Australia 2020 Summit

The Australia 2020 Summit was a convention, referred to in Australian media as a summit, which was held on 19-20 April 2008 in Canberra, Australia, aiming to "help shape a long term strategy for the nation's future". Announced by the new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the summit drew limited bipartisan support from Brendan Nelson and the opposition Coalition parties, and ran as 10 working groups of 100 participants.

1002 delegates attended the summit to discuss ten "critical areas". Ideas and proposals were invited from all members of the community, and an official web site was set up to accept submissions.

The 10 critical policy areas were:

Productivity—including education, skills, training, science and innovation.
Economy—including infrastructure and the digital economy.
Sustainability and climate change.
Rural Australia—focusing on industries and communities.
Health and ageing.
Communities and families.
Indigenous Australia.
Creative Australia—the arts, film and design.
Australian governance, democracy and citizenship.
Security and prosperity—including foreign affairs and trade.

Participants

For full list, see: Australia 2020 Summit participants

The summit was led by a 11-member steering committee, whose initial membership was announced on 26 February 2008. The committee played a key role in selecting the other participants, and each member led one of the working groups together with a government co-chair. Since the initial announcement, Dr Kelvin Kong (Indigenous Australia) withdrew due to family health reasons, and Dr Jackie Huggins was appointed to replace him. On 14 April 2008, an additional co-chair, Dr Julianne Schultz, was announced for the Creative Australia stream.

The members of the steering committee are as follows:

Working group (stream)	Committee member	Government co-chair
Chair	Professor Glyn Davis	N/A
Productivity	Warwick Smith	Julia Gillard
Economy	Dr David Morgan	Wayne Swan
Sustainability and Climate Change	Roger Beale	Penny Wong
Rural Australia	Tim Fischer	Tony Burke
Health	Professor Michael Good	Nicola Roxon
Communities and Families	Rev. Tim Costello	Tanya Plibersek
Indigenous Australia	Dr Jackie Huggins (replaced Dr Kelvin Kong)	Jenny Macklin
Creative Australia	Cate Blanchett and Dr Julianne Schultz	Peter Garrett
Australian Governance	John Hartigan	Maxine McKew
Security and Prosperity	Professor Michael Wesley	Stephen Smith

Related events

Several events were held in the lead up to the Australia 2020 Summit:

2020 Youth Summit: For 100 young people (15 to 24 years) from around Australia in Canberra, 12 and 13 April 2008.
Canberra 2020 Summit: For Canberra residents, on the theme of innovation, in Canberra, 5 April 2008.
Foundations of Open: Technology and Digital Knowledge: Australian National University, Canberra, 3 April 2008.

Criticism

The summit was initially criticised for the near-absence of women on the 11-member steering committee who would pick the 1,000 delegates—only actress Cate Blanchett had been named. The Government responded by saying six of the co-chairs would be female politicians. By the time of the summit, there were three women on a 12-member committee. Additionally, some conservative commentators such as the Institute of Public Affairs, Australians for Constitutional Monarchy and Australian Monarchist League criticised what they saw as the unrepresentative nature of the delegates, which in their view biased the final report towards republicanism and ideas such as constitutional reform and a bill of rights.

Some of the delegates themselves expressed criticism of how the summit was conducted. In particular, claims were made that the final paper which purported to represent the resolutions of the sub-groups did not reflect ideas which they had espoused or did include ideas which they had not discussed, possibly reflecting an agenda which had been determined before the summit. Others were concerned that hard issues, such as terrorism in the group examining foreign affairs and security issues, were ignored.