Fed: Nelson promises to examine 2020 ideas

AAP General News (Australia)
04-20-2008
Fed: Nelson promises to examine 2020 ideas

By Peter Veness

CANBERRA, April 20 AAP - The federal opposition says it will carefully examine all
the ideas that have come from the Australia 2020 summit.

More than 1,000 delegates came up with ideas across areas as diverse as health, governance
and education in the two-day summit at Parliament House this weekend.

Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson has promised the Liberal-National coalition will take
the ideas seriously.

"From my perspective the priorities amongst those that have been given to us are taxation,
getting the federation of Australia to work effectively for the 21st century and drought-proofing
our country and focusing on food security," Dr Nelson told reporters.

Dr Nelson, a constitutional monarchist, did not mention the summit recommendation to
move towards an Australian republic.

But he warned Prime Minister Kevin Rudd not to forget the day-to-day running of the
country in his bid to focus on planning for the future.

"Tomorrow Mr Rudd needs to get back to work and focus on the things that are really
concerning Australians and families especially and that is the budget for the 13th of
May," he said.

Dr Nelson did offer some tentative criticism of the summit.

"There seemed to be a disproportionate number of people who already have prominence
in Australian public life," he said.

"Many of the ideas and proposals are things that I've either seen before or heard before
or considered before.

"Much of it was more about the aspirations and the things we want to achieve for our
country and a little less about the actual things that we might do to get there."

He also reiterated his criticism that delegates had been chosen because they supported
government policy.

"There was more than a similarity and I've got to say that whilst I have high regard
for all of those who came to the conference it seemed not to be fully representative of
Australian society."

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KEYWORD: SUMMIT NELSON (PIX AVAILABLE)

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