*Originally published by ABC News On-line: 28th November 2011

Although not formally released until today, the Draft Basin Plan is already an eerie echo of the condition of the Murray-Darling river system in recent decades: widely perceived as being on the nose and potentially toxic. A plan that is clearly required to turn around the effect of decades of neglect, nay abuse, of the water-dependent ecology of the Basin is increasingly being viewed, from all sides of the debate, as compromised and corrupted.

Initially intended to be the vision of an independent statutory body, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, the Draft Basin Plan was doomed to fail the rivers and all those who depend upon them, from the moment that Craig Knowles assumed the position of Chair, championing “community consultation” and coining the terms “adaptive management” and “localism”.

15th February 2011

Today there are three sources of growing demand for food: population growth; rising affluence and the associated jump in meat, milk, and egg consumption; and the use of grain to produce fuel for cars.

In early January, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that its Food Price Index had reached an all-time high in December, exceeding the previous record set during the 2007-08 price surge. Even more alarming, on February 3rd, the FAO announced that the December record had been broken in January as prices climbed an additional 3 percent.

Will this rise in food prices continue in the months ahead? In all likelihood we will see further rises that will take the world into uncharted territory in the relationship between food prices and political stability.

21st May 2011

Australians are battling to come to terms with the impacts of the oft-criticised process of national water reform. The ongoing, abrasive debate surrounding the Basin Plan being drafted by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, outrage over the spiralling costs of currently redundant desalination plants and public protests about sky-rocketing water charges typify the predicament.

Australian water reform was conceived in 1994 by the Council of Australian Governments; nurtured by the prevailing mantra that free-market exposure was the ultimate panacea for undercapitalised and inefficient public utilities. COAG went one giant leap further, in deciding to establish a national water market; arguing that this would direct water to its most productive use

10th September 2010

Did you notice recent reports that one Richard Lourey is abroad hawking Australian water?

Yes, he's a water marketeer. Yes, he's selling Australian farm water to investors in Asia, Europe and North America. Yes, he's trying to flog water rights along the Murray Darling Basin! Surely you remember the Murray Darling Basin? Yes, that's the one: the major river system for the eastern half of our continent that may not have enough consistently running water to survive, let alone to satisfy the already rapacious demands of its human exploiters.

Yet he's trying to get overseas speculators in on a bit of wheeling and dealing in its precious flow? It shouldn't come as a surprise if you look at recent history.