When Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced the Australia 2020 Summit I was quietly enthused. After a decade of Howard’s backward-looking short-term thinking we were actually going to look to the future. My thoughts riffed off those of Maxine McKew and Mark Pesce and I boldly proclaimed Australia, let the Enlightenment begin!

I was particularly excited because one of the discussion panels was going to tackle the very nature of Australia’s democracy.

I’d recently read the book Watching Brief: reflections on human rights, law, and justice by human rights lawyer Julian Burnside, which highlighted precisely how John “Miserable Toad” Howard had eroded basic human rights. Not only was there a chance to undo the Toad’s work, we could actually move our nation’s democracy beyond our clunky steam-driven Federation-era Constitution and embrace the possibilities of the Internet Age.

The full description of the topic area was promising:

The Australian Government is committed to greater access to freedom of information, effective parliamentary reform and removing as many dysfunctional dimensions to the Australian Federation as possible. The Government is also examining ways in which Australians can increasingly deliberate in the making of government policy through a range of mechanisms, including community cabinets, as a part of a commitment to contemporary democracy.

The Australia 2020 Summit will examine:

• How best to implement an effective an agenda of open government which best balances the legitimate requirements of the media and the confidentiality requirements of cabinet government in the Westminster system
• How best to engaged the community in government decision making
• What forms of Federation reform are appropriate for the future to maximise outcomes for the economy and the community
• How to ensure the future viability of local government operations and infrastructure provision.

I was inspired. I wanted to be part of this. I sent off my application. And then the disappointment set in.

Lobbyists for specific sectors started whinging about lack of representation. Kevin Rudd’s political management of the lead-up — invitations to journalists and random members of the public via talkback radio — led to serious disillusionment in some quarters.

Still, I remained optimistic. I countered the pessimists with an appeal to Australia’s national character:

I don’t think we should write off the Summit just yet. These are Australians we’re talking about. If the Steering Committee tries to shut down true ideas-generation, I reckon our “best and brightest” will fight back with vigour.

Even when I discovered that Miranda Devine counted as “best and brightest” I maintained my positivism.

I still believe that there’s value in this Australia 2020 Summit. After all, we have 1000 people gathered for a specific focus, and the media spotlight will be upon them. Their dialogue has yet to begin, but already the conversation is rippling through the community — and I’ll point to all that in a later post.

I have yet to decide specifically what I’ll do with the Summit but tonight, at least, I’ll start the journey to Canberra metaphorically if not geographically. Even though I wasn’t selected as a delegate, I’ll still focus my thoughts and energies on that weekend, and on the themes of Topic 9.

This website is where I’ll tell the story of that journey — perhaps adding the stories of people I meet along the way, and hopefully your stories too. I’ll spend some time at BarCampSydney 3 discussing how technology and government interact. I’m hoping that’ll help shape this website into a “new media” [ugh] operation that does something with the Australia 2020 Summit and then beyond.

Gosh. How does all that sound?

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.

I’m spending the next couple of days sorting out my “paying” business Prussia.Net. By the weekend I’ll know how much time I can allocate to this site in the fortnight before the Summit.

Since I am, after all, an Internet and media geek I should probably use those skills in some way. Lo and behold! There just happens to be a gathering of geeks in Sydney this weekend.

I’ll (un)organise a session at BarCampSydney 3 on Sunday to plan out what I’ll do — and what anyone who wants to join me will do. However I’ve already had a few thoughts…

A lot of my media experience is in broadcasting, and I’ve done a lot of outside broadcasts, so I’m toying with the idea of podcasting or streaming media of some sort. Last night I played with some very cool software tools which turn a Mac into a live TV studio, for instance, so technically this isn’t complicated. It’s all just a matter of organisation…

The key issues, as I see them this morning, are:

• What can we do that’s (1) sufficiently different from mainstream media coverage and other existing activities that it’s worthwhile and (2) makes use of our skills as a group? Whoever this group is.
• For everyone who wants to be involved, how much time can they contribute and what are their skills?
• What will we need to do this, in terms of the additional skills which we don’t have, hardware, software, bandwidth, transport, accommodation and whatever else we’ll need?
• Who will we get to pay for it?
• What else?

Remember, the focus is the future of Australia’s Governance. While the other nine subject areas are important too, my specific focus for this project is on governance and democracy. However that doesn’t mean that other teams can’t do similar projects for the other subject areas.

I’m not sure what my next steps are, but I daresay that’ll emerge over the next 48 hours.