We have heard about the towns running out of water, crops withering in the earth, the fish kills – the Murray Darling system has seen plenty of competing interests.

One of the worlds authorities on the allocation of scarce water resources is  Dr Michael Hanemann, Professor at the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University, and he has been here in Australia to address many of the issues of water use.

Surprisingly our much-maligned Murray-Darling scheme is further ahead than the system they have in the USA!