While Council is to be commended for its vision and large expenditure, I'm not sure that we can confidently state that we "defied the drought", while we're on Level 5 water restrictions, together with very uncertain rainfall patterns.

Dr Cilla Kinross strongly expressed her concerns about future water supplies, in that same news report, when she stated the following.

"... short of bringing water from the coast, there isn't enough to feed the current population, let alone more mines," she said.

Mayor Reg Kidd is to be congratulated for stating the obvious.

That is: "It's only a matter of time before we're discussing treated effluent."

Let's start discussing this topic now, in a sensible way, based on hard, cold facts, and not hysterical nonsense.