Rapidly emptying Wivenhoe Dam in the distance. Photo taken from Mt. Glorious Lookout, 13th August 2007.

Anyone currently living in Australia can sympathize when I say, ‘All I want to do is have a nice long hot bath.’ With current Level 5 water restrictions limiting Brisbane citizens to four minute showers a day and a target of 140L of water each per day, having a bath is an unattainable luxury. According to the Brisbane City Council website, showering instead of having a bath saves 87L, and I’m afraid I couldn’t live with the guilt of knowing I was wasting 87L of water.

What is more frustrating is reading that there are reports that state Australia is overpopulated and should have a stable population of only ten million (that’s half of the current population). But instead of moderating population growth and infrastructure, Brisbane celebrates the fact that it will soon be the second largest city in Australia (despite the fact that by this time next year we may have run out of water)! Watch this video below (taken from Channel 7, Brisbane) and you’ll understand what I mean:

While I do consider myself incredibly lucky to be an Australian and be living in a country where we can be as proud of our crappy soap operas as we are of our national sporting teams and our Nobel Prize winning scientists, it’s disheartening to think that all this progress will mean we are not only unable to have baths, but perhaps are unable to brush our teeth and wash our sheets too! Bearing in mind that we’re also too afraid to travel to foreign countries because we might be a terrorism target, and that our dollar value is almost as bad as the Kiwis’, and it’s no surprise the Balinese are making spoof tourism videos like this:

Is it just me, or is Australia quickly becoming the laughing stock of Australasia?