I think it is a talk fest and a PR stunt and I also think it’s an announcement that this Govt is actually interested in listening to other voices. Howard wasn’t.
Rudd has a listening thing happening in my field; Homelessness. Howard couldn’t have cared less and degraded the sector. Rudd may well make a hash of it, but at least he is giving it a go.
And DA is right IMO. We were flushed down the S Bend. It may be largely a stunt, but Rudd appears to be listening, in rather the same way Howard appeared to be stopping his ears… or perhaps he was just stopping dissenting voices.

What gives people the idea that this is a stunt??

Again, where is the evidence? Is it just your bias, Ken?

Why not wait and see?

Owen Atkins - 20 April 2008 09:22 PM

I think it is a talk fest and a PR stunt and I also think it’s an announcement that this Govt is actually interested in listening to other voices.

Good point OA, it could be both.

We ought to pray for Big Kev that symbol and reality can somewhat line up.

[quote author="David Ashton” date="1208638280Why don’t you exercise some patience??. . . This is supposed to be a democracy… do you need it spelt out for you??

David I just replied (#14 above) to your post. It was a considered, reasoned rebuttal and at times agreement, and is for some reason lost in cyberspace. I will not now retype it, but I assure you that it was civil.

Two things though.

Please do not assume that I am not patient. I have just seen it all before. However I do pray for our government and my prayer will include that this summit does lead Australia somewhere better.

And no, I do not need you to explain democracy to me. However, since you and I agree on the subject of McDonalds, I am prepared to overlook your patronising tone. Once. :P

Owen Atkins said:

I think it is a talk fest and a PR stunt and I also think it’s an announcement that this Govt is actually interested in listening to other voices. Howard wasn’t.

I think this true, Owen. At the end it was proven that his delivery of his policies did not have popular acceptance. He was out of touch in the last election.
Howard was stubborn. This was an asset but also a deficit in the end. People simply got sick of looking at his head, and Rudd was a fresh choice.

But, this still begs the question - how good will Labor be in economic management, and delivery of all the “mom’s apple pie” statements. This question hangs over the conference.
How much of it is slick PR without any substance? The Libs did give Australia prosperity.

We will have to wait and judge, but it may take a few years, by which time we may rue voting for Labor. (some though will never waiver)

Jason Porter - 20 April 2008 09:41 PM

[quote author="David Ashton” date="1208638280Why don’t you exercise some patience??. . . This is supposed to be a democracy… do you need it spelt out for you??

David I just replied (#14 above) to your post. It was a considered, reasoned rebuttal and at times agreement, and is for some reason lost in cyberspace. I will not now retype it, but I assure you that it was civil.

Two things though.

Please do not assume that I am not patient. I have just seen it all before. However I do pray for our government and my prayer will include that this summit does lead Australia somewhere better.

And no, I do not need you to explain democracy to me. However, since you and I agree on the subject of McDonalds, I am prepared to overlook your patronising tone. Once. :P

Seen what all before? No PM has ever done anything like this before. It just finished yesterday, and yet you apparently know it’s all for show?

You’re the one being patronising.

Annabel Crabb is funny.

From the opinion piece:

The Prime Minister himself, over the course of the summit, was on the whole a benign and twinkling deity. He materialised beamingly from time to time, to kid around with the participants or to drink tea.

Cameras followed him everywhere, and every time they drew near he would immediately begin the sincere, talking-intently-while-chopping-the-air performance that is widely demanded from prime ministers filmed talking to people at public events.

And a fair bit more on that line. A friend of mine who was in Canberra was even greeted by the Kevmeister accidentally, though she was not there for the Summit.

Gordon Cheng - 21 April 2008 07:35 AM

Annabel Crabb is funny.

I agree entirely!  Annabel’s opinion of the summit makes Jason’s “quick cynical reaction” (thanks Hugh) look very tame. ;-)

I must say that this thread has been a very entertaining read.  Politics certainly stirs the passions, doesn’t it?

When Bob Hawke and Kevin Rudd have consulted the public they have been accused of havign no ideas, stunts, etc.

When other politicians go it alone they are accused of being autocrats.

I think the 2020 summit was a good idea, and I love the idea they were talking of a bionic eye at a 2020 summit.

I reckon the best idea for 2020 is this:

Acting in faith in God who is the true reality, we trust in him for Australia’s future as we turn from materialism and living for ourselves to living for the God who made us.

When Bob Hawke and Kevin Rudd have consulted the public they have been accused of having no ideas, stunts, etc.

When other politicians go it alone they are accused of being autocrats.

I think the 2020 summit was a good idea, and I love the idea they were talking of a bionic eye at a 2020 summit.

I reckon the best idea for 2020 is this:

Acting in faith in God who is the true reality, we trust in him for Australia’s future as we turn from materialism and living for ourselves to living for the God who made us.

I wonder what topic people on this forum would have raised if a participant in the Summit.

Given my background, I think I would have been placed in Tim Costello’s group and I hope I would have the gumption to raise in some form, for the good of our society, the need for a concerted effort at all levels to reverse (return to the teaching of the Bible) the cultural (sexual) revolution of the 1960’s.

I see it having caused just so much damage and yes I know its antecedents, blah blah, blah!

What would others have raised?

David Palmer - 23 April 2008 06:58 PM

What would others have raised?

A nation-wide paradigm-shift in our thinking and actions regarding water?

Important social problems that should be tackled by education:

I think an expose of the drug marketing industry, which is a pyramid selling scheme, which is worth billions of dollars, and which ruins lives (particularly the young) Too many very rich people get away with it and are not investigated seriously.

Police are not tackling the problem - if they did the job seriously, they would stop it a lot more.
The media is not understanding the problem.

School children are not informed that the drug pusher that they will be ruined by, will probably be one of their good friends. That good friend is making his pocket money from his friends. He is giving business to someone further up the tree,, etc.

School children should be taught, by early interevention workers from pschyciatric units, of the dangers of drugs, and what they do to the mind and body. How drugs can ruin lives for a long time. (Excursions to mental institutions?)

Close the pubs at midnight, that’s another good idea.

Make more “good values” movies.  Where are the christian message films?

That’s 3 ideas for me’ from the vault.

More on summits:

But in a blinding flash the weekend did provide the key to the enigma that is Kevin Rudd. He is the quintessential management boffin, a career bureaucrat who talks “performance benchmarks” and promises to sack ministers who fall short. His speeches are full of the feel-good platitudes, pop psychology and symbolism of modern management gurus, who brought us such glowing corporate entities as Enron, “the smartest guys in the room”.

The whole idea of a futures summit is one of the more recent fads in management theory. It works beautifully, confusing and anaesthetising people, carrying them along a predetermined path while assuring them their input is valued and important. The path, however, leads to a dead end, because it is the process that matters, not the destination.

From Miranda Devine, here.

Miranda is not allowed to believe that anything a Labor bloke does can be worthwhile.