PM: The Government's decided on the 19th and 20th of April to convene an Australian 2020 Summit. The reason we are doing this is because we believe the nation faces serious long term challenges which go well beyond the normal electoral cycle.
We also believe that part of the problem in the past has been that previous Governments have been far too short sighted in their approach to these long term challenges which are there staring us in the face.
Another reason is this: we believe, as a Government, that there is much expertise, energies, ideas, enthusiasm, which lie beyond the ranks of Government itself. And we, therefore, want to open the doors of this great parliament building to the nation's best and brightest brains in order to harness those ideas to shape the nation's long term future.
We face big challenges. Big challenges for the economy, big challenges in social policy. And I'll run through some of those in a minute.
But we want to make sure that in rising to those challenges that we bring forth and summon forth the best ideas available across our country.
We want this also to be bipartisan. I'll be extending an invitation to the Leader of the Opposition to attend, as well as to State Premiers and Chief Ministers and State Opposition Leaders and the Opposition Leaders in the Territories as well.
It's time for the nation to come together to bring forward all of our ideas, talents and energies to deal with this nation's long term challenges.
The national 2020 Summit, the Australia 2020 Summit, will involve bringing 1,000 of our brightest and best from across Australia to this building for one weekend. We'll be presenting those who are engaged in the summit with ten specific challenges which we want their ideas on. And by the end of that summit we expect them to have come forth with their best ideas on how we deal with those challenges.
Future directions for the economy including:
The productivity agenda;
Economic infrastructure;
The digital economy as well as how we deal with the future of our cities;
Population sustainability, climate change and water;
Future directions for rural industries and rural communities;
A long term national health strategy which embraces the challenges of an ageing population as well;
Options for the future of indigenous Australia;
Strengthening communities, supporting families and social inclusion;
A creative Australia, the future of the arts, film and design;
The future of Australian governance, renewed democracy, a more open Government;
The structure of the Federation;
And finally, future challenges to Australian security and prosperity in a rapidly changing region and world.
I've asked Professor Glyn Davis, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, to be the co-Chair of this Australian 2020 Summit with myself. The summit will be co-chaired by myself as Prime Minister and Professor Davis, who has a long standing background, not just in academia but in public administration.
And most recently, I understand, Mr Howard invited him to Chair the Education Summit involved in the APEC Business Leaders Summit, associated with that conference in Sydney at the end of last year.
So what are we trying to achieve from this? We have big challenges in 2008, on the inflation front, and the implementation of the commitments we made to the Australian people. These are going to take a lot of energy and commitment during the course of this year.
But we also need to have our mind out to the future. And that's why we want to bring into the tent those who have got ideas to contribute to these long term challenges.
Professor Davis will be convening a committee of ten drawn from outside the ranks of Government and they will, as a non-Government Steering Committee, select up to 100 of our brightest and best from across the country in each of these ten areas, thereby resulting in an overall summit of a thousand of our best and brightest.
To conclude, I think it's time for a new approach to the nation's long term future - too much short term-ism in the past. Let's get on with it, and look out to the next decade and beyond.
And secondly, in harnessing the ideas and energies of the nation, let's look beyond the ranks of ministers, politicians and public servants as well, and see what the rest of the nation has to say.
Over to you, Professor Davis.
GLYN DAVIS: Prime Minister, thank you. I was honoured to be asked to be part of this summit and I'm delighted to play a small role in what I think will be a significant national event.
It is all too rare to bring prominent Australians together from a huge range of areas and ask them to think about the future.
What this does is spend a weekend and all the preparatory time before and all the thinking time afterwards writing it up and proposing to Government therefore a series of ideas for consideration. A chance to have a national conversation which will be more than just a summit, but will think about the future.
I think it's an extraordinary opportunity, a very rare opportunity, to say that ideas and research and speculation about where we might go as a nation get a very public airing, get to be thought about, dissected and discussed and then presented as ideas to Government for consideration.
The Government has indicated that it will consider all the ideas put and it will make a statement at the end of the process - some months after the summit I suspect - giving a considered response to the ideas that came up at the summit and giving a considered response to those it wishes to take up and those it thinks can't work. And that's important. So there will be not only opportunities for participation, but some real feedback afterwards from the Government about how this might have influenced our national strategy. An important event and a great honour to be asked to be part of.
PM: And just before I take your questions, and to reinforce what Glyn has just said, this is not a talk-fest for the sake of a talk-fest. What we want is for this gathering of the nation's brightest and best to put forward options for the nation's future, to produce summary documents, which we will then consider in the second half of the year.
We will then provide a considered response to those options papers by years end in each of the challenge areas that I've just run through, each of those ten areas.
