Australia’s “1,000 Best and Brightest”

THEY WERE A GROUP of 1,000 educated and carefully chosen section of Australia’s ruling class, the best and brightest of them all, the Australia 2020 summiteers.

Some say the composition was biased as there were no average ordinary,little Australians. As one was heard to comment, perhaps the average Australian has nothing bright to contribute at all a reason for being average. There were no battlers, pensioners, home buyers having difficulty to pay the mortgages and the fact was those summiteers were evidently supporters of Australia as a Republic and Rudd Labour sympathizers.

The 1,000 summiteers were unrepresentative of the wider community was another criticism. True or false or a sign of weak or strong leadership? Most of those summiteers have easy access to the government. The convenors were co-chaired by a Government minister and an invited Government co-chair.

What really was achieved of the 1,000 Australia’s “best and brightest”?

Not a lot of new ideas as the big issues were repackaged, revisited and reinvigorated. The 10 groups produced consensus suggestions out of the thousands of ideas. The process was well controlled and 40 non-controversial suggestions which some suspect it was a set-up job. According to some it was a carefully crafted and well managed event.

Innovative and biggest ideas that were presented include: “the community corps” for students to reduce their HECS by providing volunteer services; a national preventive health care agency funded by taxes on cigarettes, alcohol and junk food; increasing the formal and legal recognition of Aborigines; all new buildings to be carbon neutral and bringing regulations for transport and agriculture across states into line.

The challenge now for Prime Minister Rudd is to deliver the brightest ideas into action.

Delivering the recommendations is a costly exercise in the sum of billions and an enlarged bureaucracy.

In the event Rudd fails to deliver concrete results from the summit, the exercise will be seen as a stunt.

Whatever you say, the Australia 2020 is a powerful symbol and the fact that it happened is important and shows democracy has come of age. The message was that the government looks outward for ideas, inspiration and input to address the problems of the country.#

Lolita Farmer OAM is a regular contributor of emanila.com. She is the chair and convenor of the Global Filipinos Australia.

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