Thanks very much, Robert, for those very kind and welcoming remarks and welcome to all of you here today for this important part of our 2020 Summit process.
We do have Ministers here from the Government and I thank them for participating. We have Peter Garrett, we also have Chris Bowen, do I see Jenny Macklin back there? I do see Jenny Macklin. I think I have Parliamentary Secretaries in the form of Maxine McKew and I've got Tanya Plibersek there as a Minister, I've got Nicola Roxon here, and I've also got other Parliamentary Secretaries, I've got Mark Dreyfus here. Anyone else I've missed on the Ministerial side? I can't see that someone is pointing to before I go to non-politics - non active politics, I should say.
And then, we have so many people from beyond the political sphere who are assisting us in pulling this 2020 Summit together. We have, of course, Glyn Davis from the University of Melbourne. I'd just like to thank him in particular for his sterling effort in trying to harmonise this exercise. The Chinese talk about the doctrine of the great harmony, this has been a challenge to the doctrine of the great harmony to ensure that both in the events leading up to, and in the Summit next weekend, where we have a gathering of a thousand of some of our brightest and best from across the country, that that proceeds smoothly.
Also we have Tim Fischer, former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, welcome Tim and thank you for your positive and constructive role in bringing together people to assist in this Summit and in your particular role in chairing the Summit working group which deals with the future of rural and regional Australia.
Also, I think we've got Warwick Smith here, who is assisting us on the infrastructure front, where have you gone Warwick? He's here. There he is. Buried behind the television camera. Usually in front of the television camera, Warwick.
And then, John Hartigan for assisting us in terms of the working group on governance and John's capacity as Chairman of the group across the media organisations seeking to promote greater freedom of speech in Australia and getting the balance right between the requirements for press access on the one hand and the construction of our freedom of information and associated laws on the other.
So, we have what can best be described in the classics as a very eclectic gathering of folk. And that's a really good thing. Because, you know something about this country of ours, it's a pretty eclectic country. And, I think that's one of its great strengths, its great dynamisms and its great energies.
When I look to the 2020 Summit, which will be held next weekend, I think that this is a great step forward for the country and it's for this simple reason: it's my long standing conclusion from a life which has been involved in the foreign service, the Queensland State public service, as a Member of Parliament and now as Prime Minister of Australia, that those of us involved directly in the political process don't have any monopoly on wisdom. In fact, as I travel around the business community, as I travel around professional organisations, non-Government organisations and our universities, our research institutes, our think tanks, I am always impressed by the sheer vitality of the ideas environment in this country.
And so the challenge of this Summit, and what we will also do today here in this gathering, is to make sure we've got a capacity of harnessing the creativity and the ideas of the Australian community at large into that which we do in Government. I don't think that's beyond our national wit and wisdom. I actually think it's a smart way to do business. I think it's a smart way in which you can run the country.
Ultimately, we were elected to make, as the Government, elected to make the decisions. But if we don't have available to us a mechanism to summon forth the energy, the ideas, the enthusiasm and the talents of the nation, then I don't think we're really trying hard enough. And that's what this whole process is about.
Obviously, what will come out the end of it will be a whole bunch of ideas, some of which will be brilliant, some of which may be a little less than brilliant. But I'm not in the business of saying prior to the event that there is something which is right and something that's wrong. There is something which is politically correct and something which is politically incorrect. We're in the business of encouraging genuine debate, genuine and thorough debate. And, can I say that is what is first and foremost of importance. And secondly, to ensure that from that we extract the best ideas for the nation's future.
I'm strongly of a view, as I think it's been written in books of wisdom and literature of which many in this room will be deeply familiar, that without a vision the people perish. And that therefore, we look forward to this nation's future in 10 or 20 years time and beyond that through the course of this extraordinarily dynamic century in this extraordinarily dynamic hemisphere in which we live and have our being, a hemisphere, East Asia, which will shape very much the future of the world in the 21st century, that we as a nation need to craft a vision with which we are at one - which we are prepared to then develop a concrete strategy to bring that vision about.
I don't want to be Prime Minister of a country where we simply drift. I'm not into the business of politics of national leadership for the sake of being there and observing the nation and its affairs simply drift from one event to another.
