Prime Minister Kevin Rudd ended the 2020 Summit yesterday with a pledge to "fix" the Australian Federation in a project he says will save billions of dollars and make life easier.

The Prime Minister said he would create a "seamless economy" without overlapping regulation and commercial obstacles.

"This Federation needs to be fixed. It needs to be fixed," Mr Rudd said.

Good words. In fact among some of the ideas being considered now are:

• An Australian republic
• The creation of a bionic eye
• A disability insurance scheme
• HECS discounts for students who perform voluntary work.
• A new way to label junk food and more fruit in schools.
• All new buildings to be carbon neutral by 2020
• proportion of stamp duties on house sales being used to help the homeless
• a volumetric tax on alcohol to combat alcoholism
• a tax to encourage public transport use
• a new tax on alcohol, junk food and cigarettes to pay for the creation of a national preventive health agency
• creativity to be taught as a separate subject in schools.

While these ideas- and that is all they are at this stage, were being discussed, we have had also the whingers and complainers. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Anti-Charisma, Brendan Nelson, said he had heard many of the ideas before and implied the summit was stacked with pro-Labor people.

"Whilst I have high regard for all of those who came to the conference, it seemed not to be fully representative of Australian society," Dr Nelson said.
Dr Nelson has spent most of his time and energy since the election complaining and pooh-poohing everything that Kevin Rudd does or says. In fact perhaps if he actually used some of that energy to actually come up with some policy instead of using it to develop new ways to criticize and complain all the time, he might actually be taken seriously.

The Liberal Party didn't once, while they were in office, take the time to actually listen to Australians, to our fears and hopes and worries. How many times did the Liberals introduce another new law or tax that sent ordinary Australians to the streets in protest? How many times did ex-PM John Howard go crawling to the Americans and President Bush in particular. Stop complaining Mr. Nelson. Sour grapes will not win you any more votes. Labor  came up with a good idea having a Summit and Liberals didn't. Too bad, get over it.

Another whinger has been the Daily Telegraph's columnist Piers Akerman. Here's a snippet from his latest blog bitch.

"They were billed as the best and the brightest but at the end of the day it was disappointing to see such a mediocrity of minds.

Asked for ten Big Ideas, the 1002 anointed by the Rudd government failed to surprise. (Australia’s Jewish community had its summit last week before Passover, and bizarrely, there was also a little reported summit of Africans held somewhere, referred to once, but never again and not to be found on the 2020 website.) "

Mr. Akerman has entirely missed the point of the Summit. The fact that Australians, all kinds of Australians, were even asked for their opinions is something unique in Australia, the fact that the ideas are going to be taken seriously by the government, who usually stand arrogantly above us looking down, is unique. This is a good change, someone trying something new, because obviously the old isn't working.

Mr. Rudd has already taken a very public stand against China and it's human rights violations and abuses in Tibet, Mr. Howard never did, Mr. Rudd has expressed to President Bush that he does not support the invasion of Iraq, Mr. Howard never did, Mr. Rudd has taken the time to listen to the Australian people, Mr. Howard never once did. Leadership should be taken with humility and with full knowledge of the weight of responsibility.  Something radically different had to be done and at least someone is trying to do it instead of  churning out the same old tired and redundant rhetoric and excuses.

Tags: 2020 summit, john howard, kevin rudd, president bush, prime minister