It may be considered “good politics” by some, but the LNP does itself no favour in maintaining its shrill, pander-to-ignorance position on water policy.

The conservative side of politics got it right in rejecting outright the state government’s plan to build the Traveston Crossing Dam.

The desperation of Queensland Water Infrastructure to make that dog work can be witnessed by CEO Graeme Newton’s switch from arguing the doubtful water harvesting capacity of the project to playing the emotive jobs card.

Delays in tabling its final submission for consideration by the Queensland auditor general and then federal environment minister Peter Garret would seem to suggest that QWI is having some problems satisfying the criteria of the State Development Public Works Organisation Act 1971 and the Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

All of a sudden Mr Newton is popping up at every available forum sprouting the job delivery benefits of the project, looking for an audience among construction workers, plumbers, carpenters and whoever else is struggling for work as the building industry slows down.

That he was given space on the floor at the recent University of the Sunshine Coast co-sponsored State of the Region summit to beat this drum with no reciprocal right for alternative water provision models to be put speaks, volumes for the skewed nature of that event.

It is hoped that digging holes in the ground for no sane purpose doesn’t become the preferred model for the nation’s economic recovery. It is a strategy Kevin Rudd failed to avoid when he and infrastructure minister Anthony Albanese met the nation’s mayors in Canberra yesterday.

Real economic resilience will come from investment in transitional technologies, not in ditch digging projects or town halls.

Somewhere in this economic cycle it is to be hoped that cool heads, rather than opportunists prevail. If we simply put money into holes we will create a nation of hole builders and there is not much future in that.

Nor does the LNP in Queensland do much to promote itself as a credible future alternative government for this state with its equally opportunistic water strategy.

Fiona Simpson may well be an excellent electorate member but as the LNP’s infrastructure spokeswoman, she does her party no service with her emotive nonsense on so-called “recycled water”.

The simple fact is what eventually flows from our taps is water, pure and simple. It will not be, as she puts it, recycled sewerage or hospital and industrial waste water, it is water.

The science and technology that recovers that water is tested, proven and without doubt.

Does the LNP not realise that the water from our dams is contaminated at source by dead animals, fecal matter and whatever else washes into them?

Ms Simpson recently indicated how hard ball the LNP intended to play the ignorance card in the lead up to the next state election.

“There is a lot of legitimate concern over the long term effects and safety of drinking recycled sewage, hospital and industrial waste water and people deserve to have a say on the matter. The Bligh Government plans to force the south-east into drink this waste water, but the LNP are giving people the guarantee that recycled water won’t be placed into drinking supplies unless absolutely necessary,’’ she said.

The clincher in the LNP policy is that it will use the treatment technology itself, but only as a last resort.

Sorry but the LNP can’t have it both ways. Either the process delivers water fit for consumption or it doesn’t.

If it is fit for consumption as a last resort, surely it is fit as a first.

Using technology to keep circulating water that would otherwise be wasted is part of a process that will ensure there is no need to resort to destructive, unreliable alternatives no matter how short-term jobs they may attract.