[Dialogue] 2020 summit in Canberra

[Jeanette Stanfield]

Dear Colleagues, 
I am most fascinated with the event happening in Canberra this weekend.
It is the culmination of several months of community forums if you like all
around Australia.  
Shortly after the new Rudd government was elected, they announced a major
ideas summit 
on 10  key policy arenas including climate change, health, rural industries,
economic growth, education , indigenous Communities, families, democratic
reforms etc. toward 2020.

A youth summit was held last weekend in Canberra.  100 youth from very
diverse backgrounds were chosen to attend.  Before that 500 schools across
the country had submitted their ideas.  10 big ideas
from that summit are now being taken by 10 youth delegates to this weekend.
Young people also went away from event excited about what they could begin
acting on in their own communities and networks.

Now this week a 1000 volunteers chosen from across Australian society are
meeting in the 10 major
arenas to come up with key ideas and directions for the future.  The
co-chairs for each group include
a respected person in that field plus a cabinet minister charged with
responsibility in the policy arena.

The opening was on tv this morning.  It began with a welcome to country by
an Aboriginal elder.
She reminded those who haven¹t always had a voice- that their ideas were
just what were needed at
this time- including women.  The second person who spoke was a young woman
who is from a 
Multi-racial family- one indigenous parent , the other a European Aussie.
Her word was that the story of being Australian has to become larger.  It
has to include all the peoples of this great place if a new perspective and
future can be created.

A young man whose family originally came from India to live in Australia
spoke of the trends that
we are facing. ³We are now in a time of globalization- a state of mind where
we are fascinated by creating communities of debate and dialogue across the
planet.  His most addressing point was that the west no longer dominates the
world.  Its model of society in not sustainable for all the peoples of this
planet.  India and China are coming into their own.  It is a time when we
need to seek new answers.  All certainties are gone.  What is needed is
ingenuity and creativity as we face the future.   We can have poisonous
debates which are just quarrels about the past and present and endanger the
future or we can focus on the challenges for the future.²

Tomorrow we will begin to hear about some of the big ideas that are
beginning to emerge.  Whatever happens, you sense that people in Australia
are waking up from a time of cynicism and helplessness
to a sense that yes we just might be able to meet the major challenges of
our time and be a part of the
democratic process for change.  As Hawkins says in Blessed Unrest, we are in
a time of moving from a world created by privilege to a world created by
community (across time and space).  Perhaps the 2020 summit is participating
in creating that new world.

Cheers from down under.  It is an exciting time to be living here.

Jeanette Stanfield



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