Patriot Realm - Patriot Realm - Money Makes the World Go Round But Water Feeds the People?

I started writing this article about an engineer and ended up writing about money, water and going the distance in times of difficulty.

It happens a lot when I started to put my fingers on the keyboard: I have an idea and then, boom, that idea turns into something else.

And it all started with an engineer, a lake and a plan called The Bradfield Scheme.

It ended with a plea. So perhaps I should bring you back to the beginning and, hopefully you will see my voyage in words and my eventual conclusion.

My beginning was a man who is an Australian hero. The man who designed the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Sydney Underground Railway system and Brisbane's Storey Bridge came up with a plan to drought-proof Australia forever.

His name was John Bradfield. He was one of the good guys. A man who loved his country and loved his craft.

One of his greatest gifts to this hot, dry and unforgiving land was the Bradfield Scheme. A plan that could open the harsh interior ( Outback ) for generations yet to come.

Yet it has never been implemented. Why?

This brilliant man did so much good - yet is consistently put down and dismissed.

It all came down to Lake Eyre. How to fill this enormous reservoir with rain that falls in Northern Australia during the monsoonal summer. That huge Lake Eyre Catchment Basin area occupies 20% of Australia and is over 1 MILLION square kilometres. John Bradfield proposed that we could use the water from the Northern Queensland rivers and channel it down to the Lake Eyre Catchment basin.

I often try and imagine how big that is. The best way to put it is that it is twice the size of the state of Texas. It is huge.

By 1938, John Bradfield and his team had checked out the area and his " Place of Flowers " proposal was meeting with criticism.

Fast forward to 1974.

Bob Katter, then a member of the Joh Bjelke Peterson Government in Queensland, took up the gauntlet. It was proposed that this plan could increase the irrigation of crops and the land in areas grazing sheep and cattle. The then Premier of Queensland, Sir Joh, felt this was a project worth supporting. The Bjelke Peterson Government of Queensland sought support from the Federal Government, who gave that support. The later Hawke led Government withdrew that support and the Queensland Government decided to continue on its own, without Federal support.

The fall of the Bjelke Petersen Government in 1987 saw the end of the Bradfield Scheme.

Decades later, we have seen droughts and floods throughout our sunburnt county. Water that floods with devastating effects upon our communities and lives lost. Droughts that cause farmers to kill their stock and themselves.

The latest chant is climate change. No. Australia has always been

A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.

Nearly 100 years have passed and now all we do is worry about coal. Whilst people weep and wilt in summer with no electricity; whilst people die in floods; whilst our farmers kill their cattle and themselves for having let the team down; whilst all this happens, no one does a damn thing about implementing the Bradfield Scheme.

Fraser Anning, ex Senator in Queensland, said:

“The best drought relief we can give these people is water,”

“We don’t need to bring truckloads of hay up. If they’ve got water they’ll look after themselves.

“They can grow their crops and store enough bales of lucerne during the good times.

“Instead of having to watch all their cattle and sheep die every drought, we’ll be able to drought proof the country and that’ll save the country millions.”

The Bradfield Scheme would divert water from the Tully, the Herbert and the Burdekin Rivers, across the Great Dividing Range into the Flinders and then the Thomson River, eventually flowing to Lake Eyre.

Ex Senator Anning described it as a “forever solution”, saying that while water was a state issue, it could be solved at a federal level.

So why are we not doing it? It is never too late.

These days, we have governments more worried about Global warming, World Economic Forum, the World Health Organisation; the United Nations to worry about our own survival.

It seems that we should throw ourselves under the bus to " save the planet " and sacrifice ourselves in order to " save the world. "

Australia contributes less than 1% of carbon emissions. We export our coal and iron ore and gas.

We export our uranium.

Export dollars are important. More important than our own prosperity it would seem.

All to benefit other nations to our own detriment?

Why?

I find myself increasingly unable to answer the questions that need to be asked.

Why? Who? Where? What? and How?

I know Who it is. I know Where the directives come from. I know How they intend to do it. But the one thing that eludes is is Why?

And there is only one thing that answers this simple, basic question of why our governments are destroying our nations, our ways of life, our cultures and our histories. Of why they hate us so much. Why they betray us.

And it comes down to one simple thing.

Money.

Yet our Nation could thrive. We could have a higher population, greater productive land and towns and cities to forge a growing nation.

We could change Australia and become the Great Southern Land.

And the word is not money despite what our bureaucrats and politicians may think.

It is as simple as this:

Water.

Yet the government sold us out. They even sold our water.

For Money.

We are now owned by China. Governed by who knows?

As Australia Day approaches, I cannot help but consider that we, as a country, are no longer a Nation of people, but a land mass of assets to be exploited.

A place to populate.

Much like America.

Let's face it, it was always about Money.

From the very beginning.