Prime Minister John Howard has presented legislation to the Parliament which he plans to ram through this week, which will authorise the Federal Government to seize control of all of the water of the Murray-Darling Basin from the states, and to put it under a new Federal agency with intended dictatorial powers. Just before Victorian Premier Steve Bracks and his Water Minister John Thwaites suddenly resigned on Friday, July 27, Bracks charged that Howard’s actual intent was to privatise all of the Basin’s water. Caught, Howard bellowed that Bracks was "desperate, stupid, inaccurate and just totally wrong."

It is Howard who is desperate. The global financial system is now crashing down, and the financial oligarchy that owns Howard is attempting to grab control over such vital assets as raw materials, food, and water, so as to maintain their political power when their paper, and even their banks vaporise. Howard’s legislation will give his owners control over the Basin’s water, for which they will charge whatever they want, and, by bankrupting most of the farmers there, in Australia’s food bowl—as this legislation assuredly will—will make us dependent on multinational agribusiness for our food.

Spearheaded by its Murray-Darling Basin candidates, including farmers with firsthand knowledge of what Howard plans, the Citizens Electoral Council has produced a devastating exposé of the plot to privatise the Murray-Darling.

If you want to know what is really afoot, click here to read the exposé.