2020 Fallout

One of the most frightening thoughts to come out of the 2020 chatfest over the weekend is that it appears that Australians are now unanimous in their belief that the government should fix everything. All of the major ideas (both old and renewed) were about Government action, and what the government should do.

The Government is not the be all and end all of Australian thought and innovation and action. The Government is not an outback guide, showing the Australian people through the wilderness and making sure we don't take any unnecessary risks or make any stupid decisions. The government's role is to provide us with a map, a pair of shoes and a bottle of water and then say "right you are; off you go and see what you can make of this".

The Government is a massive unwieldy machine that makes decisions slowly, carefully and after years of risk analysis and opinion polls. That's OK for some things like foreign policy, defence, education curriculum and the like but it is less than useful in fields such as scientific innovation, creative arts and small business investment.

In the time it takes the government to analyse 12 years of trends in a particular field and formulate a policy document concerning "downward pressure on start up investment", a hundred small businesses have seen the market change and either got in, got out, or changed their business to survive.

Here's another one - the "bionic eye". One of the ideas from the chat was that there should be a national focus on a bionic eye, in an effort to "cure" blindness in much the same way as the cochlear implant has assisted lots of deaf people. Whilst this is an undoubtably noble goal, it must be pointed out that Graeme Clark didn't need a national effort and "1990 goal" to develop the cochlear implant. He had an idea, and went to work on making it real. What he did have was an educational system that gave him the freedom to make his vision a reality. What he did have was a flexible market environment that encouraged investment in his product to take it to the world.

Another theme out of the summit was the bemoaning of a lack of input into government policy. There was a view that there is not enough consultation with the Australian public. My question is: How many of the people at the summit were members of a political party? Do they really want to be involved? Join a political party and have real input into real decisions.

I could go on, and I will.

How about fining politicians when they lie or mislead the public? I've got a better idea - vote for the other guy next time! Make the politician responsible and vote him or her out of office. A couple of lying politicians out of office is going to send a pretty strong message to the rest of them that they will be held accountable for their actions.

A final question - Was the 2020 Summit carbon neutral?