2020 - Ahh, those were the days

More from Steph here and here.

And this:



Memories.

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Read it here: 2020, and also the Budget assessed

Here's the final report from the 2020 Summit.

And here's the Parliamentary Library's analysis of the Budget.

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Time for a break, and to relive those 2020 nights

It's from YouTube.

But Kate Blanchett as Olivia Newton John?

Kevin Rudd as John Travolta?

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2020: A (satirical) delegate's view

Meet Annette, a delegate from Monash Young Labor.

Parts 1, 2 and 3 of her adventures were here.

Now for Part four:



And part five:



And part six:



It looks as if there will be a part 7!

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The cardboard box Summit.

That's what the lunches were presented in.

Much expense was spared.

Joshua Gans is back in Melbourne and offers his initial thoughts.

An extract:

"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."

Below, Shane Wright of the West Australian offers a thoughtful critique:

Nine years ago, 55 per cent of the population voted against the idea of an Australian republic.

At the weekend, of 100 handpicked attendees to Kevin Rudd’s 2020 summit, just one voted against the proposition.

If that doesn’t highlight the difference between the 1000 or so “summiteers” and the rest of the population — and their views on the subject — then nothing does.

The concept of bringing together the nation’s “best and brightest” was the Prime Minister continuing the election campaign he started when made ALP leader back in December 2006 and which has yet to let up.

Everyone has been brought into the ALP tent, Mr Rudd has presented himself as an “ideas man” and now there’s plenty of concepts off and running. But just what are these ideas?

Many are reheated thoughts that were put into the freezer during the Howard years and have been slapped back into the oven because of the change in political temperature. Some would sit aside motherhood and apple pie. Nationwide harmonisation of regulations and standards is a nobrainer. Did we need a summit of 1000 to restate the obvious? Other concepts seemed more driven by ideology than key outcomes.

The future security panel’s brief should have been pretty clear, but instead one of the final suggestions printed for public consumption was to “ensure Australia’s commitment to gender equality is reflected in domestic and foreign policy”.

Then there were the concepts that seem almost impossible to police, such as a proposed ban on unhealthy food ingredients. Where does a food bar that perfectly suits the need of a marathon runner but which is just a love handle builder for kids sit?

There were some good ideas to come out of the weekend. The creation of a “community corps” whose members could pay off their HECS or HELP debts by working in rural and remote Australia would go some way to delivering some badly needed skilled employees to the regions.

A review of the entire business and personal tax system, with a focus on finding taxes to ditch or change, is way overdue.

But last time I checked, this sort of thing is actually core government business. In purely economic terms, the question has to be asked — do the costs of bringing together 1000 people for a weekend, the time spent by Mr Rudd and his front bench and the hundreds of departmental “volunteers” outweigh the benefits of some of the ideas that have been shaken out?

There’s nothing as stirring as John F. Kennedy’s plan to send a man to the Moon, except perhaps Mr Rudd’s own thought to develop a bionic eye. But the bionic eye sits well down on a list that includes harmonising State and Federal health infrastructure funding. Those concepts not ideologically driven are mostly bureaucratic incrementalism.

Mr Rudd has set himself to respond to all the proposals by year’s end. If he is to show the summit was about ideas and not just electoral appearances, he must be ruthless, focus on the few good concepts and get them running quickly.

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2020: The washup

Commenter Willowtree is unkind enough to observe:

"Australia will maximise its wealth, excellence and equity by driving up productivity growth to the leading edge of developed countries, by:

•Equipping all Australians through an education and training system that leads the world in excellence and inclusion

•Deploying Australia’s human capital efficiently and fairly including by overcoming the barriers that lock individuals and communities out of real opportunities

•Connecting through new collaborations across our education, business and innovation systems."

And here I was thinking it was just going to be a bunch of motherhood statements."

Ouch! That was pretty much what the processes adopted were bound to achieve: to weed out ideas that didn't already have wide support.

Except for the Health stream, which used a different process. It actually came up with some great suggestions.

