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August 26, 2006
In Queensland, though 'sustainable development' is used as a guiding principle for the formulation of public policy, development and growth remain the real priorities for the government. This is especially the case for the National Party, which is on a slow fade to its regional base in Queensland, where it is under threat from One Natioon and Family First as the mixing of religion and politics gathers pace. The National's ethos of development and growth is most clearly seen around water:
Sean Leahy
The Nationals want dams not alternatives such as recycling. The Nationals are strongly opposed to diverting water away from productive agriculture for environmental flows especially in the Murray-Darling Basin. The future of irrigation-based communities requires special protection is the Nationals position. What is not happening is the state government buying buying back water allocations and entitlements from willing sellers to increase environment flows.
According to the Queensland election focus group that was conducted by Graham Young at National Forum:
There are two gorillas standing in the room that no-one is talking about. One is the Federal Government's IR laws. A number of our participants mentioned them, and one in particular seemed particularly obsessed. The other is population growth. Many, if not all, of our participants saw increase in the size of our population as being the root cause of the health and water problems that we face.
That lets the Beattie Government of the hook doesn't it. The state government isn't responsible for the infrastructure problems----its the interstate migration, that is the problem. That reflects the spin from Team Beattie. And Beattie has taken personal charge of things to ensure that things get done.
The sooner water trading is properly introduced in Queensland the better.
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