Dumping Britain’s monarch as head of state, finding new ways to tackle Aboriginal inequality and shifting people from the country’s drought-struck south to the northern tropics are among the ideas to be discussed at a summit on Australia’s future.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has invited 1,000 of what he calls Australia’s “best and brightest” minds to a two-day brainstorming session starting today that could end up forming government policy.
While there are 10 official topics — including health, the economy, the environment and the arts — just about anything is open for discussion. That has already resulted in some quirky suggestions and presents a challenge to panelists who must whittle the number of ideas down to about 10 key policy proposals to be handed to the government.
Critics call the event a farce with too many ideas and too little time, but Rudd says the summit’s wide-ranging nature is part of its appeal. He hopes it will make Australians feel included in decision-making and “shake some new ideas loose from the tree” for the future direction of the nation.
Some new ideas, indeed. How about an official government reminder to chew celery after each meal to help prevent tooth decay? Or building retirement communities atop shopping centers so the elderly won’t be bored and their families can combine shopping with a visit to the grandparents?
“Send more people up to Darwin,” one person suggested in a submission to the summit’s official Web site, reasoning that the tropical capital of the Northern Territory had enough rainfall to provide water for those coming from dryer parts of the country.
The summit has had Australia buzzing, with radio talk shows inviting listeners to phone in their ideas, and more than 8,700 submissions to the Web site for potential topics of discussion.
The 1,000 delegates include politicians, scientists, activists and even celebrities. Actress Cate Blanchett will co-chair the creativity panel just six days after giving birth to her third child.
While some of the public’s input has been flippant, most submissions have attempted to seriously address issues facing the nation such as education, water shortages, obesity and Aboriginal equality.
In an emotional plea to delegates, Aboriginal leader Doreen Green asked them to demand a ban on the sale of alcohol in indigenous communities in Western Australia where youth suicides and crimes are on the rise.
On the Web site, Tony Mack proposed easing the urban population squeeze with government land giveaways and low-interest loans to rehabilitate and settle Australia’s Outback. Olive Weir condemned a government payment to new parents — known as the baby bonus — as encouraging poor young women to have children.
“Whoever dreamed up this nonsense should be shot!” she wrote, proposing the money instead be used for education or tax refunds.
Rudd has his own pet ideas. Yesterday he said he’d like a debate on whether Australia should break its ties with the British monarchy.
“I want to hear what people have got to say on it, because if we’re going to move forward we’ll need a consensus,” Rudd said.
Each of the 10 panels is expected to present at least one official policy proposal to the government at the close of the summit.
Rudd said he would respond to the suggestions by the end of the year.
“If we get a dozen or so good ideas for the future out of this, it will be a weekend well spent,” he said.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done