Mr Gaunt:
Mike was 100% supportive AND ensured, with his impramtur, we got access to the people we needed to get there.
Yes they were asleep at the wheel at the time. But awakened pretty quick. No consolation, but at least they didn't get bored to death or back to sleep as some are wont to achieve.
BTW I and most of us have achieved more by wearing my rose colored glasses than otherwise. It doesnt get you noticed and on soapboxes but it does get things done. Being part of the solution rather part of the problem is much more satisfying.
There you go, an opportunity to have a rant. Off you go then.
Yes Gaunty, it is much more satisfying - "being part of the solution" however that requires a unique ingredient to be added to the deliberations. More about that later.
WIthout that ingredeint "being part of the solution" wearing rose coloured glasses, is justpart of a dress up game designed to stroke egos and mollify critics while changing absolutely nothing. I think we have all seen the firebrands who come face to face with Government with real grievances who suddenly become good little puppies and start licking the hand of the one they were going to bite.
Its very easy to do, set up a Committee of Government and industry people chaired by someone like Mr. Mrdak to "work through the issues". Invite some industry "celebrities" to join the Committee as well. Hold committee meetings in Canberra, preferably in Parliament House. Organise some good lunches, Parliament and the National Press Club used to be good venues, the High Court Cafe was good too. Arrange for the Minister to attend a meeting and deliver a speech, or failing that a letter each member from the Minister thanking them for giving their time to this important venture, etc. Pay for a few airfares and voila! Susceptible committee members will start boasting to their friends about their new found importance and completely forget their prior anger and motivations.
Six months to a year later, a vacuous report is presented to the Minister who thanks the Committee for their hard work and off they go..............and nothing changes except perhaps a few titles on the doors.
The missing ingredient, Gaunty, is Good Faith. According to Pprune and Phelan, nobody now believes that CASA, ATSB, and perhaps the Department, itself possess any good faith at all, and without that your proposed solution is worthless, even counter productive because it strings thing s out.
We are in a race against time. Not the one involving electoral politics, but the one involving a smoking hole in the ground with hundreds of body parts around it.