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Lunch, dinner or summit?

By Don Allan - posted Tuesday, 4 March 2008

As for the summit itself, how much time can each of the 1,000 experts devote to their subject? With 100 experts for each subject and if each day’s session lasts for 12 hours, less two hours each day for lunch, dinner and two smokos, each of the 100 will only have 12 minutes to put forward their ideas and have them discussed.

Can you imagine 1,000 experts finding 12 minutes enough? I cannot. And as yet I doubt the person has been born who could restrict experts to a total of 12 minutes speaking and arguing time.

Finally a friend suggested that, in the interests of gender equity, I should check if 500 males and 500 females comprise the 1,000 experts and if that isn’t so I should decline the PM’s invitation and hope for another invitation to lunch or dinner.

Now that sounds like a good idea.

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First published in The Chronicle, Canberra, on February 12, 2008.

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About the Author

Don Allan, politically unaligned, is a teenager in the youth of old age but young in spirit and mind. A disabled age pensioner, he writes a weekly column for The Chronicle, a free community newspaper in Canberra. Don blogs at: http://donallan.wordpress.com.