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CANBERRA - Showers of rain spattered southeastern Australia yesterday, following a deluge that flooded parts of Sydney on Sunday night and sparked hopes of an end - finally - to seven years of drought.
But even with predictions of the end of El Nino and its likely replacement by a rain-bearing La Nina, the world's driest inhabited continent appears almost certain to continue suffering the effects of one of the worst dry spells in recorded history.
Without massive rainfall in the next few weeks authorities will be forced to turn off the irrigation taps watering 40 per cent of the nation's agricultural production, with devastating effects for farms and cities alike.
Shrinking supplies of all home-grown produce and soaring supermarket prices are also likely to force Australia to import food, with the impact - for the moment at least - moderated only by the strength of the nation's dollar.
"We know already that the drought has taken 3/4 to 1 per cent of our growth," Prime Minister John Howard said. "The longer it goes on, the harder the impact."
Power supplies are also under threat. The vast Snowy River scheme - Australia's largest electricity generator and central to the national grid - might have to begin shutting down its turbines if above-average rainfall does not begin filling its storage dams in the next 18 months.
The Snowy Hydro Corporation said that because of 10 years of low catchment flows, water storages had fallen to an average 10 per cent of capacity, the lowest April level since the scheme was completed 24 years ago.
The corporation said present water inflows were less than one-third of long-term averages and over the past 11 months had been the lowest recorded in the past century.
The extent of the disaster Australia faces became chillingly clear last week with the publication of the predictions of a report prepared by officials of federal and state governments, and the latest drought report from the Murray Darling Basin Commission.
If abnormally heavy and extended rain does not come, water will be taken from the Murray Darling only for human consumption, hammering beef, sheep, dairy, wheat, fruit, nut and vegetable producers and sharply pushing up food prices. Wine production, already down by up to 40 per cent on last year, would also suffer.
"If it doesn't rain heavily over the next six to eight weeks there can be no allocations for irrigation from about the first of July," Howard told ABC radio. "I am deeply sorry to have to say this but I don't think any of us in Government positions have any alternative other than to call it as it is."
The latest Bureau of Meteorology forecasts give little hope. They say there is a "moderate swing in the odds" toward above-normal rainfall between May and July in parts of southeast Queensland and northeastern NSW.
But the chances of even average rainfall over the rest of the country are only about 50 per cent.
Drought continues to grip the continent in a broad arc extending across southern South Australia, most of Victoria - where all of the state's farmland is drought-declared for the first time ever - much of southern NSW and vast tracts of southeastern Queensland. Large parts of Western Australia and Tasmania are also dry.
The Murray Darling commission's April drought update said inflows into the system remained at record low rates. March was the tenth month of record lows, and water storage at the end of March was less than 8 per cent of active capacity.
Management of the Murray Darling Basin remains the most crucial issue for Australia's water future and is the most political of the problems being debated across the nation.
Howard's proposal for the states to hand control to the federal Government is being blocked by Victoria, despite approval by other Labor-controlled state governments and most water experts.
Without Victorian participation, the plan will collapse.
"It would be so cumbersome and complicated as to be impractical," Howard said.
