Pitch Engine
The Times Real Estate

.

The Murray-Darling Basin scandal: economists have seen it coming for decades

  • Written by John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland

Nations behave wisely, Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban observed five decades ago, “once they have exhausted all other alternatives”.

One can only hope that proves the case with water policy in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin, the nation’s largest river system and agricultural heartland.

Read more: Billions...

Read more: The Murray-Darling Basin scandal: economists have seen it coming for decades

More Articles ...

  1. All the hype around Libra is a red herring. Facebook's main game is Calibra
  2. What we missed while we looked away -- the growth of long‐term unemployment
  3. NZ's plan for deposit insurance falls well short of protecting people's savings
  4. Vital Signs: Trump's nominations for the US Federal Reserve are an odd lot, and an even bet
  5. Bonuses for clicks: the Herald Sun model can't be the future of journalism
  6. Early days, but we've found a way to lift the IQ and resilience of Australia's most vulnerable children
  7. Getting out of liquor and pokies will cost Woolworths, but deliver lasting benefits
  8. To be a rising star in the space economy, Australia should also look to the East
  9. Ultra-low unemployment is in our grasp. How Philip Lowe became the governor who lifted our ambition
  10. Back-to-back Reserve Bank cuts take interest rates to new low of 1%
  11. Morrison 'very confident' of winning support for tax passage, as he looks to crossbench
  12. Stages 1 and 2 of the tax cuts should pass. But Stage 3 would return us to the 1950s
  13. Buckle up. 2019-20 survey finds the economy weak and heading down, and that's ahead of surprises
  14. Australian household wealth has taken its biggest dive since the GFC, but things are looking up
  15. How English-speaking countries upended the trade-off between babies and jobs without even trying
  16. Facebook's Libra plan: talk of the demise of central banks is greatly exaggerated
  17. Morrison wants to unleash economy's 'animal spirits' and foreshadows new look at industrial relations
  18. Need to find a good restaurant? Economics serves up some golden rules
  19. How a humble Perth boathouse became Australia's most unlikely tourist attraction
  20. Vital Signs: Once were Kiwis. Here's the hidden history of Australia's own well-being framework
  21. Myth busted. Boosting super would cost the budget more than it saved on age pensions
  22. 50 years after Australia's historic 'equal pay' decision, the legacy of 'women's work' remains
  23. Why the Australasian Health Star Rating needs major changes to make it work
  24. Below zero is ‘reverse’. How the Reserve Bank would make quantitative easing work
  25. Inducing consumer paralysis: how retailers bury customers in an avalanche of choice
  26. Vital Signs: the RBA's marching orders are no longer realistic. They'll have to change
  27. Mending hearts: how a ‘repair economy’ creates a kinder, more caring community
  28. More people are retiring with high mortgage debts. The implications are huge
  29. Our economic model looks broken, but trying to fix it could be a disaster
  30. Vital Signs. If we fall into a recession (and we might) we'll have ourselves to blame
  31. Expect weak economic growth for quite some time. What Wednesday's national accounts tell us
  32. The Reserve Bank will cut rates again and again, until we lift spending and push up prices
  33. What's the difference between credit and debt? How Afterpay and other 'BNPL' providers skirt consumer laws
  34. The search for an alternative to GDP to measure a nation's progress – the New Zealand experience
  35. Explaining Adani: why would a billionaire persist with a mine that will probably lose money?
  36. As privacy is lost a fingerprint at a time, a biometric rebel asserts our rights
  37. Vital Signs: APRA is going to make it easier to borrow. It could be another one of its bad calls
  38. If the Adani mine gets built, it will be thanks to politicians, on two continents
  39. The behavioural economics of discounting, and why Kogan would profit from discount deception
  40. Why regional universities are at risk of going under
  41. It's time we moved the goalposts on Indigenous policies, so they reflect Indigenous values
  42. Uber drivers' experience highlights the dead-end job prospects facing more Australian workers
  43. If you think less immigration will solve Australia's problems, you're wrong; but neither will more
  44. Where to now for unions and 'change the rules'?
  45. Sex trafficking's tragic paradox: when victims become perpetrators
  46. Cutting interest rates is just the start. It's about to become much, much easier to borrow
  47. 3 lessons from behavioural economics Bill Shorten's Labor Party forgot about
  48. Going up. Monday showed what the market thinks of Morrison
  49. 'Do no harm' isn't enough. Why the banking royal commission will ultimately achieve little
  50. Their biggest challenge? Avoiding a recession