Will this actually acheive anything or is it just a wankfest

[Guest]

Rudd wants 1000 to discuss 10 problems

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says a summit involving 1000 Australians will be held to tackle 10 major problems that are facing Australia.

The summit will be held at Parliament House in late April and is called Australia 2020.

"The summit will bring together some of the best and brightest brains from across the country to tackle the long-term challenges confronting Australia's future," Mr Rudd said.

Melbourne University vice-chancellor Glyn Davis will co-chair the summit along with Mr Rudd.

Professor Davis told reporters the summit was a "chance to have a national conversation".

The 1000 people chosen to take part in the summit will be broken into 10 groups of 100.

Each of those groups will tackle a specific challenge outlined by the government.

The challenges are broad and includes areas such as productivity, the digital economy, water, health, indigenous people and services and the arts.

Mr Rudd said the 1000 people would be expected to pay their own way to Canberra and would not be representative of large organisations.

"We want people to be selected on the basis of individual merit," the prime minister said.

The whole summit will be open to the media and Mr Rudd said he plans to invite media industry leaders to participate in the weekend-long summit to be held over April 19 and 20.

"This is not a talkfest for the sake of a talkfest," Mr Rudd said.

He said the ideas created at the summit would not immediately become government policy and he also promised that already announced Labor policy was sacrosanct.

"Our policy direction is clear cut."

"What we want is for this gathering of the nation's brightest and best to put forward options for the nation's future (and) to produce summary documents which we will then consider in the second half of the year." Mr Rudd said.

"We will then provide a considered response to those options papers by the year's end.

"Those that we accept will form part of the government's long-term planning for 2009 and beyond and those that we reject, we will make plain our reasons why that's occurred as well."

Doesn"t Rudd have a clue on how to solve any issues? 

Maybe he should try the following: 

* abolish state governments who are just a waste of space and which will save $10b a year
* cut out staff in federal governments departments and actually make them run efficiently like private enterprise. That will probably save another $10b at least
* reduce government spending including cutting out the promised tax cuts
* with all the above money saved he could spend it on higher education including reducing university education cost. hospitals, police and apprenticeship incentives
*spend more on infrastructure

These would be a good start.  Why does he need 1,000 people to tell him this?  Does have any idea what he is doing?

 

[nodd]

Rudd wants 1000 to discuss 10 problems

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says a summit involving 1000 Australians will be held to tackle 10 major problems that are facing Australia.

The summit will be held at Parliament House in late April and is called Australia 2020.

\"The summit will bring together some of the best and brightest brains from across the country to tackle the long-term challenges confronting Australia's future,\" Mr Rudd said.

Melbourne University vice-chancellor Glyn Davis will co-chair the summit along with Mr Rudd.

Professor Davis told reporters the summit was a \"chance to have a national conversation\".

The 1000 people chosen to take part in the summit will be broken into 10 groups of 100.

Each of those groups will tackle a specific challenge outlined by the government.

The challenges are broad and includes areas such as productivity, the digital economy, water, health, indigenous people and services and the arts.

Mr Rudd said the 1000 people would be expected to pay their own way to Canberra and would not be representative of large organisations.

\"We want people to be selected on the basis of individual merit,\" the prime minister said.

The whole summit will be open to the media and Mr Rudd said he plans to invite media industry leaders to participate in the weekend-long summit to be held over April 19 and 20.

\"This is not a talkfest for the sake of a talkfest,\" Mr Rudd said.

He said the ideas created at the summit would not immediately become government policy and he also promised that already announced Labor policy was sacrosanct.

\"Our policy direction is clear cut.\"

\"What we want is for this gathering of the nation's brightest and best to put forward options for the nation's future (and) to produce summary documents which we will then consider in the second half of the year.\" Mr Rudd said.

\"We will then provide a considered response to those options papers by the year's end.

\"Those that we accept will form part of the government's long-term planning for 2009 and beyond and those that we reject, we will make plain our reasons why that's occurred as well.\"

Doesn\"t Rudd have a clue on how to solve any issues? 

Maybe he should try the following: 

* abolish state governments who are just a waste of space and which will save $10b a year
* cut out staff in federal governments departments and actually make them run efficiently like private enterprise. That will probably save another $10b at least
* reduce government spending including cutting out the promised tax cuts
* with all the above money saved he could spend it on higher education including reducing university education cost. hospitals, police and apprenticeship incentives
*spend more on infrastructure

These would be a good start.  Why does he need 1,000 people to tell him this?  Does have any idea what he is doing?

It's a start! More than little johnny was doing. He's trying to do something and actually putting it out to the public for some sort of consultation. You Lib supporters don't care what he does, you just want to have a whinge. Will what he proposes doing actually hurt?

