City seeking summit seats

Alex de Vos
Geelong deserves a seat at Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s 2020 summit, according to the city’s mayor and a peak lobby group.
Bruce Harwood and Committee for Geelong said they would seek places for city representatives at the two-day April summit, which Mr Rudd has aimed at 1000 of Australia’s “best and brightest”.
Cr Harwood said he was “very keen” to attend.
He planned to lobby the region’s federal MPs, Richard Marles and Darren Cheeseman, for a seat.
“We’d like to see some councillors go along to represent Geelong,” Cr Harwood said.
“We’re a region in transition and our future is evolving, so I think we should attend.”
Committee for Geelong’s Peter Dorling welcomed the 2020 summit.
“It seems like a really good idea,” he said.
Mr Dorling believed the summit could help Australia meet its challenges if the event avoided turning into a “bureaucratic talkfest”.
He said he would lobby Federal Government to ensure it invited a Geelong “expert”.
“I’m going to put my hand up as someone who’d like to be a part of it (summit),” Mr Dorling said.
“Geelong is going through significant changes and I think we should be represented.”
Mr Rudd said the summit would bring together talented people from outside government to look beyond the usual short-term focus of politics and policymaking.
“If Australia is to effectively confront the challenges of the future we need to develop an agreed national direction that looks at the next 10 years and beyond,” he said.