Kevin Rudd got two very useful things out of the 2020 Summit. One was the photo of him sitting on the floor, earnestly listening: a priceless portrait of the relaxed but focused leader open to ideas.
The second was non-government imprimatur for a slate of progressive ideas from which he can pick and choose.
Because if he wanted a feast of ideas, a lot of summiteers thawed out the frozen leftovers from the Keating era and served them up, declaring they tasted as good as ever. Republic. Bill of rights. Treaty. More money for the Yarts.
And when it didn’t feel like 1995, it was exactly what you’d expect from gathering a group of experts in their specific fields – the same old stuff, albeit with even more motherhood than the most cynical of us had anticipated. The indigenous and sustainability streams, in particular, seemed to produce plenty of rhetoric – much of it about how urgent things were – but few concrete ideas, and the health stream’s proposals seemed like a combination of existing programs – more fruit and less junk food for kids – and the eccentric (a bionic eye – no Steve Austin noises please).
And yes, just about everyone wanted to fundamentally review federalism, or even abolish the states.
Judging by the summit, Australia’s great tradition of clinging to the skirts of government lives on. This was an unmistakeable triumph for right-on progressives, who regard government as the answer to pretty much any question you care to put. Lots of streams wanted national strategic plans. And while there were plenty of calls for streamlining or reviewing the allocation of powers between governments, not one single initiative from any of the groups was predicated on reducing the role of government. In fact 14 new centres, institutes or commission were proposed, including 5 from the foreign policy hardheads in the security stream.
Only a couple of genuinely new, or at least hitherto-underexplored, ideas rose to the surface. Automatic electoral enrolment at 18. A HECS-based Community Corps. Micro-financing for those excluded from mainstream financial services. Then again, perhaps old ideas is sort of what the Prime Minister wanted. The great benefit of the summit is that Rudd can pick and choose from a suite of ideas that have some faint non-governmental origin and legitimacy. The rest he doesn’t have to touch.
Dennis Shanahan today argues that the ones Rudd doesn’t want might grow legs and create difficulties for him. But given the bulk of the unwanted or untimely ideas are from the Left, and will lack any concerted political force behind them, it’s hard to see how Rudd can lose. If he doesn’t want a treaty, he can say he’s too busy dealing with real priorities for working families. He doesn’t have to worry about Brendan Nelson demanding to know when he’ll be putting up a bill of rights.
Not that he has to worry about Brendan Nelson at all, really. Nelson spent the weekend with an immensely pained smile. It might have been because he realised he’d overdressed for the event, but more likely it was the look of someone simultaneously marginalised and skewered. Rudd has the Leader of the Opposition right where he wants him, and it doesn’t look like changing any time soon.
I think we had enough “reduction in the role of government” by the previous lot. We can achieve more by acting as a nation with the government as our tool. President Bush reduced the role of government so that it could not help the victims of the hurricane in New Orleans. We have reduced it at both state and federal level so that education and health services for the poor are substandard. Our reluctance to train people and build infra structure is detrimental to our economy. The neocon ideal of an inactive government should be rejected once and for all. Let us get on and do the necessary.
When I articles like this by Bernard Keane or Richard Farmer I wonder why I ever renewed my crikey membership…. so negative and so very uninspiring. I wish I’d never wasted my money.
Sorry, got distracted for a minute by the Kid from Bondi. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes: I too noticed the strongly paternalistic quality of many of the ideas, particularly where obesity is concerned. FORCING KIDS TO EAT FRUIT and FORCING PEOPLE TO TAKE THE STAIRS and the like. What was the fatness quotient at the Summit? I bet it wasn’t high. I did like the idea of the HECS corps, though, although far as I’m concerned if your uni debt is being paid off as you do community service, volunteering it ain’t.
Dear John James have you heard of the march to oblivion. It goes like this ….. Left Right Left Right Left Right Left Right Left Right Left Right Left Right Left Right Left Right Left Right Left Right Left Right Left Right Left Right ……..
Rudd took the brand out for a parade. All the dependents duly tugged their forelock. Some in big media. Some in interest groups. Some in business. The maddies were surely all in the 7,000 rejects. But it’s the maddies who really do “shake the tree”. What I observed was a shameful bunch of SHEEP. Led by the nose by frighteningly manipulative ALP Inc machine. From Bob Carr on $500K retainer wth McBank, to Morris Iemma’s people who got Rudd his numbers to trash rival Beazley. I thought it was a horror to be honest. How could anyone take “a governance” group led by a News Ltd clone seriously? Get real. I watched Rollerball and Cannonball Run and even being from the 70ies both seemed more fresh and insightful than the tame happy clappers and evangelists. Unlike fraudulent Rudd I say the future is NOT bright, the country is not safe in his hands, he is as censorious and weak in the face of special interests as ever both majors have been for 2 decades. Such an inconvenient truth, still true.