KEY POINTS:
Down the 3400 kilometres of the great Murray Darling river system, out across the vast plains of wheat and pasture, and through the wine, fruit and nut farms of the southeast, a profound change is shaking Australia.
Despite predictions to the contrary and early downpours that brought joy
to farmers planting winter crops, drought is again dehydrating a nation that believed - briefly - it was about to emerge from one of the longest and most severe scorchings in its modern history.
As crops once more wither, the drought has forced its way on to the foremost agendas of political parties preparing to fight a federal election before the end of the year. Attached by an inevitable linkage to the increasingly strident debate on climate change, the big dry is also affecting the way voters think: the cost of living is rising, lifting supermarket bills for a mortgage belt already squeezed by a series of interest rate hikes.
Competition for water has set the federal Government at odds with states. Labor state premiers on the eastern seaboard are fighting amongst themselves. Irrigators are resisting plans to reduce farm allocations to improve water supplies for the major cities.
Desperate farmers will be given a A$150,000 ($175,000) handout to walk off the land, accelerating the process of farm amalgamations that has in the past few decades seen large producers swallowing their smaller neighbours, transforming rural communities and tolling the death of small country towns.
This week, Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty warned that climate change would bring with it new crimes and security threats. The drought is underlining his warning, with water theft and stock rustling on the rise, along with associated fraud.
And yet another long, dry, hot summer will add to a long-term environmental crisis that includes the health of the nation's most important water supply systems, soil salinity and erosion, and a range of other serious issues.
"The desperate situation confronting farm families is unprecedented and becoming more serious by the day, in the wake of failed winter rains," National Farmers Federation president David Crombie said.
In the Murray Darling basin, where 40 per cent of Australia's food is produced, the lack of rain is creating a national emergency.
"We are dealing with a genuine crisis," Prime Minister John Howard said. "Irrigation allocations are still at either zero or extremely low levels, inflows into storages are at record lows, and there is significantly less water stored today compared to the same time last year."
The winter began with the promise of plenty of rain. In New South Wales the wet start to the season prompted farmers to sow their biggest crop in 24 years, while dams supplying towns and cities began refilling.
It did not last. In the tropical South Pacific and Indian oceans, higher than average water temperatures have been matched across Australia. The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting that most of Australia will be hotter than normal for the next three months.
Worse, continued warmth in these ocean waters means the drought will probably tighten its grip.
Outside Western Australia and possibly a small part of northern Queensland, the odds of even average rainfall between now and the end of the year are, at best, about 50-50. Estimates for the nation's big winter grains harvest have been slashed by more than 11 million tonnes since June, pushing the wheat crop to a level 28 per cent below the five-year average. Forecasters warn that even these figures depend on spring rain that has yet to appear.
Dairy farmers, with milk prices at record highs, are struggling to survive as the cost of feeding cattle soars. Australia's huge wine industry fears its harvest could be halved, forcing winemakers to import bulk wine to fill casks and other cheap lines.
This in turn is going to hit consumers' pockets, biting further into household budgets already under pressure from interest repayments. The cost of producing most staple foods - including beef, eggs, milk and pork - has soared in parallel with grain prices that have skyrocketed by 70 per cent in the past few weeks. Vegetable, wine and fruit prices are also under pressure as water costs rise and supplies contract.
Dining out, or stopping at the local takeaway, will become increasingly expensive.
Polls are beginning to reflect voters' concerns: electoral retribution is expected to add to Howard's difficulties in an election the polls predict will bury the Government in a Labor landslide.
Nor has Howard's late conversion to climate change and his refusal to ratify the Kyoto protocols helped his standing among voters who can see their country frying around them.
NO direct evidence links drought to climate change. There is, for example, a view that Australia is returning to its normal climatic patterns after an unusually wet several centuries - an alarming hypothesis that adds greater urgency to present measures to secure water supplies.
But with memories of extremely severe droughts parching the country with unusual frequency since the early 1980s, the present big dry that has extended for much of the new century is being linked in popular thinking with the greenhouse effect.
New studies by the Bureau of Meteorology and the government science agency CSIRO have given credence to intuitive reasoning.
Research published this week in the publication Geophysical Research Letters detailed significant changes in tropical atmospheric and ocean patterns over the past 30 years, directly affecting Australia.
Doctors Scott Power of the Meteorology Bureau and Ian Smith of CSIRO wrote that the southern oscillation index - used to track the climatically disruptive el Nino phenomenon - had never been lower, trade winds had never been weaker, and tropical ocean surface temperatures and air pressures had never been higher.
They said that this reflected a record weakening of the Walker circulation, one of the planet's largest and most important atmospheric wind systems - and that changes in the circulation were known to increase the risk of drought and flood.
Labor gains from this. While not decisive among Australian voters, the environment - accentuated by drought - is among their most important concerns, and Labor is regarded as a better environmental manager than the Government.
Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has capitalised on circumstance and Howard's environmental weakness.
Labor has gained popular acclaim for its stand on climate change and the Kyoto protocols, and is now waving its credentials at agriculture.
Rudd has supported the massive relief funds Howard has thrown at farmers and rural business - more than A$1 billion in the past fortnight - and has promised an additional A$60 million, three-year programme to help producers adapt to climate change if he wins the election.
None of this will help the disaster facing Australia in the Murray Darling Basin, the result of decades of negligence and abuse by successive Coalition and Labor governments - despite its crucial role in food production and the economic health of much of eastern Australia.
The return to drought has only emphasised the legacy of neglect, incompetence, and bureaucratic and political impotence that is killing Australia's greatest waterway. It has also splintered efforts to reverse the damage and set state against state, regardless of political hue.
Howard, supported by Rudd, has proposed a A$10 billion plan to assume federal control of the Murray Darling Basin, removing the shattered and frequently self-serving and opposed management policies running downstream from Queensland, through New South Wales and Victoria to South Australia.
But while NSW, Queensland and South Australia have signed up and are receiving federal largesse in return, Victoria is holding out.
While confronting a furious internal state row over pipelining water to Melbourne at the expense of irrigated farms, state Labor Premier John Brumby has rejected the plan.
To the north, federal, NSW and Queensland governments have been warring over plans to auction the sale of 8000 megalitres of water from the Warrego River, which feeds into the Murray darling system.
Queensland's new Premier, Anna Bligh, has deferred the auction for two weeks until conflicts can be resolved.
Meanwhile, blue skies bring little joy to a parched land.
