Wednesday 9 April 2008

Australia 2020 summit not shaping up well

Australia 2020's moral policeman Rev. Tim Costello is in trouble, with the gaming industry pointing to a briefing paper he had prepared for the Strengthening Communities, Supporting Families and Social Inclusion working group which contained factual inaccuracies.
 
The 2020 website now posts all the background papers which disappoint for their lacklustre approach.
 
Longterm Health Strategy - a little gem which describes Australia's health system as "a sophisticated public-private and federal-state blend."
 
Strengthening Communities, Supporting Families and Social Inclusion - Tim hasn't corrected his allegedly faulty statistics.
 
The Future of Rural and Regional Australia - someone discovers that the "agricultural sector is an important source of income in rural Australia" and that "shortages of services and skills exist in rural and regional areas". But the real eye opener is this piece of wishful thinking; "But the agricultural sector is in a strong position to address the challenges of climate change."
 
The Future of Indigenous Australia - has this unique view of Australia's general indifference and underlying racism; "Mainstream attitudes towards Indigenous disadvantage are generally constructive, but the public is not well informed."
 
Governance - sit back and let flawed newspaper polls set government policy, because "Mass media not only relay information to the population. Opinion polls are one way in which they close the feedback loop in providing information about public opinion back to governments."
Understates the number of Australian political blogs - but then it uses The Australian as a source.
 
Full list of available 2020 topic downloads here.

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