I think it was Harold McMillan who once famously said in the United Kingdom: what is politics about? To which Harold once famously said, ‘events dear boy, events'. Can I say, that's a very passive view of what you actually do. It's like you're waiting for something to come rolling down the in-tray of national political office before you then decide what to do. That's not the way in which I want to conduct the affairs of this nation. Nor is that the way in which the Government wishes to conduct the affairs of the nation.
You need to have a forward looking pro-active agenda. We need to take the future in our hands and shape it, shape it to the greatest extent we can in the direction of the sort of Australia we want for the future. An Australia which is built on these great principles: A strong Australia. A secure Australia. An Australia where we have a robust and competitive economy by the best global standards.
An Australia where we never extinguish the flame of a fair go, but in fact encourage it, across all things that we do - so that every Australian indigenous, non indigenous, Australians who have come from across the seas in recent times, and those who have been here for many generations, such as myself, and those who have been here since antiquity, our indigenous brothers and sisters, all have a decent start in this country. And beyond that, that we have a common project among us all to deal with the challenge which transcends all national boundaries, and that is the challenge of climate change.
And that through that we are not simply concerned with our project for domestic Australia, as if some how our talents and enthusiasm should stop at the continental shelf. But in fact, that we have a vision for how we would wish to shape the world as well. And that's what I describe as Australia's future in the area of creative middle power diplomacy.
So that's the broad architecture of a vision and the values for which this Government stands. But can I say, in terms of the policies which would give such a vision effect, what do we do in terms enhancing the productivity of our economy? What do we do in terms of building our nations infrastructure? How do we enhance fairness for indigenous Australians? What do we do to turbo charge research and the education revolution in Australia?
And beyond that again, how do we deal with the great challenge of preventative health care strategies so that we're not simply burdened with a medical structure and a health bureaucracy which is in permanent reactive mode to the problems which come rolling in the door, but we think 20 and 30 years ahead about how do we prevent diseases. How do we cure diseases and how do we prevent diseases? And how do we inject preventative health care into the mainstream of what we do as a nation?
So in all these critical challenge areas, we've posed questions to the nation. And that's why, through the structure of the 2020 Summit, we've been as specific as possible.
Next weekend in Canberra we have ten specific challenge areas which have been identified across the economy, social policy and of course our place in the world. And within that we've framed specific questions where we've asked participants at the Summit next weekend to come forward with their best ideas, their best policy ideas, about how we deal with each of those challenges.
Which brings us to our deliberations today. I thank you very much for taking the time to be with us. Particularly those who have come from afar. And the purpose of today's event is to provide an opportunity for members of the Jewish community to contribute ahead of the Passover.
Events such as this are for all Australians. Religious, non religious. Christian, Jewish, Muslim, doesn't matter what particular religious tradition we come from or non religious tradition we come from. Our common passion here is how do we shape a better and stronger Australia for the future, and an Australia which can be an even greater force for good in the world. So I thank you all for your participation.
The last thing I'd say before handing over to others for the organisational arrangements of today is this. This is not a gathering for the sake of having a gathering. Next weekend is not national gathering for the sake of getting together and having a lovely time, talking about a few idle ideas and ruminating on what might be and what could have been. It's quite different to that. What I want to do is to harness the ideas here today as I want to harness the ideas which emerge next weekend. As we will be harnessing the ideas which came out of the National Youth Summit in Canberra which concluded yesterday.
And the resolve of the Government is that by years end the ideas which emerge by consensus through these gatherings, the best and brightest of these ideas which these working groups put forward to the Government, our intention by years end is to respond to each and every one of them.
I will say in advance there will be some that we'll embrace with passion and enthusiasm, there some that we may embrace with less passion and enthusiasm and some that we may not be able to embrace at all. But our clear commitment to the nation is we will be responding and indicating clearly the reasons for advancing particular ideas and reasons why we may not be able to embrace others.
But I'm not in the business of cutting off the creativity first and saying that there are only certain proposals which will be embraced. That's not the way in which I think open Government does business and certainly not the way in which this open Government intends to do business.
So we look forward to your contribution today and I'll be moving across each of the tables here at our gathering. But I say this quite sincerely. That our intention is to not just ferment intellectual activity, ferment a competition of ideas. But our resolve is to harness ideas, to deploy them for the nations good and for the nations good for the long term future.
Thanks for your participation, thanks for your goodwill, and thank you in advance for the great ideas you'll advance for the national good.