Joshua Gans remains a 2020 optimist

Few second thoughts and a distinct after-glow for Professor Joshua Gans, as he briefly summarises his impressions of The Big Weekend and participation in Rudd's 2020 summit.
But then Joshua appears to be a fully-employed (probably tenured), professional male under 50 years of age and, so hasn't lived through as many societal and political cycles as most on the NSW North (Graying) Coast.

The fruits of our labour are now on the 2020 website in the Initial Report produced at lightning speed. How could this be done? Well, by not really incorporating the final consensus of ideas (at least from our group). For instance, the goal of raising R&D enough to maintain international competitiveness was supposed to be something more specific such as raising private and public R&D to at least double its current level by 2020. And on the ideas our push for a revamp of the maths and science curriculum right from early learning was meant to be encompassed as an idea to hold a national level review of curriculum but got left as having one national curriculum (a very different and hardly consensus possibility that was never discussed). And then there was stuff that came out of nowhere such as "Innovation Australia" that we all did agree to strike in favour of promoting a National Innovation Agenda through COAG (thank you, John Brumby) and also exploring the ideas of having PhD Centres of Excellence along the German model (thank you, Bryan Gaensler). But I am going to leave to a future post how I think a consensus view of the Productivity Stream would look.

For me, the best experiences of the Summit were interacting with people outside of my own stream. I had breakfast with one of Australia's foremost climate change scientists, talked about governance with some folk, engaged in my usual arguments with Telstra on broadband, and discussed how we could make our health system work better with some doctors. It make me want to take part in what was going on in other streams but then again I had a job to do where I was.

And I wont lie to you, it was really great to be roaming Parliament House when so many famous faces were around. There is something unique about debating about where we were going to sit to eat our boxed lunch and decide the floor would do because Lachlan Murdoch was already down there. Mandawuy Yunupingu, the lead singer of Yothu Yindi, sat down next to me during one session. But, of course, rather than ask him about his ideas all I could think to do was revert to being star struck and tell him how I had imported his band's CDs to the US when I was studying because I missed Australian music. I got to see who I was taller than and fatter than. I caught a glimpse of Cate and the baby and decided not to bound over a bunch of chairs to introduce myself to the Prime Minister. And I was around when Hugh Jackman told the Summit of his 7 year old son's idea: "to speed up archaeological digs before they build all over them and it is too late." (On that score, thank goodness they invited the entertainers, it really livened up one of the main sessions).

In the end, for me I will get just what I expected, a bunch of new connections and hopefully friends who share a common interest in wanting to make things better. I think the Government will get some more ideas, but importantly, will be held to account by those who spent considerable energy in trying to make things better. In the relative disorganisation of the Summit agenda and process, they have formed a coalition of the "best, brightest and now restless" who will not want to let things just be. It will be up to them how they engage with that coalition.

I'm glad you enjoyed yourself, Joshua, and I wish you well.
I'll even forgive the fact that you saw nothing wrong with being blatantly used in a government attempt to form an elitist consensus with which to beat the electorate over the head - economists were never known for an understanding of the ordinary citizen.

It could only be the NSW North Coast Nationals

When a flyer arrives in the mail announcing that May 2008 is 'Report all Clarence Crime' Month and implying that 'car hoon' is an offence found in the Crimes Act, then it immediately becomes clear that this political blurb is from the North Coast Nationals.

In this case, Nationals MP for Clarence Steve Cansdell.

Now this so-called report all crime month does not appear to be part of the CVC 2008-2010 Crime Prevention Plan, so I have to assume this little beat up is pure Cansdell.

Perhaps he doesn't find local crime statistics between 2003-2007 give him enough scope and he hopes to find some anecdotal information with which to run a scare campaign or two in order to unsettle local communities and score against Country Labor.

Post-2020 media moments which would annoy

Now that Australia is in the post-2020 phase of a hopefully dying media cycle, here are one or two media moments I would prefer not to see.

 

An obviously overweight and out of condition Kevin Rudd announcing a 'healthy living' tax on meat pies or exhorting us all to run up the office firestairs to keep trim.