Nonetheless the networking, and the informal nature in which it took place really was really useful.

The Summit wasn't a waste of time.

Below, I write about what the Economy stream came up with:



Kevin Rudd has been challenged to set up a national inquiry into Australia’s tax system - the first in more than 30 years.

Put forward by a group of delegates to the economics stream of the 2020 Summit including Lachlan Murdoch, Bernie Fraser and Fred Hilmer, the inquiry would examine both business and personal taxation at the state, local and federal levels.

It would be the first such comprehensive inquiry since the one set up by Prime Minister William McMahon and his Treasurer Billy Sneddon in 1972 and conducted by a retired NSW Supreme Court judge Justice Kenneth Asprey.

More recent inquiries, such as the one that paved the way for Australia’s Goods and Services Tax were limited to considering only a part of the tax system – in that case personal taxes at the Commonwealth level.

The inquiry would be asked to come up with a new tax system that was fair, simple, efficient, non-discriminatory and interacted constructively with the welfare system.

It was to have also been asked to ensure that its recommendations were “fiscally responsible”, but the group dropped that suggestion at the prompting of the business figure Lachlan Murdoch who said it would be too restrictive.

The inquiry would have only two years in which to report and would be asked to present interim reports before then.

Specific suggestions to be put before the inquiry would include cutting the reliance on income tax, eliminating transaction taxes such as payroll and stamp duties, and ensuring that the tax system is genuinely as opposed to merely theoretically progressive.

The inquiry would also be asked to hunt out and remove perverse incentives such as the one that encourages Australians using company provided cars to “drive to Cairns and back” in order to cut their rate of Fringe Benefits Tax.

The economy steam also called for a recasting of federation in which a new body - modeled on the Productivity Commission – would recast the roles of the state, local and federal governments in order to create a “seamless truly-national economy.”

The former NSW Premier Bob Carr, a delegate at the Summit, made it clear that he would only support such a recasting if the body in charge or it was not “as dopey as the Grants Commission”.

Bob Katter, the independent member for Kennedy in outback Queensland argued for the creation of two new Australian states, North Queensland and North West Australia in which to house a booming population and new primary producers.

“If you took out the capitals and coastal towns in the golden boomerang around the south and south east of the country you would still have 90 per cent of Australia left and hardly any people in it,” he said.

“It is immoral that we are not using that land and putting people in it. About 80 million of our neighbours go to bed hungry and yet we sink their boats when they try to come here. We need the put people into northern Australia.”

A group of delegates to the economics stream including the tucking magnate Lindsay Fox pushed for what they called a “ramrod” approach developing infrastructure, charging a single national entity with the job of “making it happen”.

“It takes nine months to have a baby, but to get approval from government can take four years,” he said.

A group organised by a former Treasury head Ted Evans suggested that the Prime Minister be required to set out long-term priorities with each annual each budget, something that he said would be needed as Australia moved to a more presidential system of government.

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2020: It's out.

The Initial Summit Report.

Pretty quick, hey.

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2020: Speed Dating for economists

“Speed dating” and red stickers were among the tools used by economists to hammer out agreement during the first day of the 2020 Summit.

The 100-odd participants in the economics group were asked to first form a pair with someone they hadn’t met before and then come up with an idea they were both passionate about. After that the pair had to meet another pair and do the same thing, and then meet another group and form a group of eight.

One member of that group had to write a quick description of the surviving idea on a folded A4 sheet of paper, hold it aloft and then try to attract other people holding pieces of paper on which were written similar ideas.

“The sounds more chaotic than it is, but trust me it usually works,” the moderator assured them.

“What we are going to see is an organic grouping of people, and we will probably also see one or two of you lonely holding an idea above your head all by yourself as well.”

“That’s okay, we will come and talk to you. It will self-organise.”

“You have to get a market for the idea,” the moderator assured those who were unsure. “Stand up and search for people with common interests. Don’t make your interest too narrow or you won’t find any friends.”

