Ideas summit? More like a Labor love-fest

The Australian media analysed and dissected John Howard's every move in an attempt to discern the political advantage he or the Liberals would gain. In contrast, Kevin Rudd's summit has been breathlessly embraced as an exercise in bipartisanship nation-building that is above the day-to-day reality of what politicians do.

It's good politics for Labor to portray the Prime Minister as a leader boldly forging a consensus. Bob Hawke made a career out of it. But sometimes you can get too much of a good thing.

A measure of the health of a democracy is the extent to which there are differences of opinion in the public debate. Under the Liberals, the ABC, the ACTU, and Australia's public universities guaranteed that opinions different from those of the government would be aired and disseminated.

Now, with Labor in power federally and in every state and territory where will those opposing views come from? They're unlikely to come from a summit of 1,000 hand-picked participants. One can speculate on a participant's chances of success if they suggested at the summit that Canberra should have less power rather than more, or that there are bigger issues confronting the planet than climate change.

There are strong incentives for those at the summit to co-operate with Kevin Rudd. He has an approval rating of 70 per cent. Brendan Nelson's is 9 per cent. Labor doesn't look like being dislodged from power across the country any time soon. Given this stark reality, the question is how many of those attending the summit will be able to afford to disagree with the Government?