John Roskam is to be commended for giving the benefit of the doubt in suggesting the Australia 2020 Summit is bipartisan..a closer look at the selection of participants will reveal it is not at all..it's just the old "usual suspects"!This time last year every member of federal parliament speaking during the debate on the abortifacient drug RU486 lamented Australia’s highabortion rate. The same concern had been expressed on the front page of a Melbourne newspaper, by Australia’s Governor -General Michael Jeffrey. Because of this high rate of abortion, current available demography reveals 4,000,000 Australians are missing from our landscape and the life of our nation. The recent call and gathering momentum for an international moratorium on abortion demonstrates such concern is not confined to Australia. I would have thought the inclusion of this issue and representatives well versed in it, would have been an imperative for the coming 2020 Summit. Instead Dr. Caroline de Costa, best known for being the first to gain a licence to use the kill pill RU486 has been invited. The unborn children she subjects to this human pesticide will never see 2020. Nor will 1,080,000 Australians if the present annual abortion rate is maintained. Instead of a voice to speak for those Australians yet to be conceived and born, the voices at the 2020 Summit will include those of former premier Joan Kirner, last seen supporting the legalisation of abortion from the public gallery of Victoria's Parliament, Julian Burnside supporter of every human right except the first, the right to life, as well as abortion supporters Drs. Mukesh Haikerwal and Rob Moodie. Shame on the Summit 2020 for excluding a voice for those who cannot speak for themselves.

An interesting article. I don't often agree with the IPA but this yabber fest is PR driven. You can bet the Howard Government's achievements will be discounted much as Howard did so cleverly to the Keating Government.

The invitees will feel 'a bit special' as they sit in the Great Hall or wherever but Rudd, et al know that the double demons of rising inflation and interest rates are where the real problems lie. It'll be photo op heaven ...for a while.

Prepare for a Budget from hell. Oh yeah, Denny, this article was about a yabber fest, not abortion.

A meeting of the left and leftist, I fear.

I rather thought the Summit was about where we are headed in the future, and not for the purpose of apportioning kudos or brickbats for past actions. Hence I think it is appropriate that past governments/actions be left out of the discussion. An ALP Love Fest? Possibly. But I wasn't aware that one had to be a Labor voter to gain inclusion. Was that question asked? I don't think so. If, however, the majority of the idealogues are Labor supporters, then so what? It is the present Labor Government that is taking us into the future, (though for how long is not known), so there seems some appropriateness in this.

Andrew Bolt is running a slightly more shrill campaign bagging this event as well - he cherry picks the names from the list - we then get the "Aha!! caught you" revelations advising us it is a set up and another chance for Rudd to grandstand - granstanding is however what most of our PMs have done from time to time - so what

Bolt bangs on about agenda setting and the like ,, David Marr, Phillip Adams et al are held up as champions of the left - very tiresome really - this author has a slightly different spin suggesting the integrity and guts of the participants are some what lacking.

Others have even been critical that the AMA doesnt have a formal seat at the table - even though the crowd is sprinkled with MDs - and a former president is attending - all that not withstanding the fact that the AMA is not the most representative of bodies - there are others like the DOctors Reform Society - they dont have a seat either.

I've read the list - there are some "conservatives' - quite a few in fact - in the crowd as well - but every on has vested interests so the author is entitled to ask the question -

I for one am interested to see what comes out of it - particularly given that thinking and critical analysis has been absent from governance at a federal and state level for a very long time.

Other members of the IPA are going. I wonder how they reconcile their own attendance with Roskam's love-fest claim?