Smurf, could you outline how the household water supply issue could be fixed?
It's a bit off topic but the basic process and engineer would do is as follows:
1. Seek an external decision as to how reliable the water system should be. It can never be 100% under all circumstances, but should restrictions be a 1 in 50 year event? Or should it be 1 in 20? 1 in 10? 1 in 100? That's the first key thing to work out.
2. Do the math on present consumption and supply infrastructure to determine the supply / demand situation (actual demand, as opposed to consumption with compulsory restrictions) with respect to the reliabiltiy criteria in point 1. This will in most Australian cities show that supply reliability is inadequate.
3. Identify all possible sources of additional water supply. New dams, stream diversions into existing storages, long distance pipelines with or without storage, stormwater recycling, black water recycling, desalination etc.
4. Identify means of reducing actual demand (as opposed to consumption). Forecast the likely actual consumption levels for the next 30 years based on this.
5. Based on the above, compile a list of all practical options to balance supply and demand thus achieving the reliability criteria. Rank these in order of cost. Also rank in order of preference due to any other relevant factor (eg environment).
6. In the event that the lowest cost option is not considered unsuitable on other grounds, commence construction.
7. In the event that the lowest cost option has significant non-cost disadvantages, the political process will need to make the decision.
8. Problem fixed once construction is completed.
9 Continue to monitor system capability (might vary due to changing climate etc) and consumption levels to identify any need for additional infrastructure based on long term (30 year) forecasting. Initiate the process to evaluate and construct if/when the need to do so is identified with sufficient time to get them built before they are actually needed, noting that the present storage position will be a key determinant of the future construction timetable (that is, delay it if there's a flood, bring forward if a drought).
10. There are very few cities in Australia, certainly none of the state capitals, where this process would not result in a reliable water supply being delivered. Technically there are so many options it's hard to form a preference without a proper evaluation. The scarcity situation is a man-made construct of the political / financial system and not something that needs to exist from an engineering perspective.
Same applies to transport, energy and so on.
Want a x% cut in CO2 emissions? An engineer will just go away, work it out and come back with rough details and costs. If those results lead to broader support for the idea, they'll go back and get the details and costs worked out more accurately. Then we start doing whatever it is that needs to be done. Problem fixed - at a cost that the engineer will have minimised within the limits of available technology and resources.
But a banker, on the other hand, will devise a means to make themselves rich from concern about CO2, with any actual reduction in emissions occurring only to the extent that those who have handed their money to bankers can no longer afford to buy fuel with which to pollute. Sound familiar?
Same with transport. Faced with overcrowding on trains, an engineer will look at getting bigger trains, running them faster, encouraging travel outside peak periods, building more tracks and so on. A banker will just put fares up such that many people can no longer afford to travel by train.
I'm not against banks or banking, they are a necessary service. But I'm not at all keen on seeing
everything done not for the service of the public, but for the profits of the bankers.
We need a better balance - there's nothing wrong with private profit, but not to the point that we start ruining entire industries and systems to benefit very few.