Water shortages and food takeovers in Australia

Commonwealth takeover of the Murray Darling Basin

Remember the Commonwealth being a COMPANY listed with the U.S. Securities and Exchage Commission (SEC) . Check these vids if you need a reminder of who owns the commonwealth:

Who owns the RBA?

Mark mcmurtrie lessons in law pt1

The murray darling basin is located in south eastern australia where most of australias people live, it includes the murray river and its tributaries, as well as vast supplies of groundwater which is suitable for consumption and/or food production. The murray darling basin produces a good percentage of australias food, and supplies the population with drinking water in rural areas as well as cities such as adelaide and melbourne. It is heavily regulated with locks, weirs, storage lakes etc . Storage volumes and flows can be measured at various points by the authorities in charge and this information is relayed to the public. You can only extract water from most of the basin if you have a water license, a water allowance in megalitres and a water meter. There are seperate water authorities/water boards for each geographical secton of the river and its tributaries, which are controlled by the individual states where that part of the river resides. Water is traded on the open market, similar to say shares in a company. There are buy and sell offers, and the price fluctuates depending on market forces. Water can be traded between states, water authorities and locations in most instances.

In recent years we are constantly delivered news that inflows into the river are poor, due to lack of snow and rain. Often with well rehearsed presentations by media spokepersons such as Wendy Craik from the Murray Darling Basin Commission ( MDBC ) or other politicians. Also we have corporations such as Macquarie Bank set up Agribusiness divisions and are buying vast amounts of water. Most areas of the murray-darling basin allow you to buy freehold permanent water licenses, for example you buy a 100 megalitre license for a one off fee of $200 000 and that means you can use/remove 100 megalitres PER YEAR from the system forever thereafter. You can also lease water for only one years use and pay every year, or lease out permanent water you have bought to others on the open market.

Legislation has been changed to allow the separation of water rights from the land, these changes have now allowed corporations such as Macquarie agri to buy ALMOST ALL of the freehold water offered on the water exchange open markets in the last few years. They can then use it to irrigate the crops they have planted from raising capital from investors , or lease it out at their will. The Macquarie Group which includes Bank and infrastructure divisions has quickly risen to be one of Australias most powerful corporations and has obvious ties to the Bush Administration and some of his personnel as well as interests worldwide and in Texas.

The results and effects are as follows.

-A state of drought is declared across the entire basin, surface (river) water and groundwater. Legislation is modified or new legislation is created to differentiate the rules between "irrigation use" and "stock and domestic" This means that the authorities can cease all irrigation or restrict irrigation whenever they want. With the insistance of South Australian premier Mike Rann this quickly evolves to include areas where viable groundwater is present some of which were previously not part of the basin and the water present in the underground aquifers CANNOT be affected by surface water or drought, and are already well managed. The federal government declares its intentions to take over the operation of the basin from the states. It accuses the states of mismanagement and blames them for the water shortages. After much resistance from the states including unexpected and suspicious resignations of leaders of TWO states and one state water minister, who refuse to sign the rivers over to the feds, the legislation comes together and the takeover is almost complete as i write this. The new leaders agree to sign. The federal government will then control every drop in the system. Incidentally it was the John Howard Liberal government who was in power when the federal takeover was instigated, but since the 2007 election the opposing Labour party is in power. The Kevin Rudd Labour government has the same policy as the Liberals and are continuing their work in taking over the basin.

-Food Producers arent allowed to use their full water entitlements. Can only use a predetermined percentage dictated to them from the relevant water authorities who determine these numbers with help from appointed scientists/experts/commissions and flow numbers . They can however buy or lease more water so the percentage they are allowed to use is calculated from their original entitlement plus the extra they buy in. Food production decreases, growers face financial pressures, this includes even larger companies who were previously very successfull. Early on some small growers start to exit the industry, most wait for the "drought" to pass and spend large sums of money to temporarily lease extra water on the open market at inflated drought prices (some of it probably from you know who) thinking it will pass. It doesnt. They are spending so much money on water that its almost impossible to turn a profit. This cant be sustained for more than a couple of seasons, and many optimistic food producers start dipping into their personal savings or are taking out large loans to keep production levels up and keep plantings alive, waiting for the "drought to pass". They are being sucked dry and their net worths are decreasing. A few years on now, the same story, same water restrictions. Some larger and corporate food production players have had enough and begin to exit and or offer properties and orchards on the market, in both surface water and groundwater areas. Some of these companies have invested millions and would not be getting out unless something was really wrong IMO, especially in the groundwater areas where the current water levels are stable and water extraction is at sustainable levels, and water restrictions have as yet not been announced. One agribusiness company declares "no further plantings in Australia" and commences expansion into Argentina, South America.

