Step 2: tell them there are no other options ...

There's Deputy Premier Bligh happily following the ill-fated Toowoomba recycled water play book:

- tell the voters there are no other options and drinking recycled water is inevitable.

Excerpt from today's Courier Mail:

"And [the Deputy Premier] warned that recycled water would be pumped into the dam regardless of the result of a referendum on the issue scheduled for March 17."

See - Courier Mail - Drink it or you'll die of thirst.

An interesting piece of political blackmail - you might as well vote Yes because we don't care how you vote anyway.

Amazing how the Deputy Premier is quickly becoming dictatorial.

Only problem is she kicks a couple of own goals (she is clearly not learning from the Thorley Yes campaign).

Seems recycled water is no longer an 'Armageddon' solution.

Now: '[t]he March vote is on whether recycled water should be used to top up Wivenhoe when it is at 30-40 per cent, and Ms Bligh stressed that "if there's an emergency governments have to act with emergency measures".'

Wasn't it less than a month ago that QWC head Nosworthy was saying that recycled water was a possible long-term option?

Wasn't the Beattie government supposed to take a neutral stance and not try to scare SEQ residents?

What about a testing period for the recycled water? Apparently the caution shown by the WA government is not something shared by the Beattie government.

Obviously if Wivenhoe Dam becomes low on water, SEQ residents will be drinking a water cocktail which includes far greater than the 10% recycled water suggested by Premier Beattie.

"The Wivenhoe system, which is at 24 per cent of capacity, is being drained at a rate of 10 per cent a year", says the Courier Mail.

So, in the absence of rain, that would mean around 100% recycled water flowing through the taps of every home, shop, restaurant and business in SEQ in 2009 (excluding Toowoomba as the connecting pipeline would not be built by then).

Don't expect them to admit that before 17 March.

Deputy Premier Bligh does however concede that it is not possible to properly clean recycled water, something for which the recycled water industry boffins will not be thanking her:

"There is no treatment process that takes absolutely everything out of the water ..."

At least the journalist got one thing right:

"Toilet-to-tap recycling is an unpopular last resort around the world. Toowoomba voters rejected the measure despite the incentive of federal subsidy."

A wonderful advertorial by the Deputy Premier designed to scare SEQ residents into thinking they have no other options and that they should be the first on the planet to drink recycled water using the scheme and the recycled water proportion proposed by Premier Beattie.

Could this be the Beattie/Bligh 'good cop/bad cop' routine? Will Premier Beattie on his return from yet another overseas trip try to calm community fears by telling us that 'of course it will rain and we're not quite at the Armageddon solution' (all the time patting Anna on the back for a job well done in his absence)?

Thing is, this approach seems likely to backfire on the Beattie government, bringing out an even stronger No vote on 17 March.

To a majority of the people in SEQ, this is a nightmare scenario for which they would never forgive the Beattie government. And Premier Beattie knows it - he knows the real statistics on the public's acceptability of drinking recycled water. You do wonder what he thinking right about now ...