Water

This ensemble piece ranges over a series of time zones, travelling from the near future to the early 20th century, mostly in Australia, but also the Ellis Island immigration centre in New York. Its main segment is a deceptively simple, kitchen-sink style, family drama in which home truths are exposed and conventional dishonesties unravelled.

The following manifesto was drawn up by rural and city-based activists.

A key federal election issue, which the carefully stage-managed leaders’ debates are ignoring, is one on which all our lives depend: access to clean drinking water.

“The river is the blood of the Earth”, Muruwari and Budjiti man and artist Bruce Shillingsworth declared at the “Yaama Ngunna Baaka — Welcome to Our River” Mosman Art Gallery exhibition on April 28.

You may not know that coking coal, used in steel making, is mined in the Greater Sydney drinking water catchment.

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) met on March 18 to investigate the human rights situation in Palestine and issued a report that focused on the impact of the occupation on the environment and natural resources, the ongoing use of excessive force by Israeli security forces against demonstrators in Gaza, and the near-humanitarian catastrophe in the territory caused by the blockade.

The ABC 4 Corners program “Pumped”, which screened on July 24, 2017, showed that far from saving the river system, the implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan has created a financial windfall for a select few.

The push by state and federal governments to dry up the Menindee Lakes has already had a huge impact on communities, graziers and local Indigenous people. But not everyone is losing out on the government’s plans for the Murray Darling basin.

After five years and $13 billion of public money spent on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, there is less water in the river than ever before — and more in the private water storages of a handful of National Party donors, writes Elena Garcia.

Adani has once again missed its own deadline for starting construction at its Carmichael coalmine in the Galilee Basin, but the coalmining giant is ramping up its propaganda war and intimidation of activists.

Adani is continuing to run advertisements and opinion pieces in newspapers, along with paying for huge billboards in Brisbane, all talking up the supposed jobs that the proposed mine will create.

A bucket of dead fish was emptied outside NSW minister for regional water Niall Blair’s office on February 7 as part of a protest to demand swift action on the water crisis affecting regional communities. The protest was organised by Fighting In Resistance Equally (FIRE).

The inability of the Liberal Party to find candidates for Hunter seats for the March New South Wales state election suggests that even its party faithful recognise that Gladys Berejiklian’s Coalition government is headed for electoral defeat and, probably, a total wipe-out in the Hunter.