The 40 Hour Drought

University of Southern Queensland (USQ) student, Gab Connolly, has entered the national water debate, determined to make people reduce their water consumption.

The education student has joined David McPherson from Streatham, Victoria; Letitia Irwin from Rockhampton, Queensland and Martin McConnon from Stonor, Tasmania in developing ‘The 40 Hour Drought'.

The concept is similar to the 40 Hour Famine, but with ‘The 40 Hour Drought' people have to try and only use 40 litres of water in 40 hours.

'The average person uses about 200 litres (of water) per day,' Miss Connolly said.

Coming from a property in Mitchell, Miss Connolly is no stranger to drought.

'We were in drought from 2002 and all of the dams dried up,' she said.

'We got some relief in 2004 but we're certainly no where near out of drought.'

The 40 Hour Drought idea was developed when Miss Connolly was selected to visit Canberra in February as part of the ABC's Heywire Youth Issues Forum for rural youth.

The program involves young people writing a piece on something that is close to their heart and deals with issues facing youth in rural and regional Australia.

Miss Connolly was selected for her piece on the Vegetation Management Act and was put into a group with people who had similar topics.

'We had an hour to think of an idea and present it to a government department,' Miss Connolly said.

'The other four have all been affected by water restrictions or drought and it was all over the news while we were there.

'We couldn't think of anything until the last five minutes, when I said people don't listen until something's on their back door,' she said.

The group discussed a few ideas before deciding that they needed to make people take notice of how much water they were using every day.

'We just needed a timeline and thought of the 40 hour famine but switched it to the 40 Hour Drought.

'The government department just loved it,' she said.

'We went to this dinner after and they kept talking about it. We thought something might happen but we didn't think too much of it until the ABC rang and told us they wanted to do it.'

The 40 Hour Drought starts at 7am on Wednesday, March 21 and finishes at 11pm on Thursday, March 22. People are encouraged to register to take part in the 40 Hour Drought on the ABC website http://www.abc.net.au/water/40hourdrought/ and chart their usage.

Media Contact: Jane Urquhart, USQ Media, +61 7 4631 2559