"Reshaping Australia": 2020 and all that.

• Author: Stone, John
• Position: Australia 2020 Summit - Essay
• Pages: 56(11)

When the full glory of the Australia 2020 Summit burst upon me, my first thought was of that old Groucho Marx saying that he wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have him as a member.

In company with about a million other Australians, the aberrant thought emerged, unbidden, that perhaps I should seek admission to this Gathering of All the Talents (as a latter-day Gilray might have dubbed it). With the Prime Minister and his appointed Vizier, Professor Glyn Davis, earnestly seeking the opinions of 1,000 of "Australia's best and brightest", might there not be a place for such as I?

A moment's thought dispelled such illusions. After all, this would be a gathering not only of our 1,000 "brightest" (which, Lord knows, would be disqualification enough), but also of our "best". No further time, clearly, should be wasted on such fantasies.

A train of thought having once been started, however, tends to go on careering down the line even though the driver has immediately applied the brakes. Not, mind you, that any light was visible at the end of this tunnel, but its pursuit could be interesting. So I began considering the gathering in Canberra (where else!) on 19-20 April from various angles, including:

* Fundamentally, what was its purpose?

* To whom would its organisation be entrusted?

* How would the selection processes to choose these 1,000 gifted people operate?

* Since governments never (willingly) appoint a Royal Commission--or a national Summit--unless confident of its future findings, how would the government ensure that only its own desired "ideas" survive?

The Summit's purpose

In seeking the gathering's purpose, one turns first to the Prime Minister's media release of 3 February 2008. The Summit, it said, was being convened "to help shape our long-term strategy for the nation's future". This was puzzling. Throughout last year we were repeatedly told that, unlike the allegedly hapless Howard Government, Labor would provide "new leadership". It already had "a plan" for our national future--after all, you can't lead unless you know where you're going.

The Summit, Mr Rudd said, would "harness" the best ideas across the nation, providing a forum "for free and open public debate in which there are no predetermined right or wrong answers". This was more like it! More free and open public debate is badly needed, although (to name but one example) the government's unwillingness to entertain any questioning of its spurious "climate change consensus" must excite some doubts on that score.

Mr Rudd also assured us that "the government has no interest in a talkfest". That sentiment, shared by 99.9 per cent of other Australians, was again encouraging. The government's interest, he continued, was "in harnessing [that word again] and harvesting ideas ... capable of being shaped into concrete policy actions". Now we really seemed to be getting somewhere. That seemed to rule out all the fads and fancies of Labor's Left, and of the chattering classes more generally. Fears that the Summit might be intended to provide justifications for pursuing, say, a Charter of Rights, or a Republic (of some assiduously unstated variety), or a new Preamble to our Constitution to elevate the status of Aboriginal (and pseudo-Aboriginal (1)) Australians above that of the rest of us, vanished immediately. Those tired old ideas, and others such, had no hope of being "shaped into concrete policy actions".

Mr Rudd's statement also indicated that, in addition to those actually participating, "all Australians will be invited to make submissions" to the Summit Secretariat. Fleetingly, there emerged the thought of doing so. However, noticing that the Secretariat was another name for the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (now headed by an old Queensland associate of Mr Rudd's), that thought also was quickly dismissed.

The real meat of the 3 February statement, however, lay in its multi-page Attachment, dealing with each of 10 "critical areas", namely:

* "Future directions for the Australian Economy--Education, skills, training, innovation and productivity.

* "Economic infrastructure, the digital economy and the future of our cities.

* "Population, sustainability, climate change and water.

* "Future directions for rural industries and rural communities.

* "A long-term national health strategy.

* "Strengthening communities and supporting working families.

* "Options for the future of Indigenous Australia.

* "Towards a creative Australia: the future of the arts, film and design.

* "The future of Australia's governance: open government (including the role of the media), the structure of government and the rights and responsibilities of citizens.

* "Australia's future in the region and the world".

To each of these the Attachment devoted a brief introductory paragraph or two, plus a series of dot points that "the Australia 2020 Summit will examine". Two things were immediately apparent. First, this forum for "free and open public debate in which there are no predetermined ... answers" seemed already to be "harnessed" into many of the government's predetermined views. The words "the Australian Government" [sometimes just "the Government"] is committed to ..." occur no less than 17 times in those 13 introductory paragraphs, as well as (once) "the Government is determined ...". How does that emphasis on prior commitment and determination jibe with that earlier profession of non-predetermination? This was a conundrum.

Second, with roughly 100 of our "best and brightest" clamouring for attention in each "critical area", only a Darwinian selection process could determine whose ideas were heard at sufficient length to be even understood, let alone accepted by the others. With time out for Friday evening cocktails, the Saturday formal opening by the Prime Minister, expansive (not to mention expensive) luncheons on both Saturday and Sunday, the slap-up Saturday evening dinner and the closing plenary session itself, there would not be many hours available for the central cross-fertilisation process. While there might be no lack of fertiliser (aka manure), those with the task of growing something out of it could have their work cut out.

The organisers

That brings me to the question: to whom was the Summit's organisation to be entrusted? Its prime Organiser (one might almost say Enforcer) was to be Professor Glyn Davis, AC, formerly a close colleague of Mr Rudd's. Professor Davis also has form in other regards, and given his central role in the proceedings, it may be worth dwelling a...