Red Rag

The Australian raises an important point in the debate about Colin’s Canal:

Mr Barnett is proposing a simplistic solution that plays to the populist belief we have a right to use water on whatever we like, and that green lawns and gardens full of European flowers should be the norm. It is the height of hypocrisy to require farmers to factor in the commercial cost of water while people in cities can splash it around regardless of the limited supply. Increasing the price of domestic water may be bad for sprinkler sales, but to spend $2 billion or more on a pipeline to Perth when water scientist Peter Cullen says 50 per cent of the city’s domestic use goes on gardens is absurd. And if engineering is the answer, perhaps Mr Barnett could explain why a canal is superior to a comprehensive recycling system. Federal Treasurer Peter Costello was entirely right yesterday to warn that Canberra would not support the canal without a proper assessment of its costs and consequences.

Western Australians are slowly learning to deal with our water use. We have restricted watering, we take shorter showers, we wash our cars on the lawn instead of on the driveway. People have taken advantage of rebates on things like water-saving shower-heads and rainwater tanks. As the cost of greywater recycling systems comes down, new homes will include them as a standard feature.

The problem with Colin’s Canal is that the Government will lose a major incentive to encourage these changed habits. A “take or pay” contract with Tenix means the Government will be locked in to buying water from the company for a very long time — whether it needs the water or not. Even if we don’t want the water, we’ll have to pay Tenix for the full quota anyway. Why would you encourage people to save water if you’re going to pay whether they use it or not?

Barnett claims that the Government will recover its costs (indeed, he says it will make a profit) by selling water to irrigators:

And sold privately for irrigation land, sold privately into the mining industry which has water needs, so the product it produces, water, has a commercial value… I don’t think there will be any shortage of interest of people wanting to buy water, to develop irrigation land for farming and I don’t think there will be any shortage of interest from the private sector wanting to be part of this project…

Barnett’s plan is to develop more land for irrigation. The problem is that irrigation-intensive industries are the real cause of the water shortage anyway. More than 70% of water is used in the agricultural sector, and if we’re going to make a substantial dent in our total consumption, that’s where we’ve got to start.

Don’t get me wrong, WA’s farmers have worked hard in recent years to improve their water use (both for immediate financial gain and for sustainability reasons). Unfortunately, to maximise the Government’s income from the sale of newly released land, Barnett will sell it to the bidder who promises to buy the most water in future — in other words, the worst offenders.

Colin Barnett thinks he can solve Perth’s water crisis by encouraging expensive waste.