Dignitaries including the former head of Westpac David Morgan, the head of the Industry Department Peter Boxall, Lindsay Fox, Lachlan Murdoch and Bernie Fraser played along.

The ideas were sorted into four, plus an extra group entitled “other” and then the participants divided into four. Using butchers’ paper and red dot stickers they refined their ideas and assessed their popularity arguing for what seemed a very long time over the wording.

The four groups will get together and share the ideas tomorrow.

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2020 viewing

Parts 2 and 3 are excellent as well.

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Feel like some 2020 reading?

All of the public submissions to the 2020 summit are now up on line, all 8,637 of them.

"Sustainability" is the most popular topic, getting 1,322 submissions.

"Creative Nation" is the least popular, getting 455 submissions. Easy reading.

Plus, each of the 1,000 delegates has made a submission, but as far as I can tell they are not on the Australia2020 website yet.

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The 2020 Youth Summit - what a feeling!

“Awesome, amazing, inspiring, empowering”.

"We have a strong and committed voice, and Australia’s new leadership has an unprecedented appetite to listen.”

Cutting the voting age to 16, paying teachers based on their performance, getting public transport to within two kilometres of every urban Australian, and a scheme that would slash the price of life-saving drugs are among the top recommendations of the weekend’s 2020 Youth Summit - an event described by those who took part as “awesome”, “amazing”, “inspiring” and “empowering”.

At times spontaneously breaking into song during breaks, the 100 delegates selected to Parliament House from all corners of the nation were behaving like best friends as the two-day curtain-raiser to next weekend’s 2020 summit came to a close.

“I am impressed by the attitude of everyone here,” said one. “Everyone’s a mate, there’s no such thing as enemies.”

“We are going to keep meeting well beyond the summit and make sure these things are done,” said another.

“The thing that I am going to take away isn’t that young people are the leaders of the future, because it’s obvious that young people are leading their communities now,” said another. “We needn’t wait for a time to lead. That time is now"...

As 24-year old Hugh Evans, a former young Australian of the year and the founder of Australia’s first entirely youth-run international aid and development organisation read out the communiqué in the Parliament House theatrette on Sunday afternoon, the Prime Minister slipped into a seat near the back.

He was given a standing ovation – the rock star treatment without the mobbing.

Hugh Evans told the crowd that because of Kevin Rudd, or “Lù Kèwén” as he said the Prime Minister was known in China, young Australians were in a powerful, possibly unique situation.

“We have a strong and committed voice, and Australia’s new leadership has an unprecedented appetite to listen to that voice,” he said.

As he handed Kevin Rudd the 24-page communiqué the Prime Minister held it aloft and declared that he had “only been back in the country for four hours and already I’ve got some homework.”

Turning to address the delegates and attempting to quieten thunderous applause the Prime Minister said, “Hi guys. How is everybody? It’s good to see you.”

“You know, we in this government have an old fashioned view which is that we don’t have a monopoly on wisdom,” he said.

“You ideas will go to next weekend’s summit along with eleven of you. And for the ideas that emerge by consensus from the summit, we the government undertake to respond to every one by the year’s end.”

“We will tell you what we can embrace, what we cannot embrace, and the reasons for each.”

“The good thing about the kind of debate you have been having this weekend is that you don’t need right and wrong answers.”

“That’s an approach that strangles discussion.”

“We need to let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend,” he said echoing the words of the late Chinese dictator Chairman Mao Zedong.

Mr Rudd said he had spoken to expatriate Australians in London, New York, Washington and Beijing on his 18-day overseas tour and had been struck by their commitment to helping to build a new and better Australia.

“We need a vision for this country to be the best educated, best skilled, best trained workforce in the world, not 14th or 15th or 9th or 10th, but the absolute best,” he said to further applause.

“We shouldn’t settle for anything less.”

The one-hundred delegates voted to select 10 of their number to represent them at the main 2020 summit this coming weekend in Parliament House. Because of a tied vote, 11 were selected, ranging in age from 19 to 24.


