TWO.

3)FAVOURITISM?:- Personally I have no problem with 'personalities' being at the summit. We ALL have opinions from the plumber etc., to the film-star! What I DO have a problem with however, is WHETHER Jackman/Blanchett WERE 'selected' from an application, (a foregone I think)-or were they invited? IF so, why so?
And why should such people be given a prominent role simply because of who they are?
Did they or other 'prominent' people at the summit get more time to espouse THEIR ideas? Wanna bet??
To the exclusion of who?

Frankly, I'm damned if I can figure why Rudd did this. It WAS another talkfest. And it was a talkfest of the fittest and finest. It had bugger all to do with democracy, and EVERYTHING to do with 'being seen to be' democratic.

It was an expensive and ludicrous love-in for a PM who I VASTLY prefer to the self-serving bullying little twot that preceded him

Everything can be smoke and mirrors and bunting if you have a flaw in knowing what you are doing.
Cover-up can become the game if no real solid direction is available. Pride's the curse.
2020 always appeared plastic wrapped in foil. Good clear policies would have seen no need for 2020.
I didnt see "the people" there. What happened to "the people"? Is their cry lost? Things gotten too big nowadays for 'the people"?
Im not too sure if Kevin really knows what he is supposed to do, even with all of the talks he will have quietly had with the old boys of Labor.
All I know as a committed christian is that powers are at work in the spirit realm and they want Australia backsliding into immorality so Judgment will fall.
This backsliding continued this week when we saw more power given to the gay movement.
You know...some days I cant help looking at the Romans, and the Egyptians, and the Greeks, and the Incas, and the Mayans, and the Celts, and all of the others now gone and observing that when they went over to bad moral behaviour they either got displaced by Christianity... or vanished.
Openning doors to increased immorality in an already immoral age will soon tell us, one way or the other, if Labor is right or wrong.
The nation will feel it big time through unexpected events.
Whatever happened to the politician with the Word of God in his hand?

Will you stop whining? We in the voter land elected a record number of democrats in 1998 to stop us being lumbered with the dreadful GST.

Instead the Democrats gave us the GST, we are going broke and the democrats are extinct.

Lynne, the idea of the thing was to have people talking again, remember that?

It was a success for that reason alone and the rest of you need to stop this damn whining.

Yeah Yeah all youse just shut up. The govment and marilyn know what's best for youse all!

None of us now need elections cos prospective govment don't needta tell us wot they gonna or not gonna do. All they hafta do is tell us that they'll have a summit of all the brainy boxers so them brainy boxers can tell us that the govment is best to tell us wot's good or bad for us. Whatta ya reckon eh?

An I diddna hear any one of them brainy boxers say it was a good idea to increase tax on ma booze eifher.

For what it is worth, and noting it is second hand, I have an uncle who attended as an invitee as came away "surprisingly impressed" with both the forum section he attended and the Prime Minister.

I would think his politics lie toward the conservative end of the spectrum, although I have never asked him directly, but he felt that his section covered a lot of issues and ideas and was certainly worth the exercise.

Secondly regarding water tanks I think posters have not done a full balance sheet on the energy requirements. Many of the new houses I have worked on over the last few years have pumps on the tanks to deliver a workable pressure within the house. Desalination takes around 4kw/h to produce a 1000 lts of water. These water tank pumps are 2000kw + units.

Certainly the water from a plant needs to be pumped to a reasonable elevation to provide supply but I would think the greenhouse gas per litre equation for both systems may surprise us.

I remain an advocate of desalination as long as it is supplied by renewable energy and the waste product issue is dealt with. People rarely see the devestation they wrought on river systems through their water use but would understand why they are putting their hand in their pocket if they can see a water producing factory operating near them.