Kevin Rudd: 2020 Summit had lasting impact on our nation
ANDREW Bolt’s contempt for 2020 summit proposals, like the idea for a National Disability Insurance Scheme, shows just how out of touch he is, writes Kevin Rudd.
Opinion
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THE wonderful thing about Andrew Bolt’s columns is that they are so wonderfully predictable.
You always know what’s coming next from the patron saint of the far Right: his love affair with former Coalition prime minister Tony Abbott; his biological loathing of all things Labor; his relentless pandering to the politics of race; and his demonisation of the benefits to Australia of generations of immigration — including dear Andrew himself, whose parents were rightly welcomed to these shores as Dutch migrants half a century ago.
Bolt’s latest diatribe on the 2020 Summit, convened in 2008, is a case in point.
We brought together the nation’s talents — 1000 people, at their own expense — to see what ideas the wider community had for our future, rather than just depending on the political elites.
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The summit was divided into 10 groups and asked to recommend national priorities for the decade ahead on economic productivity, infrastructure, sustainability, health and ageing, families and communities, rural Australia, indigenous Australia, creativity and innovation, governance and national security. High schools also held their own summits.
Not a bad idea, to throw the doors of government open to the public. I never believed that politicians had some monopoly on the nation’s wisdom.
Later that year, we released 100 of these recommendations for public debate. If Bolt is interested in fact, rather than hyperbole, he should actually read them.
His contempt for summit proposals, like the idea for a National Disability Insurance Scheme to help Australians who through no fault of their own suffer catastrophic injury or disability, shows just how out of touch he is.
Bolt also happily writes off the National Organ and Tissue Authority, which has reduced the waiting lists for the thousands waiting for transplants to survive.
Perhaps, he also has no interest on what we then did to bring down the trachoma rates for indigenous kids — another summit priority.
What about the Australian Civilian Corps, which is now able to respond immediately to the next cyclone to hit one of our near Pacific island neighbours, demonstrating to the region that Australia is a reliable friend?
Or breakthroughs in the development of an Australian “bionic eye”, so that one day, we can really give sight to the blind, just like other Australian innovators (through Cochlear) gave hearing to the deaf?
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Then there’s his contempt for ABC for Kids, another summit idea we delivered on.
Ask young mums and dads whether they want a free-to-air station that can offer safe, quality programming for little ones. I bet they do.
Bolt has now become the elitist he says he so thoroughly despises.
And that’s where we end up with Bolt’s elitist hostility to continuing our post-war program of large-scale immigration to build a Big Australia.
This was John Curtin’s and Ben Chifley’s vision. Those Labor prime ministers knew from bitter experience that it was impossible to fund the national security of this vast country with a small population. They also saw how a tiny domestic market would limit our economic strength.
We can build a Big Australia which is also a Sustainable Australia. But it takes imagination, political resolve and long-term planning.
We need a national vision.
Let’s think for a bit what happens to Australia if United States President Donald Trump is not an aberration but the start of a longer-term trend of America’s withdrawal from the world — including from US alliance structures — as it becomes absorbed with challenges on the home front, its taxpayers no longer willing to pay the price of sustaining its global military.
It’s not probable. But it’s certainly possible.
Under those circumstances, what does Australia do?
How do we provide for the future defence of a vast country like ours, which has one of the longest coastlines in the world? Ships and planes being notoriously expensive, any large expansion of our naval and air power would involve at least a doubling of our national defence budget.
A Big Australia is part of the answer because we would need a much bigger revenue base to afford this.
Bolt says we can’t cope with the size of our current immigration intake because it’s overwhelming our infrastructure and schools, driving crime rates, and undermining our culture.
He produces no data to substantiate these claims. Just assertion.
The truth is, we need proper planning for doubling our population — to be ahead of the curve for our future energy, transport, housing affordability, community cohesion and policing needs. This can all be done.
Our long-term national interest demands it. So too does a Big and Sustainable Australia.
Kevin Rudd is a former prime minister of Australia
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