Oh, let's just blame the endangered parrot!

The critically endangered Orange Bellied parrot (pictured) is an "environmental obstacle" to a desalination plant planned for the parrot's habitat in Victoria, Massie Santos Ballon yesterday proclaimed on a so-called "Cleantech" website.

There's less than 200 orange belliers left in the wild, though a breeding and release program is showing promise. Habitat disruption is the main reason for the parrot's demise.

"The desalination plant also threatens other colorfully named species such as the glossy grass skink, the southern brown bandicoot and the growling grass frog, but the bird is really the center of all the attention," Ballon trivialises.

Ballon is a "columnist" from Manila, the Blade Runner-style capital of the Philippines, where sewer rats and junkyard dogs pass for biodiversity.

"The question is, will [the Orange Bellied parrot] cost Aussies their drinking water?" Ballon goes on to patronise.

As this blog sees it, the real question is: "Why should an environmentally-dubious desalination plant fly in the face of the well-established precautionary principle, to the detriment of several threatened species, so Aussies can wind up living in a horrorshow cesspit like the city Ballon calls home?"