By Russell Yardley
Having just had my knee operated on last week I spent a good deal of my weekend looking in at the summit on ABC2. It was clearly a wonderful exchange of ideas amongst a well informed and diverse group of people.
The medical book (as in facebook) idea to share medical information with those who you choose was a clever twist on a proven idea that could solve the problem of the universal medical record that is consuming millions of dollars around the world.
It was not so much an event to create new ideas (they don't seem to come when requested) but rather a powerful way to sift and sort the best ideas to help create a longer term agenda. I think this was acheived and will prove a substantial challenge for the Liberal Party in the coming few years.
Nelson did hit on the obvious weakness in the selection of summitteers. In the entire broadcast I did not hear one single speaker raise issues impacting small business. The Productivity stream often spoke of business issues and on business but it was either educators, researchers or big business and they were as was specifically identified in their idea only thinking of the "top 100" businesses in Australia!
Small business (<200 employees) will provide the majority of new jobs and will be the core innovators in the next decade. Yet when i scanned the invitation list I did not see one single small business peer I knew from Victoria. All the people I knew were academics, consultants to government or big business or the arts. It is clear the Rudd Government (who I support in many of their objectives) is much more comfortable dealing with big institutions, big unions and big business. This contradicts what many of the best thinkers are saying is going to drive the next couple of decades.
Printer friendly version
Comments
feeling left out...
Mr Yardley did well to point out the failure to recognise small businesses, and I think he's right. It dosn't bode well that there were so many participants from a lobby group such as Get Up and the union movement, while small business didn't get a look in, or a mention in the outcomes.
With the exception of course of the delegates to the rural forum, as farmers are effectively small business operators. It also should be recognised that in the indigenous Australia stream, mention was made of the importance of Aobriginal small business people, and how important it is to make connections with successful small business managers to look at creating mentoring arrangements.
Small business is, and has long been the engine room of the Australian economy, and is often where the most amazing, but unheralded innovation occurs. My concern is to that not involving small business be seen as somehow antagonistic.
The outcomes of the summit are all very admirable but I think the government needs now to do some work bridging this gap, and reaching out to small business owners in other ways.