Roundup: 2020 summit

There hasn’t been as much coverage of the summit around the blogs as I expected (not yet anyway). LP has had plenty of threads, of which I think the standout is this one. TimT suggests that the photo of Rudd on that post is a perfect “Rorschach ink blot for Australian politico bloggers” – candid ‘a man at peace with himself’ or a cynically staged ‘planned photo op’?

The general view appears to be that the politics of the summit is masterly (Rudd’s foreign trip and the lead-up to the summit has essentially frozen the Opposition out of the news cycle for the last month, just for a start) but there are many caveats about the utility of the summit itself – why only for a weekend? how many actual new ideas did it generate? what does it say about the confidence of the PM in the ability of his own MPs to generate policy initiatives? etc etc. Lauredhel’s post last night expressed her first-impression reservations with the report from the Health stream. No doubt there will be many reservations expressed over all the reports as people have a chance to digest and analyse them during this week.

One aspect of the summit that has been a definite change in direction in political coverage over the last month or so, and a definitely positive development, has been an emphasis on a more long-term view of policy. Will it last? Who knows? It would be nice if it did. I know I’m not alone in decrying the degeneration of politics (and business planning) into a purely short-term outlook focussing on the next deadline – the next election, the next profit statement, the next budget, the next quarterly report. There needs to be a better balance with long term goals for society at large.

Posts around the oz-blog traps:
Tim Dunlop rounds up some press coverage while awaiting some blogosphere response (also News Limited has a special page devoted to all their blog-affiliates coverage of the 2020 summit here)
Andrew Bartlett offers some initial impressions
Ken L is unimpressed by Sinclair Davidson’s summation of the summit
Club Troppo’s put up an early Missing Link Daily to include a 2020 roundup.

Any others that Hoydenizens have found worth sharing?

Addit:

John Quiggin, who makes a particularly interesting observation:

In many areas, including the water and climate change sessions, the real message was not so much the need for new ideas (though there were some good ones) but the need to act much more urgently on what we already know