And, those which we accept will form part of the Government's long term planning for 2009 and beyond. And those which we reject we will make plain our reasons for why that has occurred as well. But we don't think that it is right simply to shut the door on somebody because they might have a view different from the Governments.
There are no right or wrong answers in this. We believe there are national priorities. We will be putting out concrete questions. We want an open debate, an open deliberation on options for the future, and then the Government will respond in the unfolding of its 2009 agenda.
Over to you, folks.
JOURNALIST: Mr Rudd, does this mean that in certain areas that (inaudible) Labor Party policy now (inaudible) policies that you've got, are they sacrosanct in the deliberations of this process, or will it all be on the table?
PM: No, no. Our policy direction is clear cut and we don't walk away from any of our pre-election commitments at all, and won't.
What you have is looking to 2009 and beyond, we call it Australia 2020 Summit because we actually need to be looking a decade ahead. And for those reasons, you'll have in each of the ten areas that I've just listed, a succinct statement of Government policy, but, equally, a succinct statement of four or five very specific questions which arise from that about how we best get on with the long term.
And that's where there are no right answers. People may agree with us, disagree with us, or, in areas that we haven't even contemplated so far, throw new challenges and new possibilities on the table.
It's time to shake the tree a bit and see what the nation's got to offer. And I'm enthusiastic about seeing what comes out of this. If you attended our housing affordability summit last year in Opposition, look subsequently at the content of the policies on housing affordability we took to the election. About two thirds of those came from that summit.
JOURNALIST: Who will be determining the questions, the Government alone, or -?
PM: No, no, no. The panel which Professor Davis will be putting together will consider the questions which are contained in the draft release which you'll get in a minute. And these will be finalised over the next month or so. And then, they'll be circulated to people at least a month or so prior to the summit, giving them plenty of time to prepare. But, we want to make sure that this is a good gathering for the nation with a productive outcome for the nation's long term interests.
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible)
PM: Yep - it's true - alphabetically or by State or?
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: Okay, look, we have an open mind on this. The reason why today I've asked Glyn to come to Canberra to announce this with me is to indicate very clearly that this panel of ten, committee of ten, which Glyn and I will settle together, will have wide ranging discretions to select the 100 brightest and best in each of those areas. Each of those ten areas. And, for those who do not end up as summit participants, there will be a summit website, and everyone across the entire nation, who has a submission to make, can make a written submission.
The whole summit will be completely open to the media. And guess what, the media will be invited to participate as well through your various media organisations as participants in the summit as well as covering it to your heart's content.
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible) representatives of business, unions, social welfare organisations, or will they be people which (inaudible)
PM: I state clearly in the statement, which you'll get in a minute, that we expect everyone to be there in their own individual right.
I think the problem is, if you have national gatherings of this nature where everyone actually has to represent a sectional interest, it actually constrains the discussion and debate. I think it's far better if people are there in their own right. Of course, they'll argue things near and dear to the causes which their associations have put on the table over a long period of time, but we want people to be selected on the basis of individual merit, achievement, and the rest, and if they've got ideas to offer.
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible)
PM: No, but, first of all, it's a big building this one here, and I've had a little walk around it and you could probably fit that many in it at any one time.
Secondly, we'll have an open plenary session, I'd imagine, in the Great Hall, subject to the views of the presiding officers, and a closing session in the Great Hall.
But, the substantive work over a Saturday and a Sunday will be conducted in these groups of 100 which will be dealing with specific questions and specific areas. And they will be comfortably accommodated across this vast building. It's time the nation used the national parliament building to deliberate on the nation's long term future. And I think it'll be a good weekend.
Oh, by the way, everyone's coming on a voluntary basis. No one's air fare gets paid; no one's accommodation is paid. This is all up to the individuals. If there are individual cases of hardship, then of course, we'll look at those on a one-off basis.
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible) what advice have you received on this (inaudible)
PM: As I understand it, Government officials have been briefed by the relevant corporate interests involved and once those briefings are concluded, then of course, the normal processes under Australian law would ensue. But those briefings are continuing over the course of the weekend, as I'm advised. We'll have something further to say about that as the week unfolds.
JOURNALISTS: Can you guarantee that the wording for the apology will be released before it is taken to parliament?
PM: What I can say is that round one of our consultations with indigenous Australians has come to a close. But we still have more to do next week. And Jenny Macklin has been hard at work. I also intend to sit down and go through the wording of the apology with Brendan Nelson during the course of the week to the extent that it's absolutely concluded by then.
But let me very clear: the core content of it will be absolutely clear. You either support an apology or you don't. And the language of it, and how we approach it in overall terms, should be clear as the week progresses.