-Water restrictions in towns and cities. Residents have limits placed on how much water they can use, and what they can use it for. The media continues to bombard the 5 free to air TV channels and newspapers with a grim outlooks of drought and water is now perceived to be a scarce resource. Debate and arguments break out about water use and food production, especially between farmers/food producers and urban water users. Residents in many capital cities are sold the idea of a Desalination plant if they want more water, but are told their water bills will have to rise substantially to pay for it. Construction of numerous desalination plants occurs on coastal cities in favour of cheaper Water recycling or Stormwater harvesting options. Infastructure which connects Murray Darling water to cities will be left intact despite the construction of desalination plants, making it possible for urban water authorities to source water from the rivers while claiming it is desalinated water, and charging accordingly.

-Dryland Cropping hit hard by drought. Grain producers in the South East corner of Australia are faced with large rises in input costs (diesel/fertiliser/chemicals) and their crops get poor or no yields due to lack of rain in critical spring months, in recent years. However it always rains in the lead up to spring (autumn and winter) which encourages them to begin a cropping program, thus investing large amounts of time and money. Some find it difficult to sell grain due to deregulation and the abolishment of the Australian Wheat Board ( AWB ). Many are faced with the decision to get into more debt, or exit the industry.

-Federal Government announces water allocation buyback. The Feds headed by water minister Penny Wong enter the water market and begin to buyback water allocations from irrigators under the guise of environmental flows. Irrigators are also offered a one off payment of $150 000 to exit the industry, but they MUST also bulldoze all plantings and infastructure, pumps etc to receive this money. South Australian state water minister Karlene Maywald , a National Party minister who, in an unprecedented move for a National Party politician, has sided as a member of the Rann Labour Government, announces assistance packages to give extra water allocations to South Australian irrigators to keep permanent plantings alive before the next state elections. It is not however enough for growers to get a crop or turn a profit. Federal environment minister Peter Garrett begins to Heratige list large tracts of land, some of which are in northern australia where there is very little population but an abundance of water much of which is not harnessed and flows out to sea. He also signals his intent that a large tract of the Murray River between Mildura and the outlet to sea may be soon be heratige listed.

Most people attribute this chain of events to climate change/global warming.

Rather a convenient truth.


[edit on 13-5-2009 by ownoiz]

reply to post by grantbeed


Not all of Australia is a desert you know

I have friends who live in the Blue Mountains just outside Sydney, they have snow, rain, cold nights. Sure it's mostly hot there, and the majority of the country is searing desert, but the population is small enough (compared to land) and focused primarily in sustainable regions.

I think this is being blown out of proportion. When it comes to sustainability, every nation is so interdependent on another that none could survive intact alone. Welcome to globalization.

All those hippies and widely criticized protesters in the 80's and 90's were completely right, globalization is dangerous and destructive. Who'd have guessed it?

Heres a practical example of a typical food producer in the Murray Darling Basin, and what they must do to get a crop...

This example assumes 18% water allocation, but in many places in Victoria and NSW along the MDB allocations have been as low as 0% for extended periods of time...

So joe the farmer has 50 acres of oranges right. He has a 100 megalitre permanent water license which he owns outright, and paid for a few years ago at a reasonable cost, around $1200 per megalitre, so $120 000 dollars all up.

This water license allows him to take 100 megalitres per year from the river, all of which is necessary to irrigate his 50 acres in entirety. All he pays on this licence, now that he has purchased it outright, is a modest annual fee amounting to no more than a few thousand dollars per year, plus of course any pumping costs/electricity to get the water to his property etc. In this fashion he can make a living, and get a yearly return on his investment in the land, water, trees, machinery and irrigation infastructure, not to mention years of his time.

Now, along comes climate change, global warming, Federal interventions and the rest of it...the news tell us it doesnt rain anymore in the Murray Darling Basin, and that it is the lowest rainfall ever, or as some politicians like Mike "Rothschild" Ran like to say, the once in 1000 year drought...

"Lowest rainfall ever" in Australia's "drought" ravaged Murray Darling Basin is a lie...

The Murray Darling Basin - the worst rainfall ever?

they synoptic charts show a H for high almost permanently stuck on the South and South East of Australia for the last 8 years...








