This Cricket World Cup has been too short. Blink, and you find it's almost over...

It seems like only yesterday when the World Cup was officially opened by the British West Indies' finest cricketer to date, Lebrun Constantine, in a ceremony transmitted live via morse code to a worldwide audience of hundreds.

"...if it doesn't rain in sufficient volume over the next six to eight weeks, there will be no water allocations for irrigation purposes in the [Murray-Darling] Basin."

- John Winston Howard, press conference, 19.4.07

It would be easy to see this as another example of the PM playing politics and thus response with the line Howard to Farmers: Drop Dead. But it's a problem much more genuine and more serious than that.

"The Government will continue to support the UN goal of 0.7 per cent ODA/GNI as an aspiration and endeavour to maintain aid at the highest level, consistent with the needs of partner countries, our own capacity to assist and other priorities for Australian Government expenditure. In September 2005, the Prime Minister announced Australia’s intention to increase its overseas aid allocation to about A$4 billion a year by 2010. Such an increase will represent a doubling of Australia’s overseas aid from 2004 levels."