Dam nation: tough road to water reform on the world's driest continent

In a speech to the National Press Club this week, Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack pledged to bring in a new era of dam building across the country.

An aerial view of the Hume Weir on the Murray
River in 2010 after the millennium drought broke.

“We know the key to unlocking the potential of regional Australia is simple – just add water,” the Nationals leader said.

If the Coalition is re-elected on May 18, a new statutory authority called the National Water Grid will be set up to plan and manage new water infrastructure. Its decisions will be based on science, taking the politics out of water, McCormack said.

But water policy is never simple and always political on the world’s driest inhabited continent.

Read the story from The Age by Adam Carey - “Dam nation: tough road to water reform on the world's driest continent.”