Two and a half billion dollars to help the Federal government take over and control water resources in all states. Much as I support ‘state rights’, centralisation in this case seems essential. There is a huge amount of conflict about the resources of the Murray-Darling system which is controlled to a large extent by New South Wales and Queensland which might be eased if control was taken out of their hands.
One of the issues of course is who will *own* those reaources. For example, a few months ago a plan was mooted that would have seen the Snowy River irrigation scheme sold off. If the federal government controlled the resource… who would control that part of it… and who would *own* it.
Concentrating water resources into one authority might be more of a problem that it might seem at first sight.
The Eclectic Interweb 
I was thinking about water and various other issues last night and wondering how much of a problem we would be facing now if our forebears had not gone with axe and chain and tractor and cleared so much land so they could do their agricultural thing. We never had forests like the Amazon, but much of our country was covered in eucalypt forest and water would have been far less scarce back then. Yes we are in the middle of a hideous drought, but the country has had hideous droughts before, and it will have them long after we are gone, and if we don’t start turning the land back into what it was supposed to be instead of somewhere to graze sheep and cattle and grow things, the land will become nothing but a salty dustbowl and our descendants will have to migrate to other countries in order to survive… or live like the impoverished of Africa.
Make farmers plant trees NOW. Land clearing is not and never was a solution to anything.