OK so the TV says we have a drought, usually where i am its Karlene "Masonic" Maywald telling us the bad news...

Next bad news for "Farmer joe"... the authorities place a restriction on irrigation water, its now currently at 18% (source: www.waterfind.com.au...)



But he still needs 100 megalitres to get a crop, all he has is 18% of 100, or 18 megalitres, he needs to find another 82 megalitres. If he tampers with his water meter or steals water somehow else he faces up to 20, yes twenty, years jail under new rushed laws brought in by the Rann government.

So its off to the water broker to buy or lease more water...and any water amount that he buys or leases is also bound to the 18% allocation, so he must buy or lease much more than 82 megalitres, he must buy or lease 456 megalitres, since 456 @ 18% = 82 .

Now when you buy permanent water, its kinda like buying your house outright, you pay a large sum of money, and the asset is yours, and you can take that amount of water every year, or sell the license in the future at market rate etc it is an asset owned by you...leasing water is akin to paying rent once a year, you get to use that water amount for one year only, if you wish to repeat you must pay again.

So to get a crop and an income for that year, he must either

a)Buy 456 megalitres of permanent water,

456 x $2000 per megalitre (permanent price) = $912 000 dollars (as it is a permanent license, joe gets to keep the 456 megalitre license and use 456 x (whatever the allocation allowance set by government is at the time) every year.

OR

b) Lease 456 megalites of temporary water, that is, for one year only

456 x $329 (average lease price) = $150 000

So for joe the farmer to get a crop from his 50 acres he must spend a minimum additional $150 000 for that year (which would have to be repeated next year), or invest nearly one million dollars in permanent water (one off expense).

So some have just let their trees die, as they see this expense as a dead end, or they dont have the money (understandably), and clearly no ones making money in this situation...

others, well i dont know if i should use the terms naive or gullible, that may be a bit harsh, lets just say "optimistic"...or they dont know what else to do after a lifetime learned in this profession...

the others are listening to the governments hype about how they will spend $10 billion dollars to fix the problem, so they are borrowing unsustainable amounts of money (from our banker friends, some of which are also leasing them that extra water as they have bought much of it) to get a crop.

So farmer Joe has a choice, let all his trees die and go get a job in a mine or a factory somewhere, or believe in the governments promises ($10 billion dollar fix-it strategy) and enslave himself further to the banks and keep cranking out the produce at break even or loss, just so the big duopoly supermarkets continue to make multi million dollar profits from the cheap produce they buy from Joe under duress.

[edit on 13-5-2009 by ownoiz]

Failure to build Victorian dam is shameful neglect - by Andrew Bolt
courtesy of The Herald Sun

It's now a quarter of a century -- and a million extra Melburnians -- since the Thomson Dam was built, and with a million more yet to come within the next 20 years you'd wonder which fool couldn't see we'd need more water.

Yet not one large new water supply has been found in all that time. Nor, until two years ago, was one even planned. And new dams were simply banned, without study or debate.

The Government chose instead to impose bans to cut our per-capita water use by a third, ruining gardens and inconveniencing thousands of citizens.

Worse, the two "solutions" it suddenly promised in 2007 to fix a crisis grown too desperate to ignore -- a pipe to steal irrigation water from the Goulburn, and a $3.1 billion desalination plant -- are still at least two years from completion.

Full Story: www.news.com.au...

Groundwater grown food on the Governments hit list

South East SA - Groundwater plan awaits Govt approval

The new system for groundwater allocation in south-east South Australia could be approved within weeks.

The South East Natural Resources Management Board is waiting for State Government approval to implement its water plan for the region.

Irrigators face up to 30 per cent cuts to their water usage.

Board general manager Hugo Hopton says there are a lot of people anxiously awaiting the plan.

"Irrigators - whether irrigated agriculture, or processing industry, or the plantation forest industry - do need to know where we're going with water policy," he said.

Source: www.abc.net.au...

$30 million for new national groundwater centre

The Rudd Government today announced a national consortium led by Flinders University will administer $30 million in Australian Government funding for a new National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training.

Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong, and Minister for Innovation and Research, Senator Kim Carr, said the new centre was an important investment in helping secure Australia's future water supplies.

"In Australia's water management, groundwater has often been overlooked," Senator Wong said while making the announcement at Flinders University.

"The new National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training will undertake important work to help us manage our groundwater in a more sustainable way.

