At the moment the emu is exactly the write emblem for Australia, I just wish the kangaroo would kick it’s head out of the sand.

There wasn’t any substantial attention to tech in the 2020 summit from what I can tell/read (someone please give me hope for our country and tell me I’m wrong).

Australia’s economy is based on mining, farming, real estate and education. This list should include technology. Australia’s risk is that a multi-country global recession (or depression) could kill the mining sector for about 10 years. Another risk is that farming becomes less and less viable over time. The real estate sector is mostly about one Australian taking money from another so it’s not a great contributor in a real way. Yep foreign money comes in via this segment but it’s investor dollars. Migration property demand doesn’t count because we need to build infrastructure to cope with growth.

So we get a bunch of minority groups together (such as elite sports people) to help work out what our vision for the future is. Australia 2020 = Fail.

The time would have been much better spent visiting other countries and seeing what is working successfully overseas. A trip to a Korean ship yard or better still a Korean Telco exchange. I would have gone to China visited manufacturing plants and at least a couple of their universities. Then off to Japan to find out why technology and discipline can sustain an economy who has a near zero resource base. From this we might learn how to stop riding the sheep’s back and instead jump on the backbone of a fibre optic network.

Technology has to be a part of any modern economies vision. Only a fool thinks otherwise. Technology is dominating work and lifestyle more and more.

Stil sums it up well in this post and also Stephens Collins on this acidlabs.org post.

Not to let the Liberal opposition of the hook. The Rudd Labour government should have taken this 2020 opportunity to address the Liberal Government credit bubble. Rampant asset inflation caused by extremely low interest rates has lead to burgeoning household debt which is now a major social issue and RISK heading off the back of a 10 year global boom.

Mining and rural sectors won’t provide for the future. That’s short-term-ism. If Australia is riding the sheep’s back now we will be hanging onto it’s stump of a tail in the future. New Zealand knows this all to well. We’ve been lucky to have a nice mining kicker to help us ignore the issue.

Eventually the big global economies will have enough money to buy the businesses that supply the resources they need so be prepared (they already have big shareholdings in some). Who’s addressing what we need to reduce our risk exposure to this sector not growing forever? Not the 2020 summit, that’s for certain.