We need a better water plan

The Bruntland definition of sustainability is handing the country to your kids in the same condition as, or better condition than, you received it. In the case of food production, and especially irrigated food production, this will not happen in Australia under current policies. We will pass on, at best, a brow-beaten, downsized, deskilled and demoralised system at a time global food crises are multiplying and prices soaring.

Australia has enough water for all its food and export needs, to protect and sustain its native landscapes and to embark on new industries in aquaculture, algae culture and irrigation potentially worth $30-40 billion. But to do that we need good science, technology and education to redouble water use efficiency and policies which foster sustainable water development and investment.

We should be building low-loss distribution systems (that do not require half the present network to be shut down). We should be recycling up to 100 per cent of our urban water. No Australian city or frivolous user should be allowed to touch food's supply of water. We should bank water by recharging our aquifers nationwide, plan mosaic irrigation in the north and seek to double productivity in the southern irrigation industry - instead of crushing it. We should share best practice and innovative water management the length and breadth of the land. We should build a $1 billion export sector in sustainable water know-how and technology.

The Australians of the 19th and 20th centuries built our modern irrigation sector to sustain the nation in its growth. In a world where food supplies will become increasingly scarce, expensive and unreliable as it surges towards 10 billion ravenous global consumers, the impact of our own neglect of this will be borne by our children and grandchildren. What sort of parents, indeed what sort of Australians, does that make us?