Australia and the Coming Water Wars
Australia’s growing population and recurring droughts will push water supplies to breaking point. Where’s the plan for our future?
Here’s the thing about Australia: we’ll argue all day about climate targets, pronouns, or whether the four-day week is a blessing or a curse, but the one resource that actually keeps us alive barely gets a mention.
Water.
We live on the driest inhabited continent on Earth, and yet we treat water like it’s endless. Just turn the tap and it will be there. If it gets tight, no worries, someone will build another desal plant. Meanwhile, immigration keeps rising, our cities sprawl further, and governments keep assuring us it will all somehow work out.
But, Where’s the plan?
The Numbers We Pretend Not to See
Sydney and Melbourne are bursting at the seams. By 2060, Sydney alone could be pushing eight million people and still drawing from the same catchments that shrivel every time a drought rolls through. Adelaide leans heavily on its desal plant, and Perth has already shifted a large percentage of its supply to desalinated water. The Murray–Darling, once the pride of Australian agriculture, is now little more than a bitter courtroom drama over who gets what.
Then comes population growth. Hundreds of thousands of new arrivals each year. Every one of them needs water to drink, wash, and cook. Where is it coming from? Nobody says. We just keep growing and hope the sky plays along.
Where’s the plan?
The Droughts We Choose to Forget
Australians have short memories when it comes to water. We live through devastating droughts — the Millennium Drought of the 2000s, the “Big Dry” of the 1980s, the crippling drought that left whole towns carting in water by truck in 2019. Each time, we vow never to take water for granted again. Yet as soon as the rains return, so does the complacency.
Every drought leaves scars: crops failed, stock destroyed, rivers reduced to cracked clay. Country towns watched businesses fold and young people leave. Cities flirted with running out altogether, Sydney’s dams hit 34%, Melbourne’s slipped below 30%, and entire communities across NSW and Queensland queued for water deliveries. These aren’t distant possibilities. They have already happened.
And still, we keep piling millions more people onto the same fragile system.
More Precious Than Power
We worry a lot about blackouts, and fair enough, but let’s be honest, if the lights go out, you can light a candle. If the taps run dry, you’ve got nothing. That’s when life in a modern city doesn’t just get difficult, it gets impossible.
Try telling your kids they can only flush once a day. That’s when the politics of scarcity gets personal.
The Tensions Ahead
Water isn’t just a resource, it’s a fuse waiting to be lit. We’ve already seen the fights over the Murray–Darling. Now add millions more people, and the squeeze only gets tighter. Farmers will be told to cut back. Cities will be told to ration and environmental flows will quietly vanish. If you think Australia is immune to real conflict, you haven’t seen what an empty dam does to neighbours.
And again: Where’s the plan?
A Country Without a Plan
What’s our big strategy? Mostly wishful thinking.
Desal plants? They help, but they’re expensive and hungry for electricity.
Recycling? Talked about in whispers, but rarely sold honestly to the public.
Dams? Politically toxic.
Population growth? Treated as if it’s got nothing to do with water at all.
We aim for growth but don’t plan for the water to sustain it. That’s not policy. That’s gambling.
What Needs to Change
If Australia wants to avoid its own “water wars,” we need to start being honest. That means:
Facing up to the limits of what the land can give.
Linking population and immigration targets to actual supply.
Investing in recycling, aquifer storage, and smarter stormwater use.
Building a national water strategy instead of leaving states to fight it out.
Telling the public the truth: water isn’t endless, and we all have to share the load.
The Quiet Question
So here’s the question Canberra won’t ask: how much water do we really have, and how many people can it actually support? Until we face that, we’re just writing cheques the climate and our rivers can’t cash.
Where’s the plan? Not the promise, not the press release — the actual plan.
The time to act is now. Demand honesty from leaders. Ask the awkward question — where’s the water coming from? every time they talk about growth, because once the taps run dry, it won’t matter what else is on the agenda.
And when that day comes, don’t expect Quiet Australians to stay quiet. Nothing sparks a fight like a dry tap.
Want your voice heard?
If you want to put them on notice and ask Where is the Plan? the email addresses of the Minister and Liberal Shadow Minister for Environment and Water are below. Nowadays, a letter can have more impact. If that is what you would like to do their postal details are also below - let them know how you feel.
Senator the Hon. Murray Watt
Minister for Environment and Water
email: senator.watt@aph.gov.au
GPO Box 228, Brisbane QLD 4001
Senator Ross Cadell
Shadow Minister for Environment and Water
email: senator.cadell@aph.gov.au
Ground Floor, 28-30 Bolton Street, Newcastle NSW 2300