citizenry should just accept directives from on high from all-wise technocrats  (presumably including Professor Crase) . It would certainly fix 'problems' much quicker, and keep the citizenry in their place!. Professor Crase further supports this position by arguing that another result of the MDBA consultation process has been a focus by Governments on generating water savings by upgrading irrigation infrastructure, rather than the cheapest option of simply buying back the water, removing it from productive use and shutting down the communities that depend on it. In supporting this argument, he unfortunately resorts to partial accounting (considering only dollars per megalitre of water returned to the environment) as justification, rather than a more comprehensive long-term economic analysis which would consider the net long-term benefit to the community arising from the continuing productive use of irrigation water over the longer term. Hmmm... Perhaps in doing so the good Professor (whose salary is paid by the taxes levied on the pesky citizenry) has highlighted why a bit of consultation with the citizenry might be a useful thing after all!