Asian Cup 2015: Outstanding Australia beats Oman 4-0 to secure quarter-final place - Asian Cup 2015 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Photo: Robbie Kruse scored his first goal for Australia since a knee reconstruction against Oman. (Getty Images: Brendon Thorne)
Australia has qualified for the Asian Cup quarter-finals after a scintillating 4-0 win over Oman in Sydney on Tuesday night.
Only days after their 4-1 rout against Kuwait, the Socceroos produced an even better showing to end Oman's progression hopes and have fans of the host nation dreaming of what may be at this tournament.
The goals came from four sources - Matt McKay, man of the match Robbie Kruse, Mark Milligan and Tomi Juric - meaning all eight of Australia's goals this tournament have come from different players.
Confidence may have been raised before the match after the convincing result against Kuwait, but Oman, fresh from a tough 1-0 loss against tournament hopeful South Korea, was expected to provide a more substantial test.
As in their first match of the tournament against Kuwait, the Socceroos started slowly as a combination of nerves and a rigid Oman defence made the opening stages scrappy and tense.
The question was whether Australia would stay true to the philosophies of coach Ange Postecoglou under pressure or look for an easy way out - that question was emphatically answered in the first half.
It took a set piece to get the Socceroos up and running, with Trent Sainsbury's knock-down header providing the easiest of tap-ins for the recalled McKay in the 27th minute.
Massimo Luongo, fresh from a man-of-the-match performance against Kuwait, was dazzling in midfield, turning opponents and seeking out team-mates with an ease not seen in a Socceroos shirt since the pomp of Harry Kewell.
Photo: Tomi Juric scored just his second goal for the Socceroos and Australia's fourth against Oman. (Getty Images: Daniel Munoz)
It was an exquisite lofted through pass in the 31st minute from Luongo that found Kruse for Australia's second, with the Bayer Leverkusen man doing the pass justice with a fantastic touch with his thigh, before holding off a defender to convert underneath Ali al Habsi.
The chances kept coming for Australia. Tim Cahill would go close on a number of occasions and would be a constant horror for the Oman defence, while the wing combination of Mat Leckie and Kruse was at its dynamic best.
The third seemed inevitable, and so it proved - despite a slight delay thanks to some bemusing refereeing.
Luongo and Kruse combined again down Australia's right flank, with the latter delivering a delightful cross across Oman's six-yard box, finding an unmarked Milligan who hammered home on the volley just seconds before the half-time whistle.
It would not count though, with the referee ignoring the obvious advantage to award the Socceroos a penalty for a clear foul on Cahill in the lead up.
The mistake would matter little though, with Milligan himself converting the spot kick to completely kill off the game before the half-time whistle sounded.
Little changed in the second half, despite Australia taking off two of its stand out performers in Cahill and Luongo early.
The fourth came in the 70th minute and to nobody's surprise, with another Leckie breakaway this time producing a precise, outside-of-the-boot cross to the awaiting Juric who made no mistake.
Australia was fast, physical and frighteningly unrelenting and Oman had no answer. There is no doubt Australia has bigger challenges ahead of it, but at present the Socceroos fear nobody.
'Show us the science': Wee Waa demands to see MDBA's evidence behind request for more water - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Photo: Kerry Watts is afraid that if the water is taken away, business confidence in the town will vanish. (ABC News: Laura Brierley Newton)
Related Story: Basin communities call for more transparency around Murray-Darling environmental flows
The New South Wales town of Wee Waa is worried the loss of 20 gigalitres of water will result in their small community becoming a ghost town.
Residents say you just have to look at neighbouring town Collarenebri to see how easily it could happen.
The Murray-Darling Basin Plan was first introduced in 2012, signed in by then-prime minister Julia Gillard.
At the time the people of Wee Waa said they understood their role in reducing water usage in their intensive farming production, and actively set about implementing projects that would help them to do their bit.
Following the Northern Basin Review, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) requested 20 gigalitres of water be conceded from the Namoi River, for environmental flows.
Photo: Residents of Wee Waa are worried about what their future will look like. (ABC News: Laura Brierley Newton)
However, the people of Wee Waa say during a town meeting with the MDBA, they requested the authority provide them with a scientific study of the Namoi River, to explain where the water is to go.
They expected the authority to return this winter to provide those findings. So far they have heard nothing.
Wee Waa is located on the north-western the New England region of New South Wales, sitting along the Namoi River.
Photo: Kate Schwager was one of the community members who started the online Save Wee Waa campaign. (ABC News: Laura Brierley Newton)
There's a real fear amongst the community that they could be driven into the ground, that businesses will get spooked out of investing locally, and the whole place could end up barren.
"Wee Waa is struggling, usually Wee Waa bounces back after a drought," said Kate Schwager, a local business owner.
Photo: Kate Schwager says the campaign had helped to raise awareness about their small town. (ABC News: Laura Brierley Newton)
"But when the rain came I think everybody was quite inspired, and just in the last three or four months, I think we've sort of been struggling a little bit."
In a move to raise awareness about the plight of their town, Ms Schwager and other members of the community created a Save Wee Waa online campaign.
