The water catchment areas of Sydney are a prime example of a "Commons Resource".  A commons resource is most often a renewable resource, that will continue to supply our needs, for the common good, so long as it not mis-managed.  A commons resource, is something that can be easily endangered by the intrusion of individuals that seek their own self-interest and profit.

A commons resource is often something that we have no power to create, and is irreplaceable. Its services cannot be replaced or substitutes are only available at much greater cost.  When it is destroyed it is gone forever. For example, a long wall coal mining operation causes subsidence and cracking, that drains overlying wetlands, destroys an essential part of our water catchment areas. Our desalination water supply plant is expensive just to have on standby, and costs even more to run.

Current and recent NSW governments have been leaning over backwards for business arrangements. "Open for business" is the rallying cry to prove economic credentials, attract investors and create jobs.  Human nature being what it is, they have also opened up for others to gain while our "Commons Wealth" gets destroyed.

We know that business is not the sole means that sustains our world. Several decades ago the philosopher Garrett Hardin wrote an essay "The Tragedy of the Commons", which predicts the mismanagement of common access resources by human greed.  It is recognized that this problem is a key issue in sustainability. Elinor Ostrom in 2009 became the first and so far only woman to recieve a nobel prize in economics. This was for her lifes work of how to prevent a "tragedy of the commons". I recommend that all of our politicians should be fully aware of her work. They need to know of the important principles and guidance that she has developed. She said that critical ecological resources which are vulnerable to open-access exploitation and greed, are best managed by the people who depend on the protection of the resource. 

Here we are talking about 4.5 million people who live in Sydney.   We used to have a system that worked, a Sydney water board, that had an empowered representation of the Sydney people that depend on our water catchments. This is no longer the case. It is now being changed into a system that can be sacrificed to foreign profiteers, or sold to allow extraction of personal fortunes.

I notice that we have already been giving away exploitation rights to our water catchments, to coal miners and the like.  They are sold of to foreign businesses at that, who only want to maximise profits, who are people that live far away, and they do not need our "water commons" to stay intact. This the worst possible way to protect our commons, and is guaranteed to bring on the predicted tragedy.

Elinor Ostrom : Wikipedia   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Ostrom

Hardins' "TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS" revisited OR We are all in the same boat: http://tragedy.sdsu.edu/

Rivers SOS - protecting our water from mining and extraction : http://riverssos.org.au/