Policy making and the Sadim Touch - there are alternatives

Before you can make new policies – the purpose of the Rudd-Davis Australia 2020 Summit – you have to have a vision of what the future might be like with and without these new new policies.

You have to have a fairly clear vision of what the impact of these new policies is likely to be.

You don't want new policies that are made with the noblest intentions but in reality ruin lives, wreck industries, squander public money, destroy opportunities and put us in greater danger.

We have seen so many of these foolish policies that they have become almost an Australian tradition.

Just think, for example, of all the counter-productive policies in Aboriginal health, wool price stabilization, defence procurement, veterans' affairs, education & training, housing, job creation, consumer protection – there is hardly a field of policy making that hasn't suffered from the Sadim Touch {[King Midas touched sh*t and it turned to gold; the Sadim Touch is the reverse of that: touch gold and it turns to sh*t! :-) ].

We can do better than that. We can look at the future from our own point of view and our own experience say “If you do this – that's what will happen”. Or “If you don't do this – these are the things that will happen”.

Do not imagine that you have less common-sense and experience of life than the highly-paid policy-makers.

You've got a brain – use it. Don't be shy. If you've got a good idea – or if you are worried about a trend – just say so. Nobody is going to bite you.

This Counter-Summit here might not be flash .... but at least it is an alternative.