the fifth such incident in recent months, as the turf war among rival outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMCG) intensifies.

“I just think it’s a matter of time before an innocent person gets caught up in that and gets injured or killed,” said Chief Police Officer Justine Saunders.

Residents caught in such terrifying situations could, while waiting for police and emergency services, draw solace from reading the secular version of the Good Book, in this case the ACT’s Human Rights Act 2004. Section 9 provides that “no-one may be arbitrarily deprived of life.”

The responsibility for ensuring compliance with that Act sits with the ACT Human Rights Commission and its president, Dr Helen Watchirs. Compared with that of her federal counterpart Gillian Triggs, Watchirs has a relatively paltry base salary of $220,381.

Unlike the federal government, the ACT’s minority government, a Labor/Greens coalition, takes very seriously the decrees of its HRC president. In July 2016 the government rejected calls from police to enact anti-consorting legislation to address the increasing and longstanding OMCG threat, citing Watchirs’ advice that the proposed laws “should have no place in a modern democratic society”.

The “level of OMCG activity in the ACT remains relatively low”, submitted Watchirs, who presumably doesn’t get out to Tuggeranong much. As recently as 2015 then Attorney-General Simon Corbell had been in favour of the legislation, declaring he did not want OMCGs to see Canberra as a “soft touch”.

The fact gangs have since come to the capital in droves is not so much them seeing Canberra as a soft touch but more a laughing stock.

Also opposing the laws was the Greens’ Shane Rattenbury, currently the Minister for Justice. Ostensibly the junior partner in the coalition, he enjoys a disproportionate influence — the green eminence, one might quip. His party’s agreement with Labor is based on having one’s cake and eating it too, for Rattenbury enjoys all the perks of being a minister while not having to observe cabinet solidarity.

As with Watchirs, Rattenbury strongly professes a belief in civil liberties, hence his opposition to the anti-consorting laws. Yet only days after opposing this legislation he introduced a private amendment to the territory’s anti-discrimination laws, since passed, to outlaw “vilification” on the grounds of religion.

This includes “serious contempt” for and “severe ridicule of” a person and/or a group of people, and it can be infringed simply by displaying an emblem on a T-shirt or a post on social media.

So what was Rattenbury’s justification for such sweeping legislation and the consequent restrictions upon freedom of speech? Very little as it turns out. He cited vandalism of an Islamic centre (for which there were already provisions in criminal law), and claimed that houses had received leaflets containing “anti-Muslim material” in opposition to a proposed mosque.

In any event this legislation appears to contravene section 16 of the Human Rights Act, which provides for people to have the right to “hold opinions without interference,” and “freedom of expression”, including “the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds.” Surely it was only a matter of time before Watchirs objected strongly to Rattenbury’s amendment?

Not only did Watchirs not oppose this amendment: she approved of it. You heard right: the human rights commissioner who labelled the anti-consorting legislation as a “profoundly retrogressive step” heartily endorsed what closely resembles the old blasphemy laws. Religious vilification, she said last year, was “an issue”.

Clearly it must be an overwhelming issue if the numbers in the HRC annual report for 2014/15 are accurate. According to that document the HRC did not receive a single complaint of discrimination based on the grounds of “religious conviction”.

Likewise, the HRC’s support for freedom of speech does not extend to public protests that offend progressive mantra. In 2015, Rattenbury successfully introduced a private member’s bill to impose so-called exclusion zones outside health clinics to thwart anti-abortion protesters. “This is not a freedom of speech issue,” he argued.

Predictably, Watchirs supported the move. “The bill is also neutral about the type of protest that it is to be regulated, in that protest activity both for and against abortion will be captured,” she submitted, in what could be termed one of the most risible attempts at rationalisation. Presumably then she would not object to a similar exclusion zone for approved forest-clearing on the basis that the legislation also outlawed pro-logging demonstrations?

Currently three pro-life protesters — all aged in their seventies — are before the courts for refusing to pay a $750 infringement notice, with the matter resulting in international attention. It also raises interesting considerations in respect to the HRC’s views on what constitutes the greatest threat to social harmony — the bikie indiscriminately firing an illegal AK-47 in public or the elderly pensioner brandishing a set of rosary beads?

Spare a thought for the officers of ACT Police, who are trying in vain to curtail the OMCGs despite not having the legislation they desperately need. And here’s a teaser for Chief Police Officer Saunders: if the HRC were abolished and its $3.6m budget allocated to your organisation, how would you use it to combat the OMCG scourge? Of course, such a move should never even be contemplated, for where would we be without essential publications such as Everyone Can Play: Guidelines for Local Clubs on Best Practice Inclusion of Transgender and Intersex Participants?

As for what else the Greens and the HRC intend outlawing next, it is anyone’s guess. In 2015 Rattenbury demanded the removal of “offensive” advertisements from Canberra airport. “We are confronted with unwelcoming pictures of border patrol ships advertising arms manufacturers,” he said. “Given that this year Canberra was officially declared a refugee welcome zone, it is simply not appropriate that those seeking refuge from war should be greeted upon arrival in Canberra with advertising that promotes warfare and armed violence.”

It makes one wonder what is more menacing — a gang of armed bikies intent on rampaging, or a collective of righteous zealots with their grand plans for us.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here