The final report of the Australia 2020 summit has now been released, and can be downloaded here. It’ll be interesting to see if summit participants who were critical of the distortions in the initial report of their discussions think this is any better as a summation of what was discussed and decided. It’s also interesting to reflect on how the whole thing has completely disappeared from the media agenda in such a short period of time - no one’s been revisiting all the dire warnings of the supposed political pitfalls of ignoring summit recommendations, or for that matter, the claims that it would have a profound effect on policy thinking and debate. I’ll be very surprised if the final report prompts much sustained analysis in the MSM.
Tag Archive for 'Australia 2020 summit'
One of the more widely praised ideas coming out of the 2020 summit was “Healthbook”, something that was genuinely novel, large in scope, and with real potential to make a difference. As the interim report put it:
Create a “Healthbook” (like Facebook) for Australians to take greater ownership of their health information and electronically share it with people they trust – for example their doctor, nurse or family members. Users could control their health “friends” and their level of access, share data as desired, and ask for real time advice on health issues. By 2020, this might include sharing your own genetic data with your doctor
or family. This would put the individual squarely at the centre of the health system.
Well, lo and behold, Google Health appears in the news, which offers pretty much the kind of services - for American patients - proposed for “Healthbook”. Joshua Gans is impressed.
There are obviously big potential gains from centralized electronic medical records systems like this. As somebody who’s had the odd diagnostic test over the years for the odd ailment, this stuff gets lost - I have no idea where the back X-rays I had done once went. And, on a population-wide level, there’s obviously enormous scope for doing anonymized statistical research on this data. But would I want my medical records on Google Health, or something like it? No way in hell. Continue reading ‘Healthbook arrives, via Google’
Our friends at Griffith Review are holding an event in Brisbane tomorrow at the State Library of Queensland from 1 to 4pm:
The 2020 Summit was just the beginning. The more substantial and critical task is to advance the process by building consensus, by continually developing engagement and cooperation between traditionally divided streams, factions and ideologies. Join us for a free seminar featuring twenty Summit delegates who will report on their impressions from the Summit proceedings and consider pragmatic steps forward to identify and achieve Australia’s goals. Come early to enjoy lunch - your own or from Tognini’s Cafe - outside the State Library’s beautiful new building. Panellists include Julianne Schultz, Michael Wesley, Michael Good, George Williams, Matt Foley and many more.
RSVP here.
Incidentally, my copy of the May edition just arrived in the post. It’s on Cities, and I’m looking forward to a stimulating read as always. We’re hopeful we’ll be able to announce a discount bulk subscription offer for LPers in the not too distant future.
I’ve been intrigued to see the debate about the funding and direction of the ABC go underground since last year’s election. Although Kevin Rudd only promised “adequate funding”, the defeat of a government that expended so much energy on critiquing “bias” and whose acolytes in the commentariat never tired of denouncing the ABC in hyperbolic terms has probably served to siphon off much of the intensity of the public broadcasting budget wars. That may or may not be a good thing, but lots of interesting things are afoot at the ABC, and I think it would be beneficial for there to be more of a debate about them. I’ve taken a look at the issues in my column for New Matilda this week.
As a follow up to the discussion of the 2020 Creative Australia stream here, I’m reproducing (with permission) below the fold an article by Nicholas Pickard in today’s Crikey. Pickard writes about a group of delegates who are apparently so “incensed” that the recommendations didn’t reflect the ideas suggested or discussed that they’re now forming an advocacy group to hold Peter Garrett accountable. It’s intriguing that the invitees the government copped so much grief for having there in the first place seem to be the most dissatisfied of all the streams (it’s not as though a lot of the rest are shrinking violets when it comes to soliciting media coverage, unless they’re hiding their lights beneath a bushel while simultaneously gritting their teeth). It’s also interesting to see that Garrett has been unable to capitalise on the goodwill including the arts and culture crew inside the tent should have generated, suggesting that he might be a flop in both his portfolios (that’s if you accept, as I do, the argument that the signs are he’s not flash in Environment). Certainly the article seems to indicate that delegates blamed Garrett for putting in the fix rather than his two co-chairs.
