I was feeling very thankful but Smurf's post above, that makes me as sad as anything I've read on this whole sorry thread.
If our level-headed Smurf believes that any such bald prediction was ever made, it can only be because the real predictions have been drowned out by the distortions. This particular distortion comes from a Landline interview with Tim Flannery in 2007.
All I can say is that I was personally quite involved so far as the issue of rainfall (well, stream flows) are concerned back in 2008 and 2009.
Been to meetings, seen the charts, heard the predictions and so on. I was also personally shouted down (by someone from government) for daring to point out that "zero flows" was an unlikely scenario.
It is a reality that Australian state governments all bought the "zero flows" line as at least being possible back in circa 2008 - 2009. All the mainland states went into desal to "drought proof" urban water supplies and did so amongst considerable panic with the associated cost blowouts and so on.
Look in the newspapers and public comment is much the same. "Water is more valuable than oil", "water is the most precious resource" and so on. Even the likes of Bunnings jumped on the bandwagon with an assortment of "water saving" devices for sale. Drought hysteria was everywhere.
Then there were the dams, public perception being that they were useless because we'd never be able to fill them. In complete ignorance of the facts, the argument goes along the lines of "what's the point of having more storage if we can't fill what we've got?". Never mind that filling it up when it does rain is the whole point of storage.
In much the same manner as talk of buying stocks is hard to avoid during the last days of a mania (those old enough will no doubt remember the dot com hype all too well). It was hard to escape the "water crisis" back then, and there were certainly plenty of people making predictions as to how long the water would "last" based only on what was already in storage. That, as much as (if not more than) Flannery, is where this "never fill the dams again" myth comes from.
Needless to say, once you've associated "permanent" drought with climate change then public support drops like a rock once the rain starts and the floods arrive. It's like anything to do with reputation - up the stairs and down the fire pole.
Adding to the public's lack of confidence were things like calls for "permanent" water restrictions, a move that makes a mockery of the prospect of future drought whilst also inconveniencing people for no necessary reason. It's a grab for control for the sake of it.
Personally, I'm very well aware of what's going on so far as stream flows are concerned and the trend isn't good that's for sure. Likewise I'm a regular bush walker and I know what I see there too and it's the same trend. Even after the "good" rains of 2010 and 2011, there's no shortage of "permanent" creeks that are still dry today (and yes, some of those are in water catchment areas). The stream flow decline in SW WA is well known and documented meanwhile Hydro Tas has released a lot of data publicly about what's going on in Tasmania. I'll add that we are now in a period where storage levels are very likely to trend downward.
But I also know that people are fed up with hearing "scientists" argue for taxation (I have personally heard this one on radio news) and so on. Stick to the facts, the actual science, and drop the politics.