‘AND HE SEES THE VISION SPLENDID…!’
It was inspiring to see Alan Jones and Peta Credlin on Jones & Co, last evening on Sky, expressing enthusiasm for a water harvesting system to address Australia’s age-old problems with drought. We are witnessing the waste of unbelievable quantities of water right now as Townsville suffers astonishing flooding after a massive downpour of rain. Australia is still – one hundred and twenty years after Dorothea MacKellar wrote her famous poem published in The Spectator in 1908 – beset by ‘Flood, and Fire, and Famine’
Alan Jones detailed on his programme the late Colonel Gaddafi of Libya’s grand plan for irrigating his country which is perhaps, as Gaddafi boasted ‘The Eighth Wonder of The World”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man-Made_River
If Colonel Gadaffi could conceive such an inspiring plan to bring water to his cities and the Israelis could make the desert bloom (as another Colonel, the famous T.E.Lawrence in Jill Hamilton’s God, Guns and Israel envisaged that they would) – what is lacking with Australians? Henry Lawson despaired of populating ‘The Bush’ in his short story In A Dry Season until ‘some gigantic system of irrigation [was] perfected in the West’.
Where are the leaders who can see ‘the vision splendid’ not just of ‘sunlit plains extended’ (as J.B. Paterson wrote in Clancy of The Overflow) but of our country green and prosperous across all its vast area? “If there is no vision the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18)
JFK envisaged “landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth”. And it was done.
Australians once built a pipeline from Perth to Kalgoorlie, starting in 1896, a hydro-electric scheme in Tasmania and The Snowy Mountains Irrigation Scheme, so why not heed Alan Jones and the many visionary Australians who see Australia as The Food Bowl, instead of the Dust Bowl of The Southern Ocean?
Gibber! Gibber!
Chugley
The Visionary Chimp
4 thoughts on “‘AND HE SEES THE VISION SPLENDID…!’”
Many years ago I remember Alan Jones regularly proclaiming the benefits of building infrastructure to bring the massive amounts of consistent fresh water from the Ord River area that normally run into the Timor Sea across to western NSW or Queensland. He said that such a constant input into the Darling system would provide enough constant water to make “western Queensland and NSW the food-bowl of all Asia”. Logistically, I think the engineering is quite achievable. It would be costly, but the economic benefits would be huge.
As always, I suspect politics and perceived political advantage are the stumbling blocks!
Great comment Paul, thank you! When will they listen? Gibber! Gibber! Chugley
Dear Chugley,
This is a great idea. Similar concept to the Snowy and Ord River projects.
It would ensure prosperity for 4 to 5 generations to come. However there a not many votes in the eastern seaboard for this type of expenditure for no short term gain.
Vision and statesmen are what we need.
Thank you posting the Dorothea Mackeller verse. Learnt it school and love it. Love Australia!
Join with me in trying to inspire the great Aussie unwashed to catch the vision! Thanks for your enthusiasm Sydneysider. Gibber! Gibber! Chugley
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