Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

This government is committed to building a modern Australia capable of meeting the challenges of the 21st century. That means securing a future for the nation and securing a future for working families. What we have done in prosecution of that agenda is decide to pull together the nation’s brightest and best in what we have called the 2020 Summit. We on this side of the House, unlike the government which preceded us, do not have the view that politicians have some monopoly on wisdom. When you roll across the country and speak to small businesses; large businesses; people in the regions; people in rural communities right across the nation; non-government organisations; academics—a term which seemed to be treated with absolute derision by the previous government; and those out there in the think tanks, you find they are all people of good mind and good heart who are concerned, with passion, about the future of our nation in an uncertain world. We welcome their ideas. We believe it is time to shake the national tree and invite all the talents and abilities from across the nation—including those opposite, led by the Leader of the Opposition—to participate, to bring forward new ideas and to together help shape the nation’s future.

We are not in the business of saying when you go out and consult the whole nation that there are right and wrong answers. If you wish to enliven people’s participation in the national debate, you have to be welcoming of it and not say that these views are welcome and those are unwelcome. People of good mind and good heart should be encouraged to come forth to the nation’s capital and participate. That is what we intend to do. That is why the summit will be on 19 and 20 April. So far we have decided to convene a gathering of 1,000 of the nation’s brightest and best. We have already got in excess of 8,000 nominations from across the country. Nearly 1,000 individual policy submissions from people out there right across the country have already been lodged with the 2020 website, www.australia2020.gov.au.

This, therefore, is going to make for a difficult challenge for the non-government committee which has been appointed to select 1,000 of our nation’s brightest and best to come forward. That committee will bring together 10 working groups, each of about 100. The leadership of those committees should be a matter of note and record here in the parliament. We have Warwick Smith, a former Liberal minister, teaming up with the Deputy Prime Minister on economic infrastructure, the digital economy and the future of our cities. We have Dr David Morgan—most recently of Westpac and, prior to that, of the Reserve Bank—teaming up with the Treasurer on future directions for the economy. We have Roger Beale AO and the minister for climate change on population, sustainability, climate change and water. We have Tim Fischer AC teaming up with Tony Burke on future directions for rural industries and rural communities.

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