Key recommendations:

. National paid parental leave

. Youth entrepreneurship hubs to nurture the creation of the "next “googles”

. Automatic enrollment to vote, and a voting age of 16

. Performance and development pay for teachers

. A deployable reserve public service that would intervene at the request of regional governments or in the event of a collapsed state

. A National Migrant and Refugees Settlement Strategy

. A national indigenous home ownership strategy that would guarantee all indigenous Australians the opportunity to own their own homes by 2020

. Rewarding the developers of pharmaceuticals through payments based on their contribution to improving world health, as an alternative to patents

. A goal of having every urban Australian living within two kilometres of a train station, light rail corridor or high-frequency bus route by 2020


SID CHAKRABARTI

Sid Chakrabarti, a 24-year old ANU student from O’Connor has emerged as the only ACT resident who will take the ideas of Australia’s youth to next weekend’s 2020 summit.

Originally from Perth, the economics and law graduate is completing a masters degree in Middle Eastern Studies investigating how and whether to negotiate with Islamist organisations such as Hamas.

When he is not doing that he is coordinating Youth Speak, a nationwide United Nations Youth Association survey aimed at gathering ideas for the future from 20,000 young Australians in schools, homes and detention centres.

One of 100 delegates from every corner of the nation who took part in the weekend 2020 Youth Summit, he is surprised that he was elected to be one of the 11 to carry those ideas into the main summit.

“No-one even knew what the voting system would be, there wasn’t time to campaign,” he told the Canberra Times after his victory.

“We have come up with so many good ideas that, for the benefit of all the people who chose me, I am not going to be intimidated at the big summit next weekend.”

“I’ll have a loud enough voice to stand up there and say – this is what we think. And as long as I can support it with legitimate arguments there is no reason I we should not be heard”.

“And the fact is that by 2020 the people my age are going to be the inheriting the decisions that flow from the Summit.”

Mr Chakrabarti was in the group that discussed Australia’s economy and infrastructure at the weekend youth summit, along with two other Canberra residents Omar Hashmi and Zhi Soon.

One of its key recommendations involves the creation of a series of “hubs” in which would-be young entrepreneurs could get legal, accounting and logistical assistance.

“I have been talking about it for weeks. There are so many passionate young people; they have an idea of doing something, but find they can’t.”

“If we really want things like Googles or Facebooks to start in Australia, if we want that kind of innovation, we need a place for young entrepreneurs to go to get their ideas started, a place with physical support – computers and phones, but also support people to help foster an entrepreneurial culture.”

Sid Chakrabarti wants to get involved in developing such centres himself, as soon as he has finished his Masters. He accepts that that work may take him away from Canberra for a while.

“If that takes me to Sydney or Melbourne then I’ll go there to get that done.”

“But in the longer term I really want to go to the Middle East and do international development and diplomacy work, and that may mean Canberra, working in somewhere like the Department of Foreign Affairs.”

Would that see him following in Kevin Rudd’s footsteps – a stint at the ANU followed by a career in Foreign Affairs? After all, he has just won an election.

“Well, I am learning Arabic as opposed to learning Chinese, but there is a link,” he replied.

“I want to help develop the potential of the Middle East. It is such a complicated area and it is taking away so much of the world’s potential. That’s my long term plan.”

Next weekend at the big summit the 24-year old will also be pushing the case for performance pay for teachers. “We want the best teachers to teach. We don’t want them to become managers.

"We should pay them more, but also pay the bottom 80 per cent according to their qualifications, encouraging them to upgrade."

"The top 20 per cent we should reward for performance. We need to lift literacy rates. It has a massive impact on an economy."

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The summit that will matter

The 2020 Youth Summit - with 100 of our best and brightest - is on right now, on Saturday and Sunday at Parliament House in Canberra.

I'll have the thrill of reporting it tomorrow for our paper. Ten of the participants will take part in the Summit itself next week.

