Michael McLaren has urged officials to start prioritising water infrastructure as he warns now is the time to be proactive, especially with planned data centres requiring a lot of water.

The Afternoons host has pointed out the Queensland Government have remained unclear about the location of a newly proposed dam while New South Wales have no plans to secure their supply.

“if we, as a nation, just sit back and rely on our existing network of rivers and dams to carry the load of a rapidly-growing population and emerging, water-intensive industries, then we’re condemning future generations (if not our own) to unnecessary and avoidable hardship,” he said.

“We think social cohesion is a bit rough now, if we thought we saw the worst of mankind during the great toilet paper rush of Covid, just wait for the free-for-all that’ll come if the taps start to run dry,” he added.

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