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CANBERRA - The problem with a good idea is that not everyone thinks it is one. Kevin Rudd is finding this with the renewed call for an Australian republic at the weekend 2020 Summit.
The Prime Minister is stepping cautiously and has already said dumping the monarchy might be inevitable, but was not a priority among the welter of serious issues facing the nation.
The problem is that republicanism, constitutional reform, an overhaul of federalism and a treaty with indigenous Australia are now firmly back on the political agenda, along with other policies many voters will now expect to be taken seriously after the summit.
Rudd gave himself the escape chute that the event was intended only to involve the broader Australian community in generating ideas that may or may not become Government policy. He also has the buffer of the best part of three years before he has to face voters again, allowing the summit to become a relatively distant memory.
But the Opposition and other critics are unlikely to allow him to quietly slip away from his commitment to select ideas on a non-partisan basis of national long-term interest, and turn them into reality.
Opposition leader Brendan Nelson has already made this clear, and the conservative think-tank the Australian Institute of Public Affairs has underscored the theme by declaring the summit a "blatantly political exercise" that had selected participants to endorse a prefabricated mandate.
Such critics will have fertile ground to work on. Straw polls of ordinary Australians absorbed by the tough realities of life in the suburbs have shown an underlying cynicism. This has been reinforced by readers' comments on publishers News Ltd and Fairfax websites, the majority of which regarded the summit as a gathering of a politicised elite with little in common with ordinary Australians.
Examples included: "Another example of symbolism over substance. What a shameful waste"; "Nothing more than a leftie love-in"; "A self-selected bunch of B-grade poseurs [who] don't represent all Australians".
World Vision Australia chief Tim Costello noted that many of the summit's ideas would not change life greatly in the blue-collar suburbs of big cities, "where Australians will quite rightly say, `What? I wanted something that gave me real hope for my kids."'
While the summit and its proposals gained huge and generally encouraging news coverage, commentary and editorials took a more critical view, ranging from Daily Telegraph political columnist Malcolm Farr's warning that many Australians would see it as a meeting of the elitists to fellow News Ltd writer Piers Akerman's view that it was a meeting of mediocre minds.
The Telegraph said in its editorial that despite Rudd's best efforts, the summit could not be called nationally representative: "Our neighbourhoods just don't have that proportion of PhDs for a start." The Sydney Morning Herald noted: "Those who hoped to be amazed by the summit - to find themselves yelling out loud, `What a great idea' - will feel cheated to find only the well-established social democrat agenda."
Dennis Shanahan, the Australian's political editor, warned that presented with a plateful of big ideas he could not stomach, Rudd would pay a political price for the ideas he rejects and the expectations thus crushed.
Managing that will be his biggest challenge.