Here's an extract from the excellent opening speech delivered this morning by the Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard:

"Recently, Australian archaeologists have been digging up large numbers of interesting objects at a desert site by the Hope Downs Iron Ore Mine, around 310 kilometres from Port Hedland in Western Australia.

They’re just small things: cutting tools that can fit in the palm of your hand; microscopic seed remains; charcoal from ancient fires.

Not much, you would think.

But using complex radiocarbon tests, scientists have dated them as at least 35,000 years old. And they’re confident that just below these finds there is another layer of human-created objects that push the timeline of these discoveries back to 40,000 years.

It’s being regarded by some as one of the most significant prehistoric records of humanity ever found – with the potential to tell us a great deal not only about the people who preceded us, but our ancient climate as well.

I want you to consider the implications of this.

It means that for 1,000 generations, Australians – in this case the Martidja Banyjima people – have been digging, cutting and transforming Australia’s landscape and climate, and creating a civilisation here, where we live.

But in the last 220 years since the arrival of the First Fleet – and most notably during the last century and a half when the industrial revolution was brought to Australia – our impact on the country has accelerated – to the point where, within the space of just a handful of generations, we may have inflicted irreversible and perhaps highly damaging change on our home.

The next couple of decades will confirm whether or not this is true.

Now, we don’t want to idealize Australia’s distant past. Progress has brought untold benefits. But it has also thrown up challenges.

Not just the challenge of dangerous climate change – but new forms of inequality, new health problems, transport congestion and a host of new moral issues for us to deal with. This is the history on which our future has the built – and the issues you must address.

Each of us stands at the end of that 40,000 years of Australian climatic, economic, social, technological and creative change.

My generation is responsible for its fair share of what has occurred – the good and the bad.

And next week some 900 other members, mostly of my generation, along with ten others from today’s audience, will follow you to Canberra.

There will be a lot of expertise and knowledge among them.

They will propose a lot of policy ideas.

But they won’t be the ones who have to carry the most long-term and perhaps most important of their ideas through to completion. They won’t have to live with the consequences.

As the 1,001st generation of inhabitants of Australia, that responsibility will eventually fall to you."

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Tonight: The deadline for submissions to the 2020 Summit

5:00pm eastern time, Wednesday 9 April 2008

Here.

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2020: The deadline

Those of us who aren't among the chosen 1,000 participants have until

this Wednesday

to get our submissions in.

500 words addressing one of the 10 subject areas:

* Productivity Agenda - education, skills, training, science and innovation

* Australian Economy - the future of the Australian economy

* Sustainability and Climate Change - population, sustainability, climate change and water

* Rural Australia - future directions for rural industries and rural communities

* Health - a long-term national health strategy – including the challenges of preventative health, workforce planning and the ageing population

* Communities and Families - strengthening communities, supporting families and social inclusion

* Indigenous Australia - options for the future of Indigenous Australia

* Creative Australia - towards a creative Australia: the future of the arts, film and design

* Australian Governance - the future of Australian governance: renewed democracy, a more open government (including the role of the media), the structure of the Federation and the rights and responsibilities of citizens

* Australia's Future in the World - Australia’s future security and prosperity in a rapidly changing region and world

As the 2020 Summit website says:

"Submissions must be received no later than 5:00pm Wednesday 9 April 2008."

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A 2020 Preview

And not a very inspiring one, I am afraid.

Andrew Leigh took part in Saturday's prequel, the ACT's own 2020 Summit.

He has printed out a list of the ideas that his group (education) came up with and then drew the following depressingly apparent conclusions:

"One of the things that you can tell from the above list is what happens if you put people with a single expenditure priority in a room and don’t give them a budget constraint. I have to hand it to those creative folks: they’re very creative in the ways they ask for government money.

I had previously been thinking that all one needed for the 2020 summit was a single big idea (I’ll post mine in the next week or so). But the lesson for me from today - and from the above list - is that any idea with less than 90% support on Day 1 is going to get killed. There simply isn’t time to persuade sceptics."

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2020: Want to be in it?

The deadline is 5.00pm tomorrow, Friday.

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