Dry as a dead dingo's donger Fear over water security is
increasingly dominating Australian elections IF HE wins re-
election on September 9th, Peter Beattie, Queensland's premier,
has promised to hold a referendum on whether to turn sewage
effluent into drinking water. As campaign pledges go, this is
hardly appetising. Yet it illustrates the increasing prominence
of water, or the lack of it, in Australian politics. So does the
timing of the poll, which Mr Beattie was careful to call shortly
before summer brings yet more water restrictions to Queensland's
densely populated south-east. The world's driest inhabited
continent, Australia is facing water shortages unprecedented in
the two centuries since Europeans settled it. There is a long-
running drought in the country's east, the main farming belt.
Sydney, the biggest city, whose main supply reservoir is just
40% full, and Canberra, the capital, are both on indefinite
water restrictions. The Murray River and Darling River (known as
the Murray Darling Basin, or