Well done Country Gal in raising the issue about more trees than 230 years ago - however, it is probably not the right article to start a discussion about this biomass explosion everyone is ignorant about.

Ludwig - are you kidding!! Perhaps funding is withdrawn from govt bodies such as CRCs' because they are inefficient at using the funds they are given. You are an insider employed by the bureaucracy but as an ex-pube looking in, too much money is spent on bloated staff numbers, their exorbitant salaries, overheads, flex days and RDOs etc instead of producing worthwhile results that can assist their constituents. R & D money should be allocated to the most efficient users of that money, instead of satisfying political motives. Profit motive Vs inefficiency - I know where I would rather the money goes to.

Fair crack of the whip tragedy.

The support for a coordinated approach to weed management via a cooperative research centre or whatever is one thing. The efficiency with which this is done is something else entirely.

Yes, efficiencies in the public service could no doubt be improved. But that is no excuse for not having a public service, is it? And it is no excuse for the government foregoing its duty of care with respect to weeds and palming it off to private enterprise.

Besides, under a private enterprise scenario, economic weeds would get all the attention, with environmental weeds just being left out, unless there were some pretty strict guidelines implemented…which would be just the same sort of guidelines that a government-run CRC would be under, would it not?

Let’s face it; the profit motive won’t work with this issue.

So rather than knock the very notion of a CRC for weeds, how about supporting it… and pushing for the best standard of management.

“…too much money is spent on bloated staff numbers…”

Wow! You must have worked in a very different part of the public service to me tragedy.

One of the great problems with working in my field, over the last 19 years has been the ridiculously small number of staff employed to do the jobs that we are supposed to be doing.

This has had the direct result of making the public service seem inept in the eyes of many, because in many areas the job just isn’t getting done, or done properly, or the timelines are just too long.

This stuff strikes a very raw nerve with me. It has caused me a great deal of disillusionment over the years, as it would for anyone who has their heart and soul in their job.

As I said in my first post on this thread; there should be no reason why the current economic boom hasn’t led to big improvements in staff numbers and overall efficiency in achieving good environmental outcomes, within the public service and beyond.