On February 3^rd this year, Australian PM Kevin Rudd announced that the Government would be convening a summit called “Australia2020” in Canberra to help shape a long term strategy for Australia’s future. In the announcement, the Government said the summit would have these objectives:

· To harness the best ideas across the nation

· To apply those ideas to the 10 core challenges that the Government has identified for Australia – to secure our long-term future through to 2020

· To provide a forum for free and open public debate in which there are no predetermined right or wrong answers

· For each of the Summit’s 10 areas to produce following the Summit options for consideration by government

· For the Government to produce a public response to these options papers by the end of 2008 with a view to shaping the nation’s long-term direction from 2009 and beyond.

Almost 8000 Australians applied to join this summit, both at home and overseas. 1000 were selected and will convene on April 19-20^th.

For those who were not selected there is now an unofficial forum for them to discuss these issues online at http://www.australia2020.net and I encourage you to let any Aussie friends or family know about this as well.

As a relatively new Aussie (I’ve been a citizen for about 2 years and ironically now living abroad) I hope this initiative will help to produce a country that I want to go back to.