Of course, we don’t know (yet?) who the dissenters are or how many delegates are unhappy. It could be that the anonymity approach might be a way of running a campaign to have the final report more accurately represent the discussions, and those concerned aren’t yet ready to go fully public with their criticisms.
This piece was written last week, and didn’t make it into print among the plethora of musings on the Australia 2020 summit. It should be noted that after I put pen to paper, the stories about the final communique having a rather tenuous link with the discussions in the stream emerged. That’s disappointing, but hardly surprising. I learnt a long time ago that whoever writes the minutes of a meeting is in an incredibly powerful position. It might also be interesting to compare the outcomes with pre-summit commentary.
Cate Blanchett was in danger of being upstaged by her new son Iggy, and 2020 Summit delegates were treated to a plenary session featuring Prime Ministerial favourite Hugh Jackman’s comedy stylings. The arts crowd were delighted to be back inside the tent, while culture warriors were licking their lips at an opportunity to resurrect slogans about “Keating era luvvies” - when they could take time out from watching La Bohème, that is.
But what did the Creative Australia stream achieve?
This morning I found the following passage in Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks which might be applicable to an aspect of Australia’s republic debate:
Thus it is not a question of the people who “have the brains” feeling that they are being reduced to the level of the lowest illiterate, but rather one of people who think they are the ones with the brains wanting to take away from the “man in the street” even that tiniest fraction of power of decision over the course of national life which he possesses.
The section of The Modern Prince in which this quote appears can be found here.
It’s unrealistic to expect detailed policy prescriptions to come out of two days of discussion - though the choice of two days of discussion with SFA preparation was entirely the government’s. And a variety of sources are saying that the interim reports really struggled to capture the tenor of the actual discussions. But the interim report of the “population, sustainability, climate change, water and the future of our cities” subgroup at the 2020 Summit fits right into Jeremy Sear’s typically snarky critique. While there is some substantive and good ideas, it’s mixed in with a collection of meaningless motherhood statements, populist pandering, prediliction for bureaucracy, and an overly narrow focus.
Below the fold, I’ve outlined the “top ideas” proposed by this stream, with some brief comments, and some reflections on the stuff that didn’t make the cut.
Director of the Centre for Policy Development, and 2020 summit delegate, Miriam Lyons, writes in today’s Crikey (republished with permission):
Suddenly ideas are sexy. The Australia 2020 Summit has done for Deep Thought what Australian Idol did for karaoke - what was once a mildly embarrassing hobby best practised under cover of drunkenness is now played live to a national audience.
Like music professors asked to comment on the success of Idol, most of the wonks who went through the last two days can’t quite decide whether to be pleased that so many people are paying attention to ideas or annoyed that serious attempts to grapple with complex, long-term policy problems were sometimes lost amidst the all-singing, all-dancing Summit show.
In the governance group Marcia Hines was played by Maxine McKew, who, after listening to report-backs from groups with ideas ranging from FOI reform to a new Federation Commission, entreated us to put a little soul into it. Kudos to youth summit delegate Owen Wareham who read between the lines, said something like “here’s a sound bite, if that’s what you’re looking for” and delivered a punchy straight-to-camera pitch for automatic enrolment.
I had a lot of sympathy with Ms McKew’s call for more ideas that would capture people’s imagination. Continue reading ‘Guest post by Miriam Lyons: Summit Idol - Mostly covers but some real gems too’
I’ve had a go at drawing together some of my commentary on the politics of and media reaction to the 2020 summit in my New Matilda column for this week.
There’s also a measured assessment of the summit in Eureka Street from John Warhurst, which I think is well worth a read.
Today’s Opposition Organ reports that the eminent indigenous academic, Professor Marcia Langton, believes that the Indigenous 2020 Summit Stream, consisting of people selected by the Federal Government, was uninformed and unrepresentative, and failed to adequately address policies to secure the learning, health and economic future of indigenous children.