You'll never be rid of state governments

He's already cutting staff

He's said he is going to reduce govt spending. If he doesn't deliver tax cuts you johnny supporters will whinge that he didn't keep his promises1 Can't win either way.

He could but again you would whinge about not keeping election promises.

 

[nodd]

Rudd wants 1000 to discuss 10 problems

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says a summit involving 1000 Australians will be held to tackle 10 major problems that are facing Australia.

The summit will be held at Parliament House in late April and is called Australia 2020.

\"The summit will bring together some of the best and brightest brains from across the country to tackle the long-term challenges confronting Australia's future,\" Mr Rudd said.

Melbourne University vice-chancellor Glyn Davis will co-chair the summit along with Mr Rudd.

Professor Davis told reporters the summit was a \"chance to have a national conversation\".

The 1000 people chosen to take part in the summit will be broken into 10 groups of 100.

Each of those groups will tackle a specific challenge outlined by the government.

The challenges are broad and includes areas such as productivity, the digital economy, water, health, indigenous people and services and the arts.

Mr Rudd said the 1000 people would be expected to pay their own way to Canberra and would not be representative of large organisations.

\"We want people to be selected on the basis of individual merit,\" the prime minister said.

The whole summit will be open to the media and Mr Rudd said he plans to invite media industry leaders to participate in the weekend-long summit to be held over April 19 and 20.

\"This is not a talkfest for the sake of a talkfest,\" Mr Rudd said.

He said the ideas created at the summit would not immediately become government policy and he also promised that already announced Labor policy was sacrosanct.

\"Our policy direction is clear cut.\"

\"What we want is for this gathering of the nation's brightest and best to put forward options for the nation's future (and) to produce summary documents which we will then consider in the second half of the year.\" Mr Rudd said.

\"We will then provide a considered response to those options papers by the year's end.

\"Those that we accept will form part of the government's long-term planning for 2009 and beyond and those that we reject, we will make plain our reasons why that's occurred as well.\"

Doesn\"t Rudd have a clue on how to solve any issues? 

Maybe he should try the following: 

* abolish state governments who are just a waste of space and which will save $10b a year
* cut out staff in federal governments departments and actually make them run efficiently like private enterprise. That will probably save another $10b at least
* reduce government spending including cutting out the promised tax cuts
* with all the above money saved he could spend it on higher education including reducing university education cost. hospitals, police and apprenticeship incentives
*spend more on infrastructure

These would be a good start.  Why does he need 1,000 people to tell him this?  Does have any idea what he is doing?

If all these things were such great Ideas, why didn't little johnny implement any of them while he was in? He had plenty of years, Rudd has had what? 4 months?

 

[Garts]

Not going to do any harm. 

 

[Guest]

Governments should be open to ideas at all times not for just 2 days in April. 

It has all the impression of just being a media stunt by another labor  government (they must be copying the idiots in NSW labor) who said during their election campaign that they could govern the country better than the Libs but now they are admitting that they don't have any answers and are asking 1,000 other people to help them out. 

Rudd is nothing but a bureaucrat who doesn't have any idea how to run the country.  His environment minister is also too busy destroying old growth forests in Tasmania to feed to a polluting pulp mill and heaven knows what damage the dredging in Melbourne will cause. Toxic plumes anyone?

 

[Canteen Worker]

Time will be the judge of all this Tookey. You know my bias but most political pundits in the media think that the new Federal Government has made a decent start.

 

[byso]

Agree with Tooks. Media Stunt.

 

[Fro]

well theres a surprise, the 2 ronnies uniting in the fight against Labor.

Having said that I agree a little more than another Meeting is going to achieve much, you were elected to Govern Krudd, how about you start doing something other than calling meetings or establishing committees.

 

[Jatz Crackers]

Well you can see Rudds bureaucrat influence. The participants are expected to pay their own way to this request for involvement.

Are they being paid for their attendance ? Accommodation ?

Not sure how requesting peoples involvement without adequate compensation is going to attract the necessary talent to such an ambitious think tank.

 

[Guest]

Time will be the judge of all this Tookey. You know my bias but most political pundits in the media think that the new Federal Government has made a decent start.

Most media writers these days are left wing labor supporters. 

In theory this summit is a good idea however I just don't think that much will be achieved in 2 days. 

I would like Rudd to show some balls and come out and say that the promised tax cuts will be given but in the form of additional superannuation which will allow the reserve bank some breathing space against any more interest rate increases.

The unions are even telling him this and it will be his first real test of whether he can make the hard decisions required.  It is also time to build a new freight railway line from Melbourne thought inner NSW with Parkes as the hub going all the way up to Darwain. 

This has been suggested before and needs to be implemented now for the economic benefits that it would provide.