Not all that long ago, when they regularly bankrupted the state and the nation when let loose near the Treasury coffers, Labor governments spent money before it had been earned and banked.

They have tried to fool all the people by claiming to now be fiscal conservatives, but like all Labor Party cons, they have only moved the application of well-honed skills to a new area.

Premier Brumby’s plans for a pipeline from Eildon to Melbourne will cost $750 million and Melbourne will have first call on the water, and that alone puts the water security of Bendigo at real risk.

Why? Because there are no savings from the Goulburn Irrigation area.

There may be at some point into the future, but put simply, there are none now.

Until then, all the talk of water savings in the stressed Goulburn is pure fiction.

Premier Brumby, with the support of senior ministers Jacinta Allan and Bob Cameron, will let Melburnians use our water to keep their lawns green and cars clean.

Into the fray they step once more, spending our savings before they exist.

Meanwhile, country people who have already paid for water can’t get supplies, putting their ability to produce food for our tables at risk.

Any wonder they are against a ludicrous pipeline to Melbourne.

As pumps run day and night to push water over the Great Dividing Range, Premier Brumby will go against public pressure and needlessly increase carbon emissions and contribute to global warming.

The Brumby Government would be better spending the $750 million on dams in the Otways and Gippsland, to catch the plentiful rains that now end up in the ocean and/or pipe the water from Malmsbury reservoir to Bendigo, which loses 50 per cent through leakage and evaporation.

FRANK JONES

Bendigo