Good old Queensland, just when you thought we were catching up on the two decades worth of progress we missed out on under dictator Joh, our regressive nature comes back to kick sensibility and forward thinking right up the backside.

The people of Toowoomba this weekend had the chance to show Australia that hey, we’re not childish, we’re in the middle of the worst drought in a hundred years, we won’t be stupid enough to pass up on valuable water, we will stand up, show initiative and drink recycled water.

But alas. Campaigning on the “yuck” factor alone, the Toowomba dinosaurs who campaigned against drinking recycled water won a hollow victory. With only 18 months water supply left in the dams, Toowomba residents decided to pass up this most precious drought commodity just because they were too childish to drink water (not waste, fools!) which was recycled.

Water is water. Recycled or not, water is the end product. In a drought, with no foreseeable end in sight, does it matter how we derive it if the end product is the same? Have the 61% who voted no got another solution? NO. Have they a machine that can produce water from nothing? Magical water spells maybe? Rain dances?

No wonder those south of Tweed snigger at us for being unenlightened redneck banana benders. “Must be too much sun,” snigger snigger snigger.

Well sadly, they are right. But one day dinosaurs will become extinct, and those enlightened ones that remain will realise that a drought is a drought, water is water, and they will drink recycled water. Somewhere below us, sitting on his throne, the King of regressives Sir Joh is laughing.