Paying your own way has a different meaning for those who live in remote Australia. Hope there is some chance for interaction for the online community.

Gary,
This sounds like a great idea to me. Wish I was going to be able to follow discussion of it around the blogosphere, but my computer is going to the doctor for a couple of days.

Kevin,
The Rudd government cannot be seen to be too much of a spendthrift when it is obliged to cut back on its expenditure by billions to fight the war on inflation. I suspect that the ideas summit will be like the Davos forums. Or rather, Davos provides the working model. It is held by our shakers and movers that significant outcomes are achieved at Davos.

Lyn,
sorry to hear about the computer. It sounds as if you need a new one.

Do you think that bloggers along with journalists will be invited to the Summit? Or more radically, will there be live blogging from the Ideas Summit? Now there's a thought.

Nan,
in the Ian McAuley article Gary linked to, we these comments on the constraints on democracy.

First there is:

the network of lobbyists, ministerial staff and public servants. In the inner circle is a Praetorian Guard of advisers protecting the Prime Minister and the Executive from the outside world and its bad news.

And then there is the bureaucracy:

...there is the strong influence of the public service, whose competence lies in its handling of continuity. The public service is adept at resisting fundamental change, not because of any inherent conservatism, but because fundamental change is painful. Its response to an incoming government's reform agenda is often to recast difficult adaptive issues into simple technical problems requiring no more than an incremental change in direction....Public bureaucracies are good at handling technical issues - building new roads, enacting consumer protection laws, and collecting taxes.

The ideas summit needs to discuss ideas about adaptive change which often involves significant loss, and not the sort of loss that can be covered with a tax break or financial compensation. Those losses can involve a change in lifestyle (e.g. adapting to a low carbon economy), or the loss of a way of life (as is confronting many farmers and foresters).

Lyn,
there's no real need for the Ideas Summit according to the Australian, as it will be preceded by its own high-level New Agenda for Prosperity conference to be held at Melbourne University on March 27 and 28. Its editorial says that this:

will be the fifth in a series of Opportunity and Prosperity conferences jointly hosted by The Australian and the Melbourne Institute. Since April 2002, these have been held every 18 months and have developed into Australia's premier public policy forums. The agenda for the coming New Agenda conference includes such major economic and social policy issues as managing the resources boom, the education revolution, federal-state relations, the performance and funding of hospitals, skills shortages, housing costs, innovation, infrastructure (including broadband), regulation, indigenous disadvantage, social inclusion and climate change.

It then adds:

Given its scope and timing, less than a month before Mr Rudd's summit, the New Agenda conference is likely to produce important consensus and ideas that will feed into the Prime Minister's summit. This is no idle hope, given the track record of past Opportunity and Prosperity conferences in shaping long-range economic policy. From the outset, the conferences were developed around the sound notion that vigorous economic reform can boost national prosperity while providing opportunities for all Australians.

So we can all rest assured. Even though there is a new political order in Canberra, the Australian is still running the nation for us. There is no need for us citizens to do anything.

Peter,
the ideas conference is good politics. It suggests a helpful air of inclusiveness, a government listening and in touch as it outlines its policy vision.

Nan,
Last time it went to the doctor because it was sick. This is just an upgrade.

I would rather see bloggers live blogging from the thing than any number of journalists.

Slip over to the ABC and see what commenters are saying about it. They're split between seeing it as inclusive and exclusive. People are making suggestions. It's not just good politics - people are wanting to be involved. Whatever happened to the notion that we're all disengaged?

Peter,
Wow. That's such a relief, isn't it? I hate to think where we'd be if we didn't have The Australian steering the ship.