Australian Water Association comments on how to trick the politicians ...

Interesting comments from the Australian Water Assocation on how to trick the politicians into adopting recycled effluent projects:

"I'd argue that it is the public ultimately that drives the politicians; the challenge for the technical folks is to convince & motivate the public, which partially requires mobilising the media (to which politicians also respond). This last bit is a challenge, in my experience, as they are interested mainly in the sensational, which for water folks typically means bad news rather than good news."

"On the public end, there are three possibilities: opposition, neutrality (complacence/apathy) and support. There will of course always be a range of opinions and the middle group of folks will most likely always be the largest. The trick is to get the positive folks to be (or appear to the politicians to be) a more vocal majority than those opposed. It seems to be that it tends to be a rare politician that will stand up and champion a potentially risky cause, but if that can be found there is great potential.

Brian McRae
Technical Director
Australian Water Association"
22 Jan 2003


http://www.nrm.qld.gov.au/list_archives/water-recycling/msg01268.html