The centre will train a new generation of scientists in advanced hydrogeological and related technologies, and improve our knowledge of groundwater connectivity, policy and management

Source: www.environment.gov.au...



OK so what does all of this mean?...I will attempt to explain it in laymans terms...

OK the Murray Darling Basin (MDB) up until recently produced somewhere in the vicinity of 40% of Australias fresh food, but now irrigation allocations on this surface water system have been reduced to miniscule amounts in recent times, 0% in winter and as little as 16-18% in summer in the major food producing regions of South Australias Riverland, and Sunraysia in Victoria and across the river border in NSW. (See my previous posts in this thread about the implications of this)

So now, with the MDB food production under control of TPTB, because of "climate change" of course...it is in a state of chaos for food producers who dont know where they stand...

We still have Groundwater right? WRONG!! We know better by now that these people will leave no stone unturned in the quest for complete food and water domination...

Heres some backgound on groundwater in South-Eastern Australia...

Groundwater also plays a major role in food production in the states of Victoria, SA and NSW, and aquifers containing decent quality water in these regions also support large amounts of food productions...

this water for the most part isnt as good for irrigation as the surface water in most of the MDB, due to higher NaCl (salt, for those who didnt pay attention in Chemistry class) and other TDS levels (total dissolved solids)...this results in slightly decreased crop yields vs MDB plantations, but it is good enough for the most part.

In South Australia alone, although there is approximately over 1.2 Million megalitres of water allocated for irrigation from the Murray River...there is 650 000 thousand megalitres of GROUNDWATER allocated east and south-east of Adelaide, so you can see that this resource also plays a vital role in our food production and security.

This and other aquifers also extend into or are present in Victoria and NSW.
All of these aquifers support large scale vegetable, Fruit and Nut production as well as growing feed for animals.

Just but one of many specific examples...operations from the LARGEST potato grower in the SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE are present in these regions, and have become ever reliant on this water supply especially since their allocations have been cut in the MDB...so you get an idea of the scale of some of the business investment dollars poured into these regions by private food producers.

Now even though some of these aquifers are NOT LINKED IN ANYWAY to the surface water that is the Murray River, they all have recently come to the attention of "the powers that be", who of course in their infinite kindness, want to "study" and "re-evaluate" water allocations and rules.

OF COURSE, this is all under the guise of helping us, the people, so we have "sustainable water supplies" , and heck most people fall for this "we the government are trying to help you by spending lots of money on this...see how much money we are spending, it says so on the 6 o'clock news...now lets all hold hands under the rainbow", as they fall for all the bogus CSIRO and other reports about the MDB and how our great government is "helping to save it".

What they are really doing is using taxpayers money to help fund research and operations such as water diversions and storage, water buybacks , restrictions and exit packages that are either eliminating, shaking out and/or ruining family farms, private food producers, from the smallest, to the largest which turn over hundreds of millions of dollars, no one is immune to this.

All the while there IS NEVER ANY TALK OF CREATING NEW WATER SUPPLIES for food production in recent times.

Now i have been suspicious for a number of years as to why they didnt start with this groundwater earlier, as they did with the MDB, and i came to the conclusion that they simply cant, because the subterranean geology is too complex and difficult to map, understand and control (unlike surface water) and the water levels cannot be manipulated or diverted without GREAT difficulty and much research...

Well along comes the $30 Million dollar groundwater research facility i linked to above, with objectives such as this listed on their website..

"The centre will train a new generation of scientists in advanced hydrogeological and related technologies"

Translated (for me anyway) it reads...WE WANT TO FIGURE OUT HOW THIS SUCKER WORKS AND CONTROL IT, and if we throw enough coin at it, we will figure it out and own it.

Research facility partners include some of our well known mates such as United Water (USA Corporation KBR Halliburton owned) and others. No suprise there, they dont even try and hide it, its all right there on all of their websites, i mean why would they, since most of us are stupid sheeple eaters that dont know any better and the rest are just conspiracy loons right? Halliburton is well and truly entrenched in South Australia, supplying everything from urban water to all of Adelaide to infrastructure for events such as the Clipsal 500 V8 supercar race and Tour Down Under. Yes even our so called Aussie v8 race puts money into Halliburtons purse. Thanks, DICK.

Malcolm Turnbull first mentioned this research facility when he was the Water Minister in the previous Howard government as part of their so called Murray-Darling Basin $10 billion dollar rescue package.

Of course the "Nude erection" (New direction) Rudd government with Penny Wong at the water helm has just picked up where the "other" *ahem* *cough* government left off.

