Anyone out there have any suggestions as to who will be the 1000 'non-usual' suspects invited to the talkfest in Canberra?
I am curious as to how such people will be chosen. Will they be members of this forum, people who write to the media or what?
If Mr Rudd does not want the usual suspects then he must rule out business and industry leaders, union officials, academics and professional stirrers who lead specific interest groups and get their names constantly in the press.
I can think of a few likely but non-usual suspects but I doubt that those responsible for choosing the delegates will consider them suitable.
Should the community have the right to nominate people to attend? This is about us and our future - shouldn't we have a say in who has a say?

no, ccat, you shouldn't. citizens would, but you're a subject.

rudd may get some useful ideas out of the tame elder's council, but i suspect he's just spreading the blame in advance if it turns out his government is not adequate at meeting the challenges ahead. clever idea, but dangerous to suggest that all wisdom does not reside in government.

if he kept doing it, even ozzies would gradually understand the use of democracy. so, probably a once-off. can't imagine the libs ever coming up with even this innocuous an idea, so i guess we should be grateful they were finally turfed out.

Ah DEMOS the Cynical One!

Doesn't matter. Remember Bob Hawke's 'Summit? All sorts turned up for that, and nothing came of it.

According to Michelle Grattan and Paul Austin of The Age, Saturday,
February 9th 2008 (Insight), Kevin Rudd is a bright and driven man,
ferociously hard working, both intense and charming, but most of all - an intellectual vacuum cleaner with the instincts of a strategic reformer. A man with a formidable mind and can-do style.

Rudd has appointed Glyn Davis (vice-chancellor of Melbourne University) co-chairman of his Australia 2020 summit. And Davis, widely recognised as one of the nation's leading talents is seeking 1000 more, of the best and the brightest, for the April summit that will focus a telescope on the future of virtually every aspect of
Australian life.

I think selecting candidates for this summit should be left to the man
appointed to do the job - Glyn Davis. The 2020 summit will be held at
Parliament House; the lead up and drawing together of the results will have Davis involved for months. He has the expertise, the background and the connections to choose the best people.

"The Best and the Brightest" was David Halberstam's long-awaited book published in the late sixties on America in the previous decade. The
story of what happened when the best and the brightest men in the country came to Washington, to serve the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations.

Shades of Camelot ... We can only hope that the end result of our PM's
administration will have more success in exercising their power in office. The men who came to power in the Kennedy era, modern, active,
contemporary men - the best and the brightest -came to Washington to build a Camelot and left behind them a country divided by war, torn by dissent. Let's hope that under the PM's leadership - his team will
respond to construct a compelling agenda to some of the country's
looming political challenges.

Foxy, you quoted Rudd as being, "but most of all - an intellectual vacuum cleaner".
Does this mean he sucks with a level of intelligence?
I agree with you about letting the person given the job decide on how it's going to be done. There is no real value in speculating how/what/where/when/why regarding the process used to pick those who will attend the conference. I am of course deciding whether or not to say yes or no when I get my invitation. I'm sure it's in the mail...yeah, of course it is.

Government leaders are selected to front their party's policies.

1000 people putting forward ideas contrary to the party's policies may give the oppinion that the party's policies suck.

However not to give the impression that the selection of candidates to the summit were chosesn for their close alliance with the party's policies, one would throw in a few screwballs that could be easily ridiculed and in so doing make the party's policies look realy good and right on with what the people want.

The outcome is the media would foccus on the summit ideas one by one until they were exposed as useless or with merrit as already decided by the election.

This buys time for Kev and does no real damage by keeping the focuss on Kev, and not letting it switch away to those who wish to replace him.

Has there yet been a public invitation sent out seeking application for invitation or are those to be invited already known?