Process

I suspect I’m like many people in spending Monday morning mapping out the week ahead. I’m therefore disappointed to discover that applications for media accreditation for the Australia 2020 Summit have already closed.

Applications must have come from “legitimate media organisations” too. This wouldn’t necessarily have been a problem for me, and I do understand that there’s probably limited space. Still, it reinforces the quaint idea that “the media” is about established “organisations” doing things in the established way. The idea that an individual could attend, observe and report their observations to the world without being part of a “legitimate media organisation” seems beyond them.

Now this doesn’t mean I can’t still do something this weekend. It only means I don’t have physical access to the venue — unless I wangle some post-deadline approval, which in principle should be possible since plenty of the delegates didn’t go through the correct application process either. But it does mean I’ll need to be more creative. Stay tuned.

As I’m reading through recent news reports on the Australia 2020 Summit today, I’m been struck by how few people seem to be able to think about Australia’s future — and think big about Australia’s future — rather than just view the world through their own narrow prism of self-interest.

I’ve written elsewhere how the Summit seems to have brought out the whingers who complain that their interest isn’t specifically listed in the topic titles. Today I’m wading through news reports which boast, as the Preston Leader does, that “nine Derebin residents” will be going to Canberra. Similarly, “A strong contingent of gays, lesbians and equal rights advocates has been chosen,” cheers Queensland Pride.

I’ve also written about who I think should be selected, on the basis of talent not quota-filling Nevertheless, the steering committee has magically arranged for 15% of their nominees to be female.

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Illness prevented me gettign to BarCampSydney 3 on the weekend, so I’m still undecided about what I’ll actually be doing for the Australia 2020 Summit weekend. However my main focus will be on writing, because submissions close at 5pm today, AEST.

To prevent summit delegates being overwhelmed, there’s a 500 word limit — and also a ban on photographs and other images. Sometimes a diagram could explain things much more effectively, but not this time.

Yesterday the government released background papers for each of the 10 subject areas for the Australia 2020 Summit, including one for governance.

They’ve been summarised and analysed by Canberra Times correspondents Peter Martin, Danielle Cronin, Andrew Fraser, Emma Macdonald, David McLennan and Ross Peake.

Some of the papers are notable for what they omit. The discussion paper on Australia’s economy includes no mention of taxation. And Japan, the world’s third biggest economy and Australia’s biggest customer, has been left off of the graph showing the evolution of the global economic landscape. The US, China and the UK are on it, just as they are on the Prime Minister’s present overseas tour…

Here’s their summary of the Governance topic’s background paper…

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