Melbourne, October 1998 - Two weeks of cold showers and baths, cold houses, no milk, no bread, closed factories, closed shops and workers laid-off. Natural gas is Australia's fastest growing energy source - accounting for 17.6% of primary energy use, so why don't we ensure a safe supply. Natural gas is expected to provide more than 20% of Australia’s primary energy supply by the year 2000. Proven and probable natural gas reserves are 92,795 PJ - equal to about 80 years supply at current production levels for Australia, so why does Victoria only have one major pipeline?

Australia's current gas distributors supply:

• 3.0 million households (with around six million people);

• 81,000 commercial businesses; and

• 8800 large industrial customers.

Sydney, August 1998 - Multiple warnings about Sydneys major water supply sufferring from contamination. The population forced to boil all their drinking water. Investigations have shown that Cryptosporidium and Giardia contaminated Sydney's water supply. There is no common national standard for acceptable levels of Cryptosporidium and Giardia in drinking water. This creates difficulties for the authorities involved.

There have been many outbreaks of human disease due to the consumption of contaminated water but in recent years outbreaks due to Cryptosporidium have been the most commonly identified. This is thought to be largely because the organism has a low infective dose, which means that only small numbers of organisms need to be ingested to cause disease.

The largest reported outbreak involved over 400,000 people in the city of Milwaukee, USA in 1993. This outbreak resulted in excess of 100 deaths among persons with immune deficiencies.

Sydney's water supply is largely drawn from catchments on four main river systems - the Upper Nepean, the Warragamba, the Shoalhaven and the Woronora. The water system that supplies the majority of Sydney's population is the Warragam ba system. The other systems supply residents of Sutherland Shire, Campbelltown, the Blue Mountains and the Illawarra.

Sydney's water supply is delivered by pipeline from Warragamba Dam to Prospect Water Filtration Plant. The Prospect plant supplies about 85% of Sydney's water. Water supplies for the Penrith and Emu Plains areas and lower towns of the Blue Mountains are drawn from the pipeline before it gets to Prospect and delivered to Orchard Hills Water Filtration Plant.

All potable water supplied by Sydney Water is filtered, disinfected and fluoridated at one of eleven water filtration plants in the system. An extensive network of pumps, pipelines, reservoirs and nearly 20,000 km of pipes distributes water from the plant s to residents.

So, this shows that contamination is possible at many points and current filtration techniques ensures nothing. I'ld rather catch my own water in a tank on my house.

Queensland, November 1998 - Parts of the state are forced to adhere to severe power restrictions due to demand overtaking supply.

We should be using alternative technology available to us TODAY, such as Solar Hot Water Heaters, Solar Electric Systems, We=ind Energy Converters, Underground Biomass systems from rubbish dumps or sugar cane waste. The answer is simple, why don't we use it.