You will pay for all this water. Unless you are insulated from the normal costs of living, you can expect sticker shock at some point this year, or next, when paying for the weekly food shopping. We've had oil shocks. Prepare for food shocks.

Ten years ago, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation's composite world food price index stood at 92. For the month of December it was 215.

The most expensive year on record was 2008, when 60 million people slid into poverty because of higher food costs. There were food riots. Over the past three months, the trend in the FAO's food price index was worse than 2008.

The pressure in 2011 won't just be on food prices. The inundation of Queensland sent cotton futures to a record high. Cotton is basically twice as expensive as it was 10 years ago because of fundamentals: supply and demand.

Then there are energy prices. Australia is the world's biggest coal exporter and Queensland is a big part of that. The armada of empty coal ships sitting off the Queensland coast is already flowing into higher coal prices in Europe.