However, Professor Langton’s views are reported in a way which implies that she is also opposed to the creation of an elected indigenous representative body to advise on policies.
As Mark mentioned a few days ago, the establishment of such a body is also opposed by Warren Mundine and Wesley Aird. Yet Mr. Aird was also highly critical of the Summit Stream, suggesting that its outcomes would be as “predictable as a Zimbabwean election”.
Continue reading ‘Marcia Langton says whitefella government’s handpicked advisers got it wrong’
Newspoll tomorrow has Brendan Nelson up one point to 10% as opposed to Kevin Rudd’s 71% (down two points) on the preferred PM question. Within the MoE, Dennis. Labor’s up two on the 2PP to 61-39.
Dennis Shanahan actually spoke some sense recently:
So, after taking all this pain, Nelson isn’t about to hand over to a cleanskin who can reap the benefits, if there are any. He will have to be thrown out of office, and anyone looking forward to a seamless transition will be left waiting as long as Costello waited for John Howard to hand over.
So Nelson’s trump card is that the leadership will have to be wrested from his cold dead hands etc. If there’s one thing worse than looking to a leader to save you, it’s a messy fight over who gets to be the Messiah.
It may not be the common wisdom but it’s certainly possible Nelson will still be Liberal leader after July, because more Liberals may come to realise they have to stop fighting over an empty prize, just as they did for the last year of government, and face Rudd, the real problem, with new policies.
Of course, the “new policies” thing raises all sorts of other questions which will be easier for the Libs to pose than to answer. Continue reading ‘Going nowhere’
One of the most interesting things about the Australia 2020 summit is an accentuation of a trend that was already evident - the broadening of public focus on long term issues and possible solutions, which I suspect will be one of the enduring contributions of the Rudd government. That’s also having an effect on the media - responses which are flip come to be seen as the professional cynicism they really are, and what can only be described as frenzied outpourings of indignation and higly predictable pontificating indicate only the angst suffered by the relics of the Howard era at the fact that their gatekeeping role is fast evaporating. I think what we’re seeing is the final collapse of many stereotyped stances in dichotomised public debates which were characteristic of the Howard era.
Looking at it in retrospect, a lot of the Howard era rhetoric continued to attack Paul Keating - or at least various myths and perceptions about what his government stood for. That’s evident in some aspects of the revival of the Republican debate. As Paul Norton noted here, the same old arguments have been trotted out, taken out of storage for a rerun of 1999. But, as the comments on his thread from anti-Republicans demonstrate, the same old tactics characteristic of John Howard himself - a narrow, niggling legalism, the summoning up of multiple spectres of doom allegedly flowing from even the most minimalist constitutional change, and quibbles about cost - have themselves been resurrected. I don’t think that it’s worth wasting an ounce of energy or time in rebutting all these phantom charges. Their employment as rhetorical weapons is itself designed as a trap - to narrow and shift the debate onto a field of the anti-Republicans’ choosing. Classic Howard.
Like 2020 summit participant Professor Hugh Possingham (though possibly for different reasons), I’m a little bit disappointed with the 2020 sustainability sub-summit outcomes. But he does mention one interesting, positive development:
One very good recommendation to emerge was a call for credible, popular and independent national environmental accounts/metrics. At least if we count some important things for a while, and we can deliver that to the public in a meaningful and engaging way, the nation may get a better handle on some of the big environmental issues, like extinctions, and want to do something serious about them.
But it’s not just the sustainability stream that called for better statistics - and, just importantly, better reporting of statistics - in areas important to public policy. The “strengthening communities and supporting working families” stream floated the idea of a “national development index” reporting measures of social inclusion - homelessness was the one specifically mentioned by Tim Costello. And, while it didn’t come up in the indigenous 2020 stream, we’ve already had the pledge to close various health and educational outcome gaps. So we’ve got all these measures of Australia’s progress on various issues floating around - statistics which aren’t necessarily new, but are being given more priority. Which raises the question of how they can be placed on the nation’s collective agenda more prominently.
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