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~river~ · 04-20-2008, 06:58 PM

Quote:

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the hard work now begins of deciding which ideas from the 2020 summit will be implemented and which will be discarded.

"Yep that's where the rubber hits the road. But that's the sequence - one, develop the plan, two, flesh it out with ideas, three, build policy out of that, and four, cost it, and five, implement it and measure it," he told ABC Radio on Monday.

"We are at the front end of that process. There is a long way to go but we are slowly turning things around."

More than 1,000 of the nation's "best and brightest" spent the weekend in the nation's capital brainstorming ideas for Australia's future to 2020, before handing their wish-list to Mr Rudd.
The prime minister, who invited the federal and state opposition leaders to participate in the summit, said he was only interested in decent ideas and didn't care where they came from.

Some former coalition politicians, including former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer, had played a positive role, he said.

"What Australians want is for us to plan for the long-term. They are sick of short-termism. This is one modest step in that direction," he said.

Mr Rudd said there were some ideas from the summit which were not part of the government's existing policy agenda.

That included the proposal for a single national regulatory framework across all markets - whether for electricity, energy, labour, water products or carbon.

"We haven't been as comprehensive in that in what we have put forward. The economics working group did. That is what they want to see happen," he said.

Mr Rudd said the government was working on harmonising 27 sets of regulations but what was suggested went much further.

"This is an ambition we haven't been presented with before and that is certainly worth having a look at. It's a big agenda," he said.

Mr Rudd said the summit showed "loud and clear" there was a big groundswell of support for an Australian republic.

"In order to bring a republic about - and I am a longstanding republican and we are committed as a party to bringing about a republic - you do need widespread community support," he said.

"We lost the last referendum nearly 10 years ago. We don't want to lose the next one so we will be building this one up very carefully."

Mr Rudd said his own idea for the summit had come from his passion for early childhood education, and the delegates had broadened this out with the idea of a community hub.

But he said the summit had proposed a far greater emphasis on a one-stop shop for families and communities consuming government services.

Mr Rudd expressed enthusiasm for the summit's "healthbook" idea of having personal health records stored online.

"The whole idea is to make sure that you the patient are in control of your own records and also I presume if you're moving around the country you can quickly, by secure means, access all those records online," he told the Seven Network.

"It's a very practical idea.

"If the technology can be done so it's completely foolproof, that is secure, this is obviously something to consider."

The prime minister said the idea of a preventative health agency funded by taxes on alcohol, cigarettes and junk food was also worth considering.

"Right now we're spending about 1.7 per cent of the nation's budget on preventative health care.

"Look at the explosion of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular and other categories of chronic diseases, they're pushing our health costs through the roof.

"This idea of an agency responsible for that and its funding proposal, look we'll be putting a lot of effort in working our way through that one as well."

Mr Rudd said the proposal for all new buildings to be carbon neutral by 2020 would be "tough" to achieve.

"But we've got to be serious about climate change.

"Energy efficiency measures affecting our buildings is one huge way in which we can start to bring about a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions now."

so fellow aussies what is your opinion on the 2020 summit