Dubai was 100% desal long before it was even a twinkle in the WA Premiers eye. The biggest problem up there was the amount of Calcium they added to it. Drinking Dubai tap water was a pretty quick route to kidney stones.
Well, if you want to take it as far as it goes, rain is a product of desalination. But nature does it so much better than we do. And nature doesn't create pointless bloody eyesores such as the Wonthaggi White Elephant.
We could do that without Brumby saddling us with a $25 BILLION and counting debt. The Thomson dam is full. So is Eildon. The water shortage here was politically manufactured. People aren't whinging because they have been trained not to. Pavlov's methods were simple enough that even a politician could grasp them, with some coaching.
You're right you know. While we are on collected rainwater with an Artesian Shandy in late summer if necessary, Adelaide water used to be really crap so much so that Overseas Ships were forbidden or chose not to, to take on water here. I think that has changed. South Australia used to be referred to as the driest State in the driest country in the world but I doubt it is nowadays.
We are fortunate that we are surrounded by aprox 5 reservoirs some interconnected, so water quality is usually pretty constant & good these days. The recently "opened to the public for recreational use" one at Thorndon Park was first built from timber pipes & travelled approx 10 or 15 km to the old Valve House in the Eastern Park lands at Kent town. This supplied the city & inner burbs with water which previously was taken from the River Torrens.
Just recalled a strange story.
When the Canad-air water scooper aircraft were demonstrating here some years ago using Mount Bold reservoir as a a replenishment site because it had straight approaches, some shiny arse joker from the E&WS objected to the water being used in the event of a Bush fire. His words "Whose going to pay for it?" was his objection. FFS! One of the old school public servant more than likely.