Gary, you ask: "Will the funding for state infrastructure be as over the top as the recent compensation deal for heavy polluters in the climate change white paper?"

I dunno, but I wonder if Big Carbon and the large construction contractors have in common. Publication of political donations might find something.

Gary,
I can't see past the murray being the number 1 issue in Australia at present. Perhaps I am retarded?

Well y'ken, they have neither forgotten or learnt.
Above reinforces the reports involving the reaction of Ross Garnaut to their carbon emmissions announcements.
I must admit the heading "doing infrastructure badly" had me wondering if the comments were going to deal with Anna Bligh's pronouncements concerning her botox problem, but recalling how aggravated comentators like Davidson have been, I sensed it could be something more serious.

Paul,
what is this about Anna Bligh and Botex? I thought that she had campaigned against frivolous cosmetic surgery for young people?

Dave,
the problem that I have is that whilst Infrastructure Australia can assess national infrastructure its scope to guide the overall national investment is extremely limited. Most of the power there depends on ministeral directives and Infrastucture Australia cannot comment on whether federal infrastructure projects would actually meet its priority list.

Les
I would appear that many farmers in the Murray Darling Basin see climate change as just so much rot. Greening scaremongering etc. They look back to past droughts and wet periods as proof the current dry spell is part of a natural cycle. The current drought is part of a 50-year cycle.

The Riverland in South Australia is already a depressed region.

Nan, fearful isn't it?
Getting old. Can't remember where article was, except it was in a Fairfax, just last night..
Yep, she's fessed up. Cannold is in raptures but Tankard-Reist of the Right is not enthusiastic, tho- although this may refer only to cosmetic surgery in general rather than as far as Bligh's case in particular is concerned.
Am not going to say what I think after several bruising stoushes with feminists this year on the issue.
Suffice to say viewpoint sometimes finds strange bedfellows and the feminist response astounds me, after al their years of usually justifiable critiqing about the commodification of women.

Gary the article interviewed dry land farmers in Bendigo, part of the Murray Darling Basin but not sweating on water allocations and not paying $36,000 for a water allocation of 0 litres like some rice farmers.

Many of the Goulburn River irrigators are frothing at the prospect of a North South pipeline that will feed 70 gigalitres into Melbourne irrespective of the level of Eildon Dam, in fact it will use the reserve used to flush blue green algal blooms out of the dam.