The world's driest inhabited continent was in the grip of the worst drought in 1,000 years, a river management expert told Australia's political leaders. Prime Minister John Howard and three state premiers were presented with the assessment by an expert on the country's most significant river system at a crisis drought summit in Canberra.
The drought has already been described variously as the worst in living memory, the worst in a century and the worst since white settlement more than two centuries ago, and Howard said he could not verify the latest claim.
"You say worst drought in a thousand years, I don't think anybody really knows that," he said, adding that he was not a scientist. "It's a very bad drought."
But he acknowledged that the general manager of River Murray Water, David Dreverman, made the dramatic prediction at the summit Howard held with the premiers of three of the worst-affected states.
Howard called the summit as statistics showed that the country's most important river system, within the Murray-Darling Basin, could run out of water in six months, after six years of drought.
About 30 rivers and hundreds of tributaries run across the basin, which feeds about 70 per cent of Australia's irrigated farmlands.
South Australian Premier Mike Rann said the assessment by Dreverman, who also sits on the Murray Darling Basin Commission, was worrying.
"We were told at the meeting by the Murray-Darling commissioner that we now face, not a one-in-100-year drought, but a one-in-1,000-year drought," Rann told reporters. "So we are into uncharted territory."
The summit agreed to draw up contingency plans to secure water supplies, with a working group of state and federal public servants to report back by December 15.
The government also agreed to speed up the implementation of proposals under the National Water Initiative, with permanent interstate water trading to begin between New South Wales and Victoria states on January 1 next year.
