Further Information

TRANSCRIPT OF DROUGHT STORIES INTERVIEW EXCERPT 5

John Gledhill: The weather pattern will eventually change back, we will end up with rain, and probably by about 2015 and something like this, we’ll be back to our normal things, but the big problem is, the government unbundled water, and allowed it to be shifted everywhere, it is now being bought, by towns, because they are too, oh, lackadaisical in not harvesting their own storm water, for reuse by the people, everybody looks at this thing: “Oh, you can’t, you reuse water”.

Water has been reused by towns, ever since, you know, these things started, in that you will take the water from say Echuca, it is treated, all the recycled water is treated, and everything else is placed back in the river, it goes down to the next town down the thing which’d be Kerang, Swan Hill, or wherever, they are pulling out, reused water, out of the thing.

If people completely, and governments utterly this thing that: “We can’t drink reused water”, it’s there. Melbourne has enough reused water, storm water, that goes out to the sea, every year, to provide all their water requirements, that they need, without having to take water from elsewhere.

And that’s the whole part of it, there’s the unbundling of water, has taken water completely out of our systems, and allowed the governments to buy it, pay big bickies, because all they’re doing is putting it on to the people that live in town that use the water, and therefore wrecking the opportunity for farmers to use water.

Because, you cannot grow something and, you cannot pay, you know, five hundred, a thousand dollars a megalitre for water, and grow feed for it, you’re better off selling on your water, because they’re paying for it, and doing nothing.

Copyright held by the East Loddon and District Historical Society and the State Library of Victoria. This interview excerpt can only be used for research purposes and must not be reproduced, copied or published in any form without the permission of the East Loddon and District Historical Society and the State Library of Victoria.