2020 Summit Part II - The Final Wash-up

This is a very belated post completing this blog's evaluation of the 2020 Summit, now fading into the rear view mirror of history. The Summit represents something of a lost opportunity, with dark suggestions that ideas were planted to endorse government proposals and that many of the ideas were not especially revolutionary. The whole thing in hindsight looks like a bunch of high-powered minds locked in a gilded cage, constrained by the tight timeframe and need to fit the results of their labours into the pre-packed report summaries. It is hard to see how the Summit could have operated differently, as alloting more than a weekend risked reinforcing the idea of it being a think tank rather than a symposium. Perhaps cutting the numbers to 500, removing the government co-chairs and allowing a staged reporting of group conclusions might have been a less political approach.

On the ideas front, the main runner to date is the HECS-for-volunteering scheme which appears to be an adaptation of the Clinton (I) AmeriCorps program. Macquarie University has already mooted a compulsory community scheme for students from 2010. This idea looks useful for closing the gap between students from our various social and cultural backgrounds. One big negative of the Summit was the treatment of climate change. The recommendations of the climate change group are about as strong as miso soup. Green protests suggest that Rudd's hands were tied by virtue of the coal industry's efforts. More on this position in further posts.

The range of taxes suggested by most groups to fund particular initiatives such as preventative health centres was predictably attacked by the don't-tax-me-I-didn't use it crowd. Interestingly the much-maligned Cate Blanchett-steered Arts group did not propose any additional taxation, even offering a suggestion that the arts be directly financed by every other government department.

Curiously it was the economists who came up with some of the more innovative ideas such as the business-schools support program and the Golden Guru program to use the skills of older Australians. The governance stream produced the usual menu of republican sympathy and international institution building without providing clear pathways on solving the issues of governance and increasing the quality of democracy.

Overall, the Summit got the headlines, but hamstrung by offering few concrete solutions on either governance reform or carbon transition of the economy, it was left to the little nuggets to carry the day. The use of so many stars in the arts group risked turning the coverage into a branch meeting of the Hollywood Democrats and probably did not help public respect for the project.

High degree of difficulty but relatively modest success. 6/10.