Editorial: Dam engineers must come clean on plans

Residents deserve a far more fulsome answer than the disappointingly generic statement issued by Seqwater, writes the editor.

Water is released from Wivenhoe Dam in 2022.

The flood operations engineers who oversee water releases from South East Queensland’s dams are no doubt set for a tough week ahead.

They have to walk the super-fine line between not wasting precious drinking water and protecting the dam from unmanageable inflows.

They also must accept some level of responsibility for doing what they can to protect those downstream from unnecessary flooding.

Fortunately, there is a manual that dictates what they should do – commissioned out of the royal commission into the 2011 floods – that sets out the rules based on how full the dam is, how much rain has fallen in the catchment, and how much rain is forecast to still fall.

Whether the manual’s technical formulas are suitable for the rainfall that a cyclone brings has not been explained.

And that is just one of the very many questions that remain unanswered as thousands of residents who live downstream hold their breath, fearing a repeat of the 2011 and 2022 floods.

These residents deserve a far more fulsome answer than the disappointingly generic statement issued by Seqwater yesterday – one that did little more than to issue an assurance that “specialist flood engineers will continue to monitor and act in response to rainfall and inflows in the catchment”.

Queenslanders deserve to know what exactly are the plans, in detail.

TRUMP CARD IN ELECTION

If ever you needed to be reminded about the wisdom of the Australian voter, exclusive polling for The Courier-Mail delivered the perfect example this week.

A Redbridge-Accent poll across 20 marginal seats asked two simple questions to get a handle on how much influence US President Donald Trump – and his increasingly erratic behaviour – will have on the coming federal election.

Unsurprisingly, 59 per cent of all Australians have an unfavourable or very unfavourable view of the President – including 44 per cent of people who intend to vote for the Coalition.

But when asked which leader would be better at managing a relationship with Mr Trump, 31 per cent said Opposition Leader Peter Dutton would be – compared to just 22 per cent for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

It was further proof that the Australian electorate can walk and chew gum at the same time.

For while we may be worried about the foreign policy leaps of a right-wing leader in the US, we also recognise that a right-wing Prime Minister might be best equipped to deal with him while pushing Australia’s national interest.

Front of mind in that national interest is security, and as we have seen in recent days with Mr Trump’s dealings with Ukraine – as well as Britain and Europe – that American military support can no longer be taken for granted.

Whoever wins the election will no doubt seek to steer any conversation with Mr Trump towards our shared military history – from General Sir John Monash integrating the raw American troops with his Diggers in 1918 to Aussies and Yanks fighting side-by-side in New Guinea, in Korea, in Vietnam and in Iraq, in this century and the last. It is a proud shared history, but it is also one that likely means very little to nothing to Mr Trump.

At a press conference last week, there were gasps when he blanked at the mention of AUKUS, though he may just have been unfamiliar with the acronym.

But it is not historical ties that will hopefully see Australian defence interests given due consideration by the Americans while Ukraine and Europe get short shrift.

It is the fact that we face different potential enemies, who have very different relationships with Mr Trump.

He has spoken about how he trusts Russian President Vladimir Putin (he must be the only one), while disparaging America’s NATO allies as a bunch of freeloaders. But the AUKUS alliance between Australia, Britain and the US is not about Russia.

It is designed to curtail China – the new second superpower and America’s great economic rival, whose sabre-rattling off Taiwan, and off our own shores, has become increasingly worrying.

It has been interesting to watch the response to the shocking Oval Office humiliation of Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky by Mr Trump and his vice president JD Vance.

While Mr Albanese reiterated Australia’s support for Ukraine and its leader, Mr Dutton went further – saying yesterday directly that he was disappointed by Mr Trump’s actions, and calling Mr Zelensky a “modern-day hero”.

It shows that Mr Dutton is not the “Temu Trump” that some of his critics have claimed. And, like our poll suggests, he might just be the best of the two leaders to advance our national interest while maintaining our vital relationship with the US.

Responsibility for election comment is taken by Chris Jones, corner of Mayne Rd & Campbell St, Bowen Hills, Qld 4006. Printed and published by NEWSQUEENSLAND (ACN 009 661 778). Contact details here

Originally published as Editorial: Dam engineers must come clean on plans