Is this taking things a bit too far?

Jewish groups want summit date changed

http://news.smh.com.au/jewish-groups-want-summit-date-changed/20080204-1pwv.html

Jewish groups have asked Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to change the date of his 2020 summit because it clashes with the important Jewish holiday of Passover.

The summit, at which 1,000 of the nation's best minds will gather in Canberra to come up with ideas for Australia's future, is scheduled for April 19-20.

But that will prevent virtually every member of Australia's 120,000-strong community from taking part.

Council president Robert Goot said there was no feeling within the community that the choice of date was anything other than an inadvertent mistake.

But he said the timing was extremely unfortunate.

"The first night of Passover is almost uniformly observed with a family dinner which is one of the highlights of the Jewish year," Mr Goot said.

Does it matter that Passover begins then and why should it interfere with any Jewish "great minds"  who might be attending - unless they happen to be a majority.

If the dates are already set,  he'll have to stay with it.

I think it is asking a bit that one group want everyone else to change all their plans cause of their beliefs.
Have to be flexible to make a whole society

from crikey:

By health journalist Melissa Sweet




The background paper intended to guide health discussions at the 2020 Summit is now available here, and the news is not encouraging.


The consensus, from a quick survey of some of the country’s leading public health and policy buffs (including some who will be at the Summit), is that the paper is more than a touch disappointing.


Its professed goal is to stimulate discussion about the main challenges and opportunities facing the country’s health, but it does a good job of glossing over or omitting the nitty gritty issues that should be central to such discussions.


The document describes the Australian health system as “a sophisticated public-private and federal-state blend” which “gives rise to a mixed model of service provision and accountabilities”.


It would have been much more accurate to say our system is inefficient, wasteful, inflexible, too often fails to meet the needs of patients and the broader community, is too often driven by political and professional imperatives, and is also characterised by poor morale among often disillusioned service providers.


The document promotes the benefits of private health insurance without acknowledging there are widespread concerns that the current funding arrangements promote inequity and inefficiency.


I also spluttered at the heading “the Australian medical workforce will face many challenges in meeting future demand”. Why focus on doctors? The Rural Doctors Association of Australia estimates that at least 16,000 more health professionals are urgently needed in rural areas to ensure even basic access to care. This figure includes 1,000 doctors, 5,400 nurses, 600 midwives, 1,000 Aboriginal health workers, 1,700 dentists, and more than 6,100 allied health professionals.


And some of the document’s content - putting sport forward as the solution to inactivity and obesity - is just bizarre, being so far removed from what the evidence base suggests might help us to be more physically active and healthy. Where is the mention of transport and town planning policies, for example?


Generally the document fails to acknowledge the importance of the social and structural determinants of health - noting merely that “lifestyle risk factors” are more common in disadvantaged sectors of society, for example.


If I had to rate the usefulness of this paper, in terms of its ability to stimulate meaningful discussions about the real health challenges facing us, it might just scrape in with a pass.


Perhaps the health Summiteers would be better advised to have a look at this Productivity Commission report and this Medical Journal of Australia article on how citizen’s juries can contribute to health policy.


They might also want to have a look at the discussion paper for a National Prevention Summit being held in Melbourne tomorrow, which gives a much more coherent overview of the key issues.

http://www.australia2020.gov.au/topics/health.cfm

http://www.pc.gov.au/study/healthworkforce/docs/finalreport

http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/180_02_190104/moo10757_fm.html

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Looks like the issue of carbon taxes and water pricing will get some airing in the economics summit:

http://www.australia2020.gov.au/topics/docs/economy.pdf

page 8:
Examples of measures that could make infrastructure work more efficiently:
Service delivery measures, for example, co-location of services, enhanced consumer price signals (in areas such as public housing, health care)
Congestion road pricing: charges which vary to reflect the full cost of using transport infrastructure (e.g. higher in peak travel periods or in certain areas)
Pricing of natural resources (e.g. water, energy), to reflect full economic and environmental costs of provision

page 12, Questions:
Is there scope to make greater use of market mechanisms to regulate access to natural resources?

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Linda Hornsey and the 2020 Summit:

Peter Lloyd writes: Re. "Rudd's 2020 ringmaster no stranger to cut and thrust" (yesterday, item 3). Crikey's revelations that the repugnant former Tasmanian 'public servant' Linda Hornsey has been parachuted into a nice little spot managing the 2020 Summit positively turns the stomach. In Tasmania we have grown used to a level of shameless corruption that Morris Iemma could only dream about, helped by the fact that forest industries own both the Labor party and the Liberal "opposition". Mainland politicians come and go (especially during elections), and we quietly hope that a Peter Garrett or Mal Turnbull will one day call time and pull the pigs away from the trough. Hornsey's appointment shows only that the corruption is approved all the way to the top of the Labor Party, a party that is every bit as beyond redemption as Mark Latham said. No wonder the Tasmanian ALP were the earliest and most virulent Latham haters (Bernard Keane take note).