Learned readers wondered on the weekend where the $3.9bn allocated to the new drought future fund the prime minister announced Friday would come from, suggesting it could include the $3.8bn from the closed Education Investment Fund that the feds moved to the National Disability Insurance Scheme. No, the government has emptied another Labor hollow-log, the Building Australia Infrastructure Fund, demonstrating that present political need in the present trumps long-term planning. Despite demands from university lobbies the EIF is never coming back.