By Dr Martha Knox Haly.
Australia has a problem with corruption in water supply because we don’t measure or manage water nationally.
According to ANU research report in 2022, 200,000 Australians living in remote communities do not have access to safe drinking water. These communities consume water with unsafe levels of uranium, arsenic, nitrates, fluoride and E. coli. Six hundred thousand Australians were drinking water that did not meet standards for appearance, taste, or odour.
Two million Australians were not included in clean water reporting for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The exclusion occurs because areas with fewer than 10,000 connections are excluded. The absence of data means the Australian Government cannot adequately plan for water infrastructure. It also explains why some Australians live in third-world conditions.