What will this ultimately lead to?

First up, more groundwater allocation restrictions, the first of which have already begun in South Australias south-east (see the article and link i posted above)...it will then spread nationwide as this "new" research centre "tells" us that the previous models of aquifers recharging or aquifer drawdown levels were "wrong" and the water is now much "scarcer and finite" than previously thought...

After this, well best case scenario...Aussies, get used to eating unregulated Chinese and other sweat shop slave peasant grown food, or possibly food grown here by TPTB owned companies in these very regions after this big shakeout...

thats if there even will be enough food...maybe they want shortages...maybe they just want to produce it themselves and still keep us "eaters" around, i dont know which is the case...but what i do know is that there is a big shakeout going on...

Add to this all the businesses that will vanish and go under, as they already are in the MDB, and the associated increase in unemployment and poverty.

I know some will view my post as alarmist, those insulated from the goings on in the food producing regions because they are in the city and Woolworths is still full of food and they watch propaganda like the 6 o'clock news and other food features or shows like Getaway or the ones starring the likes of Paul Mecurio or other chefs, which is telling them otherwise...that everything is cranking nicely and all crimson and clover...some serious programming from TPTB to make city people believe that the government is doing all it can do to help with these water and food issues...but things are going from bad to worse as i actually travel these areas, and the towels are being thrown in left right and centre by food producers, large and small, who are now becoming aware that they are being enslaved.

reply to post by ownoiz


This will happen there is already a catastrophic fall in global food production.

Here is another link to explain.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by detachedindividual
Not all of Australia is a desert you know

I have friends who live in the Blue Mountains just outside Sydney, they have snow, rain, cold nights. Sure it's mostly hot there, and the majority of the country is searing desert, but the population is small enough (compared to land) and focused primarily in sustainable regions.

I think this is being blown out of proportion.

I agree, however it is not me blowing it, it is the 6 o'clock news, and the machine that is behind it...im just repeating what is happening to Australia here, what we are bombarded with on the TV and in newspapers everyday, im not making the story....even where it is supposed to have become a desert, the television is lying...

Originally posted by ownoiz
The Murray Darling Basin - the worst rainfall ever?

So much news has been about Australias crops and the lack of rainfall of the Murray Darling Basing. The worst drought in 1000 years, and most definetly the worst on record. However the Bureau of Metereology website shows that there is no decreasing trend

Blog Link: Murray Darling Basin

------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by detachedindividual
When it comes to sustainability, every nation is so interdependent on another
that none could survive intact alone. Welcome to globalization. All those hippies and widely criticized protesters in the 80's and 90's were completely right, globalization is dangerous and destructive. Who'd have guessed it?

This goes past globalization, and is heading towards communism. We have the ability to produce food in Australia on a large scale and cheaply, largely due to the advent of mechanization, telemetry and remote digital crop monitoring, which results in good economies of scale.

We have the ability to feed ourselves as a nation without importing Chinese food which can and has been tainted with toxins, doesnt comply to our food standards, and is often grown using human excrement as fertiliser.

While the chinese peasant whips his buffalo as it pulls the single tyne plow, looking after a few acres at a time, we have centre pivot irrigation set ups growing vegetables here the size of small towns, hundreds or thousands of acres at a time, and can be monitored and harvested with very few people, often one, two or three people, because of mechanization. Same goes for fruit and nut crops, beef and fish...

However this food is often bypassed by the two large supermarkets here, at any price, in favour of Chinese food. Australian supermarkets are dominated by two corporations, 70% of all packaged goods come from coles and Woolworths. Woolworths major shareholder is JP Morgan Chase, look it up for yourselves, (rockefeller rothschild ties)

Yes a US/UK bank controls our food in Australia. And they want to bypass local producers, and shake them out and send them bankrupt, because they would rather spread the money around to chinese peasants, who will never amount to a threat to the empire, unlike local growers, who with mechanization and the large land mass that is Australia, well some of them have elevated to a financial status which, if a few of them team up, has the potential to threaten the empire.

The result of all of this is that we must get accustomed to eating sub-standard irradiated food from China, with little or no safety checks in place, and this food will likely become largely GM modified as time goes on, on top of the melamine and other toxins which has already been proven to be present in Chinese food.

Chinese food floods Australian markets


Chinese food import flood ignored by Government

All the while the global water corporation Veolia, is allowed to continue to suck water from these very same resources and on sell it to urban water users in the cities at spectacular profits...

Veolia Water