Mr Gerrit I thought that taking illigal drugs was breaking the law. What if we were to impliment a system whereby everone was tested for drugs every time they entered a public building, be it centerlink, a public hospital as examples. You see much of our presious hospital time is wasted on drugies that are repeat drug offenders and at times require the assistance of up to 10 hospital personel while at the same time ladies are having miss carridges in the waiting rooms because of patient overload.

I don't do drugs, nor do I support my welfare contributions being used to fund drugs. Many drug dealers are on welfare, don't work, don't pay taxes yet enjoy a life style the envey of any hard working person. I say again, why should the workers be tested for drugs, some of them office workers at that, while our wefare recipients get paid wether they are high or not. Please don't get me wrong, there are many genuine welfare cases out there but just think how many of the rat bags would stave if we were to introduce random drug testing anywhere, anytime. rehctub

Mr Gerrit
Further to your post I would like to give you just one example of a water side worker, a freind at the time, that I saw go from a great guy, to a union rep only to have a complete break down whereby he lost his home and wife in the process.

I first met this guy as a customer of one of my shops back in the early 90's. We played golf together, espicially on rainy days, (we used to get them back then), and he would bragg to me how he got paid extra (stress pay) as he called it becasue he couldn't get to work.

Another day he was with a crew of 8 and he went to put one of the slings back onto the hook from a crane, a simple task and got shunned by his fellow work mates becasue as they said "that's not our job, we have to wait for a rigger". Several hours later a rigger turned up and picked up the sling, placed it on the hook and they were then able to return to work. For just 1 hour that was as they had sat around for about 61/2 hours waiting for this so called specialist. The whole thing got to him in the end.
I realise you don't support john howard and that is your choice. However, he now finds himself in a position whereby he may have to take over the hospitals, water etc as the labour dominated states are obviously incapable of getting it right. As a queenslander I can only speak for my state, here we have had the suncorp stadium, some 100's of millions over budget and the goodwill bridge, budgeted to cost 13.3 million yet when completed cost us 63.3 million.
Now I am the forst to admit that the howard government may not be able to have done better but if the unions get a strong hold in this country again all I can say is look-out. Rehctub

Rehctub I think you do better to read up on my blog at http://au.360.yahoo.com/profile-ijpxwMQ4dbXm0BMADq1lv8AYHknTV_QH as to try to set it all out in posts may take me years!
The WATER issue is a problem the commonwealth actually failed to act for at least for 50 years when they could and still even if they get all the powers they will not do a thing to fix it. Worse, if the Federal government gets its hands on WATER it can basically control everything. Steve Bracks (Vic) changed his mind after I wrote why WATER should not be in the hands of the Federal Government. For better explanation see my blog.

With waterside workers, they are within and always were within the fold of the Commonwealth, just that the Federal Government went the wrong way about in the waterside workers dispute with Corringan.

Howard i9ndicates to change the Preamble to recognise Aboriginals. This is a hoax and con-job as the preamble is not part of the Constitution and so Section 128 referendum cannot alter it. The same with the con-job referendum for a Republic, it cannot be done. Again see my blog for further explanation.

As for misuse of drugs. Constitutional powers prevent the Commonwealth to legislate as to certain people to be tested and others not as any law must be for all people. Not that John Howard gives a hood as he acts often unconstitutionally. He pretends to have the interest of the community at heart but his actions prove otherwise. Iraq is a clear example how it was an unconstitutional murderous invasion, and for what?

With the election he is using our tax money as his give away! And this comes back to your thread that we could provide for more money for all children in need if we didn’t waste billions of dollars on an unconstitutional invasion, other Howard give away’s, etc.

Mr Gerrit
With regards to water I must admit I am not aware of what you have stated however I have no reason to doubt you. All I know is that whatever is being done now is not working and if something is not done, and soon, we will be in dire straights.

With water being the most precious recourse in our country there are some serious issues that need to be addressed right now and I don’t care who addresses these issues.

Firstly lets look at water, or more so how it gets to our houses and what happens to it after we use it.

Articulated water delivered to QLD households is ‘A Grade’ drinking water yet we consume less than 2% with the balance used for daily household uses. This household water once used is returned to the treatment plant via sewage, treated then dumped. My shire alone, north of Brisbane dumps 9 million liters of re-treated water e-v-e-r-y day.

I suggest one of 2 options.

1. Convert the town water supply to non-portable water that has been treated to a level that is safe to use but not recommend for drinking then introduce bottled water for drinking. Bottled water being water that has been treated to ‘A Grade’ drinking standard, bottled into 20lt bottles and delivered to households on a weekly basis either free or at a ‘cost recovery’ basis. This option will stop the dumping of millions of liters per day as once re-treated it is re-piped to household for re-use. There would also be cost savings in the treatment costs that would be offset against the cost of delivering drinking water.


2. Implement option 1 and once the dam level returns to above 50% simply flush the entire system and return to ‘A Grade’ water and cease the bottled water supply until such time as the dam levels become depleted.

By implementing either of these methods there would be no need for the recycling of water therefore the debate about is it safe or unsafe would no longer be an issue.
rehctub

You stated you do not care who does it, this I view is the wrong approach. We have constitutional limitations and of the States were to encroached upon federal powers the Federal Government would be quick to stop it.

While John Howard was talking about 10 billion dollars, he wasn’t taking this from his own money and it cannot be taken from consolidated Revenue, as such it has to be from the very states that gets the money by way of special levy!
Now, why on earth should a State government hand over legislative power in return for nothing?
Since Federation the Federal Government had the legislative powers, see section 100 of the Constitution, to set limits of water allocation. Malcolm Turnbull himself made known that it didn’t do so for the last 50 years when it should have. Then for the Federal Government to blame the States is nonsense.
As I understand it if the Federal Government gets legislative powers it will sell water to US companies who then sell it at inflated prices back to us!
Nothing the Federal Government can do as to increase water supply! And again, it failed to control the over supply!

For Victoria I have recommended desalination plants in the Mallee. This is far inland away from the sea. Why? Because the salt is there on the ground, due to past clearing of trees. So, by pumping up the under ground-water and then recycle it then the water table will to some extend reduced and at the time reduce the salt level and land become more viable for farming.
As such desalination would reclaim lost farming land.
Also, by creating a desalination plant it may revitalise small towns and create work (employment) because of the work involved in the desalination plants.
Many options are possible to deal with the water shortage without needing federal intervention!