Pericles said, "And of course nothing will ever change while people are happy to sit on their backsides and say "we tried that once, and it didn't work"."

Dear Pericles,

It's an unfortunate characteristic of humankind that when something doesn't work, they will often repeat the same stupid action with redoubled vigour instead of changing the way they do things.

The story so far....

From the window of his airconditioned aircraft and the map provided in the in-flight magazine, Pericles has found green worthless stuff that needs to be bulldozed to re-settle the teeming millions produced in undeveloped countries by women who have no control over their own fertility.

Specifically, there is a huuuuge tract of 40,000 hectares of very average soil (er, less that average and a bit poor really) in FNQ that each year has a short period of tropical downpour and flooding followed by many months of searing heat and dry.

Now according to Pericles, all that has to be done if only those stupid pollies would get off their fat behinds, is to build a long concrete wall to stop the rain ending up back in the sea and turn around all of those migrants who want to live in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane and send them packing to Far North Queensland.

Too easy and totally unselfish, world's overpopulation sorted and that useless green (green some bits of the year, but even drought adapted Ozzie plants have their limits) spot in the airline in-flight magazine has been changed to a sea of roof tops housing shanghaied, but satisfied, migrants. There is a shiny new ten storey Centrelink office. Meanwhile, everyone looks skywards for jobs. Hey, jobs will come, they've got to haven't they?

Next week Pericles will be over-flying the continent of Africa where there are heaps of jolly big green spots to be seen from on high, but strangely enough thousands suffer famine. However some concrete dams and doubling the population will fix all that too, eh Pericles?

Bah, Phooey to those greenies, the world ain't full yet by a long shot and if the main game is subduing Mother Nature there is nothing like overpopulation and dammed rivers to bring her to her knees.

Back in the real world, Anna Bligh is still trying to build more cities on arable land to house migrants. They can bring their own water, somehow. The urban spill has been over over prime 'food bowl' lands.

Very amusing, Cornflower.

But you miss the point. Again.

>>From the window of his airconditioned aircraft and the map provided in the in-flight magazine, Pericles has found... drone... drone...<<

I also travelled through the same landscape at ground level. I found some interesting spots along the way. Weipa was quite an eye-opener, for example. They managed to find a sustainable 64 gigalitres p.a. supply. Not bad for a small town. Especially as that's pretty much what they use to keep Canberra going. (Yes, I'm aware it could be put to far better use. But that isn't the subject here)

I presume that the idea of reproducing the Weipa story, complete with its rape of the land to dig up minerals in order to stuff the pockets of the bloated capitalists, is what you principally object to. Right?

Your other agenda is also crystal clear.

>>...green worthless stuff that needs to be bulldozed to re-settle the teeming millions produced in undeveloped countries by women who have no control over their own fertility.<<

Oka-a-a-a-y. Nothing to see here, move along please.

>>Next week Pericles will be over-flying the continent of Africa where there are heaps of jolly big green spots to be seen from on high, but strangely enough thousands suffer famine<<

On this basis, those African countries should be as prosperous as Norway, I guess. Strange that they aren't. I wonder why that is?

Keep talking Cornflower. We're learning more about your deep-seated attitiudes with every post.

And it has nothing to do with water, does it?

Nothing dark about my 'agenda' as you ominously put it, as anyone can see from posts. Here is my first:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10084&page=5

I am concerned about lack of risk analysis and lack of planning by the federal government and so are the State and Local government leaders all around the country. I repeated my concerns in my second post and here is an excerpt for you:

"...it is essential to the risk analysis and prudent planning that government should undertake (and why not publicly?) before commiting itself to big decisions. As is abundantly clear from the current insulation debacle (Garrett again), the reluctance to perform its due diligence before commiting itself to major decisions is the Achilles' Heel of the federal government.

Lack of due diligence and lack of planning are also the hallmarks of Rudd's Big Australia and both state and local government leaders all around the country are telling him just that."

I do not agree with your cynical generalisation about State and Local government leaders, or Australians, as being lazy, ignorant and unwilling to try anything new.

I didn't object to Weipa, that is all in your imagination.

I am a taxpayer and while I am happy to see government spending money I sure as hell want to see evidence of good governance and worthwhile results. Private enterprise doesn't expect its shareholders to accept major decisions or plans for investment on faith alone and neither should the federal government expect the community to accept "Never you mind". Judging from recent events including the insulation debacle, the federal government should be re-jigging the way it consults with stakeholders and the way it makes policy decisions.

Let's see if I have your argument on urban water straight, Pericles. Our politicians have boosted urban populations to the point where city water supplies have become inadequate. The problem could be easily and cheaply solved with a few more dams, but the politicians decide to build very expensive, energy hungry desalination plants instead, even though the skyrocketing water and electricity prices are going to give ammunition to the "xenophobes". They do this to provide "jobs for the boys", who mysteriously cannot be put to work fixing up our sclerotic urban transport, deathtrap highways, and many other forms of seriously overstretched infrastructure.

The politicians then institute a giant conspiracy in which the natural scientists, engineers, and economists at ABARE, the CSIRO and other government instrumentalities put their professional reputations on the line to lie about the lack of suitable dam sites, the potential for development in Far North Queensland, and other such issues, just the opposite of what the politicians would want them to be saying to promote public acceptance of further massive population growth.

Perhaps you should stick to showing that the Moon landings were faked, the British royal family assassinated Princess Diana, alien abductions are real, and Elvis lives, all areas where you might have a bit more credibility.

Sadly, Divergence, that's not even close.

>>Let's see if I have your argument on urban water straight, Pericles. Our politicians... institute a giant conspiracy<<

Government inactivity was just that. Inactivity.

When the need became urgent, they were forced into expensive alternatives.

CSIRO didn't lie about the dams. They were asked not to consider them.

No conspiracy. Just business as usual.