But our primary emphasis is to get this right in terms of indigenous Australians. And that is a detailed and complex task. I commend Jenny Macklin in the role that she's played. Round one is done, we've got a few more to do next week, and it'll become clear before then.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: The pressures on working families arising from mortgage pressure, arising from other cost of living pressures, are acute. I am deeply aware of that. Not just through having spoken to so many thousands of them during the course of the last couple of months of last year. But also, through the many, many communications that I've had from our ministers and backbenchers right across the community. There are real pressures out there, and mortgage stress is among them.
Secondly, therefore, that's why in the first speech that I delivered this year I outlined that our concern - front and centre - is to fight the fight against inflation, because we must do that in order to do our part to take as much pressure off the Reserve Bank as possible in order to keep interest rates as low as possible.
Our five point plan for fighting inflation was articulated in a speech I gave in Perth, it'll be on the question of public demand through robust Budget surplus, private demand, boosting national savings. But on the supply side, the actions we have planned on skills infrastructure and workforce participation.
JOURNALIST: There has been speculation that Monday's Cabinet might be discussing legislation coming up. How ready is the Rudd Government on things like IR legislation, legislation for Skills Australia and Infrastructure Australia?
PM: Well, I think most people would agree that we've hit the ground running with a whole lot of things, whether it's on ratification of Kyoto within about half an hour of being sworn in, with our addressing the challenges of inflation, the homelessness white paper, also the decision to establish Infrastructure Australia with the Cabinet meeting in Perth.
All Ministers are hard at work bringing these to legislative fruition, where that's got to occur, and getting administrative and personnel arrangements in place as well.
In my discussions with Ministers last week, and I'm sure it'll be reinforced again this week, Ministers are incredibly hard at work. This core undertaking, we made concrete commitments to the Australian people last year. We'll be honouring every one of them. And, that implementation task is well in hand. And the Ministers are hard at work.
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible)
PM: Well my advice is that the reason for the non-release on Friday of the reasons for his decisions, which cover two of I think 14 or 16 modules of approval which are required for the Gunns project to proceed, is Commercial in-confidence.
But I also understand from the company concerned - or my advice is - that the company concerned in the days ahead will be releasing all of that information publicly.
JOURNALIST: Back on the economy, Mr Rudd, are you confident that over the next 18 months inflation will continue to be (inaudible)
PM: Well, I said last year, that if you believe in independent monetary policy and the independence of the Reserve Bank, you do not, unlike our predecessors, provide public lectures to the Reserve Bank.
Our job is on fiscal policy, and to make the job of the Bank as easy as possible. Our job is also, on the skills and infrastructure front, to remove some of those infrastructure bottlenecks and skills bottlenecks.
Remember this, our predecessors were given 20 successive warnings by the Reserve Bank over three years about mounting inflationary pressures around skills and around infrastructure. No action was taken. There have been ten interest rate rises in a row under our predecessors, six of them in the last three years.
I notice that the Opposition was saying that problems concerning inflation are a bit of a fairytale. I mean, for goodness sake, if you look at the December quarter 2007 data producing an annualised rate of 3.6, that's the highest inflation rate - according to the ABS - in 16 years. That's the ABS speaking, not us. That's not a fairytale, it's a real problem.
Therefore, the responsible course of action for us is to lay out day one, 2008, what our five point strategy is for dealing with it. It's a long term strategy, you can't turn the Queen Mary around overnight. If you've had literally a decade of inertia on skills and infrastructure, and an increasingly profligate fiscal policy on the part of our predecessors, it takes a while to turn around. But we've been hard at work on this. And, we'll have our shoulder to the wheel in the year ahead. But it'll be tough.
JOURNALIST: Professor Davis has been (inaudible) head of your department -
PM: By whom, Laura?
JOURNALIST: Everybody who doesn't know anything. Will you rule that out today, and tell us when you will be announcing -
PM: Professor Davis, is I'm advised, very happy in the University of Melbourne as Vice Chancellor. And will continue in that position. On the question of the Secretary of my own department, that's reached an advanced stage and decisions will be made on that very soon and announcements as well.
JOURNALIST: Paul Keating blames news organisations and not the Indonesian military for the murder of Australian journalists. Do you agree with him?
PM: I haven't seen that report. And, so I won't respond to it. I think - you're talking about the events of '75 in Balibo?
JOURNALIST: Yes.
PM: The events of '75' are an absolute disgrace. News organisations are not to blame at all. If Paul said that, I disagree with him, but I haven't seen what he said. Got to run, see you guys, all the best.
[ends]
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