KEY POINTS:
Malcolm Fraser was not noted for his wit. Liberal Prime Minister of Australia from 1976, Fraser was defeated by Bob Hawke and Federal Labor in March, 1983. The country had been enduring a severe drought, but Hawke's legendary luck held and the drought broke within weeks of Labor's
election.
This led Fraser to comment, drily, that if he had known Hawke's election as PM would see the drought break, he would have voted Labor himself.
Kevin Rudd seems to be enjoying luck of the same vintage. The worst Australian drought in living memory appears to be breaking in the east. Floods have replaced the dry and Sydney has been drenched by torrential rains for much of this week.
It's good news all round, of course: for the farmers, for exports and for GDP.
So history is repeating itself in Canberra - in more ways than one.
Hawke's election in 1983 saw a National Economic Summit convened to look at ways of lifting Australia's economic performance out of recession and to bring a degree of harmony to the tense industrial relation climate of the day.
There were critics, there were sceptics. But it worked. The policy foundations were laid down at that summit for the dramatic modernisation of the Australian economy, which occurred over the ensuing decade against a backdrop of comparative industrial peace.
Rudd is now looking to convene another summit but one with more far-reaching goals. It will be called Australia 2020, and is to be held at Parliament House, Canberra, on April 19-20. It will involve 1000 of Australia's best and brightest, and will be co-chaired by Rudd and Professor Glyn Davis, the able Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne.
One early snag is that the dates nominated are those of Passover, which may preclude some Jewish Australians from participating. It's to be hoped this can be overcome, for an essential element in the summit is the importance of inclusion.
Announcing the gathering, the Prime Minister explained his reasoning at a Parliament House press conference: "It's time for the nation to come together to bring forward all of our ideas, talents and energies to deal with this nation's long-term challenges.
"The Australia 2020 summit will involve bringing 1000 of our brightest and best from across Australia to this building for one weekend.
"We'll be presenting those who are engaged in the summit with 10 specific challenges which we want their ideas on. And, by the end of the summit, we expect them to have come forth with their best ideas on how we deal with those challenges."
Significantly, the summit will be bipartisan. The Leader of the Federal Opposition, Brendan Nelson, and his state counterparts have been invited, along with premiers and chief ministers. To his credit, Nelson has endorsed the concept of the summit.
Ten broad policy areas have been identified for consideration.
These range from future directions for the Australian economy, infrastructure and the cities, sustainability, the rural sector, health strategy, social inclusion, indigenous Australia, the arts, governance and security and prosperity in the regional and global environments.
It's a demanding agenda and, of course, critics are already saying it will merely be a talkfest.
This is a real danger. Rudd has recognised this by not only identifying the objectives of harnessing and applying the best ideas on offer, but committing the Government to following up the policy options which the summit generates.
This was the reason for the success of the summit in 1983. It not only forged a policy consensus, but served to shape national policy for the future.
Rudd is aiming to repeat this success by obliging his Government to produce a public response to the summit's policy options by the end of this year and thereby influence policy-making from 2009 onwards.
It's always difficult, particularly in government, to put aside the urgent for the important. There are immediate pressures produced every day by the 24-hour news cycle and Australia's short three-year electoral term reduces any government's capacity to plan for the longer term. But Rudd is being bold enough to map out a blueprint for the next decade.
In this, there is no doubt that he is in concert with community opinion, particularly business, which frequently and often justifiably bemoans the lack of long-term vision for the Australian experiment.
Having said this, the recent publication of the Commonwealth's Red Book demonstrates just what immediate pressures mean for this Australian Government.
The Red Book is produced by the bureaucrats to guide any Opposition, newly elected to power in Canberra. It addresses not only pressing issues before the new Government but weighs up the campaign pledges that have formed the new administration's platform.
One senior Canberra mandarin once commented whimsically that he should write an alternative history of Australia by opening up the Red Books that had been produced for unsuccessful Oppositions.
The assessments written for Dr John Hewson (1993) and Mark Latham (2004) would make particularly riveting reading.
The current Red Book does not mince words. Its opening lines, grouped under the heading "Opportunity", set the scene: "You have been elected at a pivotal economic juncture. You have inherited an economy that is experiencing its longest period of uninterrupted growth since federation but which faces a number of short and medium-term challenges that are becoming increasingly acute. The economic policy directions struck in the coming 12 months will be critical."
While substantial sections of the Red Book have not survived the censor's black pen, which has been wielded with an enthusiasm worthy of Soviet guardians of state secrets, the analysis underlines the importance of dealing with inflationary pressures and curbing interest rates.
It argues for a reaffirmation of Australia's productivity agenda and makes it clear that climate change represents a real and immediate policy challenge.
The problems confronting Australia's indigenous citizens have not been overlooked and it is clear that the new Government will need to keep a focus in this area well beyond the proposed apology, which is to be offered on the opening day of Parliament next week.
In all, the Red Book is a sobering document which recognises Australia's continuing economic strengths but does not hesitate to draw attention to the clouds on the horizon.
The Reserve Bank of Australia's decision to lift interest rates by a further 25 basis points on Tuesday simply reinforced the message to Government contained in the pages of the Red Book. The immediate will always try and push out the important.
So the summit is the means of enabling government to look over the horizon.
Contributors to the summit will be invited as individuals who are experts in their fields, rather than representatives of an organisation. It's to be hoped that ideas will triumph.
Time will tell. But, in this case, time will be reflected in a decade.
* Stephen Loosley, a former federal president of the Labor Party and a senator, chairs the business advocacy group Committee for Sydney
2020 foresight
* One thousand people meet on April 19-20 to discuss what the Government calls the "10 core challenges" facing the nation in the long term.
* Topics for debate include: the economy, infrastructure, the future of cities, population, sustainability, climate change, water, rural industries, health, indigenous Australia, the arts, security, more open government.
* The Government has promised to make a public response to the ideas raised at the summit, by the end of the year.
