Australia is a country renown for its droughts and flooding rains. We like to pride ourselves on our ‘outback image’.
PICTURE: Dan Gold/Unsplash
So I was shocked when I heard that people had been ringing outback tourist information centres wondering if they should cancel their outback tour. The logic was sound – we the visitor, don’t want to use all your drinking water since you’re in drought.
Rarely is a rural drought about drinking water for people. It’s about lack of water for crops and animal feed. With no work for farmers, there’s less work for towns folk and no money going around.
The best thing you could do is go for a visit! It would bring some much needed money into town. The townsfolk would love you for it.
So much for the myth about us being bushies!
Paul Clark’s musings can be heard on radio across Australia and at atthetop.org.au.