Using social media they found a voice for themselves, and Ms Schwager said so far, the reaction had been positive.
But Ms Schwartz said the communities concern remained — how the plan would effect irrigators, which in turn would effect the entire community.
"I hope that it doesn't end up being like Collarenebri, where every shop fronts boarded up and there's one, two shops left in town," Ms Schwartz said.
Kerry Watts runs a local agribusiness in Wee Waa, Growth Agriculture, which has been developing a new insecticide over the past 10 years, and it's being touted as a product unlike any other.
Mr Watts said confidence in the local farming community was what ultimately drove investment in the product, and he feared that if the water was taken away, that confidence could disappear — along with investment.
He said, above all, he just wanted to see the MDBA provide Wee Waa with scientific evidence about where the water was going, and how it would help the environment.
"If they take the water away, businesses like mine will not continue to invest in communities like this," Mr Watts said.
"This community can survive through droughts, we have to, we know what droughts look like — what we don't need is to have droughts forced upon us."
"I had a fair bit to do with Collarenebri, and of course when Colly Station, or Colly Farm, sold their water to the Environmental Water User it just shut Collarenebri down," Mr Watts said.
A MDBA report singled out Collarenebri as experiencing the most significant impacts of the Commonwealth's buybacks.
Photo: A Murray Darling Basin Authority report singled out Collarenebri as a town with significant impacts from the plan. (ABC News: Laura Brierley Newton)
The report said the town had lost 80 per cent of its irrigated land and over a third of its farm employment.
He said while everyone was trying to make the best of the town, it was becoming a place "where there's nothing to make the best of anymore."
"We've got people here who are absolutely intent on feathering their own nest, and to hell with anyone else," he said.
Daniel Kahl, a third-generation cotton farmer in Wee Waa, said the lack of communication from the authority was disappointing to everyone who attended the meeting.
"They said that they would do some more research on the Namoi — they haven't done any to date," he said.
"I think that was very disappointing for the community and the businesses, that they based all their facts on research that they hadn't really done — and that ruined their credibility really."
He said the review's doubling of their in-stream requirement for environmental assets put "a bit of stress on the town".
"Certainly agricultural needs can't come before necessarily environmental or other needs, but they can't be left until last either," Mr Kahl said.
"So I guess the current feeling in town is there's just a real lack of justification for that requirement.
"We've shown pretty well that we're willing to be part of it if there's justification, but that makes it pretty hard to accept when there hasn't been the work here to justify what they're asking."
Mr Kahl's grandfather was one of the originals in the area, arriving from California in 1961 to help establish the first cotton farms in the Namoi valley.
Photo: Wee Waa is located on the north-western the New England region of NSW, sitting along the Namoi River. (ABC News: Laura Brierley Newton)
He's worried what the loss of the water could have on business confidence, jobs, and future generations — especially during dry years.
"I think the numbers are 70 full time equivalent jobs in the Wee Waa community, so not just farming related jobs, but jobs within the community," he said.
"And something like $38 million out of our local economy, which is a huge number for such a small community."
Steve Carolan, a local irrigator, said the only way Wee Waa would swallow the demands for more environmental water was if it was backed up by fact.
"I mean I'd love to see someone like Rio Tinto try and open a coal mine in Bowral based on info from Singleton."
Robert Dugdale is the manager of Cotton Grower Services (CGS), which has its head office in Wee Waa.
The company employs 70 people, and has a reach from central Queensland through to southern New South Wales.
He said he was nervous about what the future held for Wee Waa, and wondered whether it would continue to be economically viable for his business to remain in the town.
"Our revenue is largely determined by the availability of irrigation water and if the availability of irrigation water drops, clearly our revenue drops," he said.
"Which will force us to consider how we operate our business and where we operate our business from.
"It's sort of like death by a thousand cuts really, because they've taken water away before and the community has survived.
Photo: Robert Dugdale is the manager of Cotton Grower Services, which has its head office in Wee Waa. (ABC News: Laura Brierley Newton)
Already, 11.55 gigalitres of the 20 gigalitre requirement has been recovered from the Namoi, and the MDBA said there has already been a marked improvement in the environment, river, and floodplains.
"Overall, local communities like Wee Waa will benefit from the proposed reduction in the total recovery target for the Namoi catchment."
In response to calls from the Wee Waa community for new Namoi-specific studies and field data, it said studies of that type would not be able to be developed in time to inform the current amendments to the Basin Plan.
"The MDB is working closely with the NSW Government on a number of studies underway to inform the development of their Water Resource Plans, including a trial of changed water sharing rules," the statement said.
Financial adviser charged with importing cocaine from the United States - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Photo: Harris John Kohu Shortland was extradited to Alice Springs after his arrest. (ABC News: Bridget Judd)
Government leaders in Marshall Islands are unhappy about being blacklisted as a tax haven by the European Union, especially because they were in the process of working with them to fix the issue.
Backstory: Enewetak lagoon on Marshall Islands taken during Foreign Correspondent shoot in 2017 image
Backstory: sunset on Enewetak Atoll in Marshall Islands taken during Foreign Correspondent shoot in 2017 image