(INTERVAL).- NUISANCE PERIOD ALMOST OVER

(INTERVAL) NUISANCE PERIOD ALMOST OVER

Please be patient.

The names of the Thousand Best And Brightest should be out within the next week or so.

The Nuisance Period leading up to the Australia 2020 Summit will soon be over and so the “pick me!” shenanegans will soon be over too .... THEN we can all get down to the serious business of working out what policies can get us a better future.

I said WE and I meant WE!

Just because you haven't been invited to waste a heap of your own money [if you had any, that is] to attend this particular talk-fest in Canberra in a few weeks time, it doesn't mean you have to just sit in a corner, keep your mouth shut and do as you are told.

If you have an opinion on what policies would help you or harm you in the future – get up and say so! If not here on the Counter-Summit blog then in dozens and dozens of other places: among your friends and colleagues, on talk-back radio, in letters-to-the-editor, in chat-rooms, at school, in public meetings, in the pub or the club, in letters to your council or your local parliamentarian.

Don't allow yourself to be intimidated into silence by “your betters”[wtf??] or by today's version of the Bunyip Aristocracy.

You haven't surrendered your citizenship, have you? You haven't signed a contract to enter serfdom, have you?

Then you have just as much right to have an opinion or have a bright idea – and to say so – as any of the usual bunch of scoundrels, failures and boofheads whose silly ideas are given such undue prominence in the news media.

Don't be shy.

Stand up.

Speak up.

We all want to hear what you think.

SHOPPING

SHOPPING – Social control – Private taxation – Barriers to entry into business – Loss of choice – Monopolies and oligopolies - Waste - Money and plastic - Improving quality - Value-for-money - Ingredients and country-of-origin labelling - Consumer protection - Price Controls - Shopping hours

'What? You have to be kidding! This is supposed to be a serious discussion about policy-making and our future; it's not supposed to be about something as trivial as shopping.'

Sir Frank Lowy, the big boss of Westfield, probably doesn't think shopping is trivial.

So .... what do you want to change about shopping?

THE SEA – Pollution and Dumping – Mining the Seabed – Extracting Minerals – Fishing and Overfishing – Fresh Water and Hydrogen from seawater

THE SEA – Pollution and Dumping – Mining the Seabed – Extracting Minerals – Fishing and Overfishing – Fresh Water and Hydrogen extraction from seawater

WATER – Purity and Pollution – Supply – Use and Misuse – Privatization of rain

LAND - Fertility - Degradation - New crops and new ways of farming - Tenure and use

LAND – Fertility – Erosion – Salinity – Tenure – Farming – Shared use – Loss of arable land – Alternative farming – Wilderness – New crops and new livestock – New ways to look after land – New machines and old machinery adapted – New Technology - Training and retaining new farmers -

HEALTH AND WELLNESS – The illness business – Health education – Close-shop specialities - Injury prevention - Good nutrition ....and more

HEALTH AND WELLNESS – Future of the illness business – Health education and barriers to health education – Close-shop specialities and other “unionist” swindles – Rescuing medical, nursing and pharmaceutical training – Encouraging physical fitness and preventing injuries – Removing barriers to research – Reducing the costs of health care and preventing corporate fraud - Allowing medical practitioners to have a private life – Early detection and treatment of disorders - Enabling the disabled – Polyclinics – Improving ambulance services – Accident prevention – Improving mobility – Making pregnancy and childbirth normal again – Preventing or lessening the impact of mental disorders – Good nutrition

Time for us to get out of the mess we have allowed to happen.