 

Rudd continuing to talk up a distracting and disruptive republic debate, while there is so much hard work and pain still ahead for us all if we are to implement meaningful responses to the environmental and social impacts of climate change.

 

Rudd, any Federal minister, Nelson or any Opposition MP ever fronting the cameras again and mentioning the phrases best and brightest, national consensus, think big or Australia 2020.

You are entering Dairy Farmers country, Wave (goodbye) to a cow today

Is nothing sacred! Another quiet little achiever looks set to pass from Aussie hands.

It is becoming harder and harder to Buy Australian.

 

"NATIONAL Foods, the Japanese company behind the Pura, Yoplait and King Island Dairy brands, has applied for regulatory approval to acquire NSW co-operative milk processor Dairy Farmers.

The application for clearance from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is the first official confirmation of NatFoods' interest in Dairy Farmers, which has demanded all potential bidders submit to strict confidentiality agreements.

Dairy Farmers, which is owned by about 2000 primary producers, yesterday described NatFoods as "the first of a number of parties interested in acquiring or merging with the business" to have commenced the official approval process.

The ACCC has called for submissions from interested parties by May 2.

It proposes to announce its decision by June 12."

Ghost writers causing 2020 summit initial report to grow and grow into a little bit of Kevin on Earth?

This morning News.com.au referred to the Australia 2020 summit initial report as being 85 pages long.
The copy I downloaded last night was 38 pages long in a 40 page PDF format.
So did the News journalist make a simple counting error 47 pages in length or is the Rudd Government supplying the media with a padded document containing ministerial spin?
Will the final version of the summit report due out next month bear any resemblance to the collective views of those little summit mouseketeer groups?

The Great 2020 Hoax

I watched the ABC1 Sunday afternoon showing of Vision 2020 Summit and, its participant speeches and summations. A fascinating spectacle, of motherhood statements and sector wish lists often at odds with each other, revealing a truth which cannot be spun or hidden. 

 

The Australia 2020 summit does not speak for Australia. In fact, by no disciplinary yardstick in existence can it be said to speak for the whole nation.

A badly-worded, one question, single issue online newspaper poll has more chance of being reliably considered representative of a majority national view.

Which means that 2020 is a hoax, a piece of political theatre designed to make voters think that government is doing more than running on the spot.

 

When Kevin Rudd first made that throw-away announcement, of a national ideas summit to help set the political agenda, I was mildly amused at his nonsense.

Then I became slightly irritated on realising that no thought had gone into how this would be achieved and, that invitations to chair workshops were based on the usual suspects known to those in power.

 

By the time it became obvious that dominant groups had hijacked both the summit's agenda and who would be chosen to attend, I have to say that irritation had turned to pronounced annoyance.

Particularly when Rudd decided to ginger things up by so obviously manouvering a republic onto the list.

 

This metamorphosed into definite anger when it could be seen that most of those attending had not even bothered to do the most preliminary homework on the their own stated aspirational goals, as opposed to their 'new' ideas of which there appeared to be none.

Even a trawl through the published 2020 written submissions revealed a dearth of proposed solutions to the problems which face us as a nation.

 

But what induced my almost incandescent rage has been the many assertions (made by smug elite spokespersons during this summit) that these little mouseketeers actually represent the views of all Australia.

The only views these people can possibly represent are the views of those attending over the course of the two-day summit. That is, those who were chosen and could afford to attend by paying all travel and accommodation costs, as well as buying most of their own food and drink.

 

However, because the final documents produced by this summit will have had to be massaged by bureaucrats to produce a least a few facesaving practical 'solutions' from that pile of well-worn aspirational goals, these may more properly be said to potentially reflect the views of ministers and their advisers.

If the televised ministerial speeches unconsciously foreshadowing this didn't give the hint, then the Prime Minister's shameless herding of the working groups would.

 

So Rudd and Co. let us be clear about what was achieved at the end of the 19-20 April exclusive Canberra weekend.

Your government presided over the biggest, collective manual self-gratification gathering ever held in Australia's long history.

I suggest you approach the Guinness Book of Records for inclusion, because that will be your sole enduring demonstrable outcome from this great hoax.