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1980 Future Directions Conference

The Australian Future Directions Forum 2006 is based on a conference of future Australian leaders run by Australian Frontier Inc at La Trobe University in August 1980. The conference was a four and a half day intensive live-in event.

A Conference Advisory Committee selected 120 participants, people from across Australia, from all major walks of life whose backgrounds, skills, experiences and interests differed widely, under 45 years of age and all with the potential to be opinion-leaders.

The goals formulated for the conference included the identification of the major national challenges and opportunities which required future attention: the development of directions, strategies and monitorable guidelines for Australian national policies over the next 20 years; and the opportunity for future national opinion leaders in various sectors of society to discuss together these forthcoming issues and challenges.

To encourage participants to articulate their own concerns about the future, each participant was asked to prepare a 500-word statement setting out that he or she saw as the major problems and challenges facing Australian society over the next 15-20 years.

The Hon Mr Justice M D Kirby in his opening keynote address at the 1980 Conference stated, "The extensive preparations for this conference were designed to create an opportunity for bold thinking. The assumption (with which I strongly agree) is that Australia is entering or is already in a very difficult period and is in many ways not prepared for what lies ahead. A watch-word for our time is change. Our current institutions - political, legal, economic and social - cannot keep up with either the extent or the pace of change. As change accelerates, it creates challenges to our institutions, values and beliefs. Sometimes we tend to over-react. Conflicts both necessary and unnecessary tend to increase..."

Evan Walker, Conference participant and Chairman of Australian Frontier, included in his summary of the Conference themes the following comments, "We have identified an amazing degree of agreement about our underlying values, particularly for such a diverse group... a strong sense of optimism, ...a common desire to change our international stance, to view ourselves differently,...there is acceptance of the desirability and durability of our mixed economy,.. an agreed need for a more responsible and involved citizenry,... a desire to pursue the concept of a less aggressive and more open society...Finally, there is the sense of personal obligation that brought us here in the first place. For this group particularly, the buck stops here..."

The following are some random quotes from the 1980 participants' 500-word statements.

"To not reasonably realise our economic possibilities could to me, as an economist, be truly shameful... That balanced growth is necessary to achieve the Australia the majority wants is to me self-evident." Alan Carroll

"...we need an ideological context out of which a long-term strategy of reforms can emerge - reforms that are revolutionary, not merely papering over the tracks or concerned with electoral survival." Hilary McPhee

"There is always the possibility we will remain at the end of the decade a poor little rich country. The challenge is to see we become a rich little rich country - in every worthwhile sense." Neville Christie

"What makes us content to be a client nation and to have our country dug out from beneath our feet and carted overseas?" Franca Arena

"Rational and fair resolution of many problems in Australian society is gravely hampered by distortions, or omissions, in the information disseminated by government and the mass media." Julian Disney

"At all levels of government, the interests and influences of corporate officials are supplanting those of Australia's voters." Bob Brown

"By taking over decisions about population size, family size or succession of heirs, women are challenging nationalism...and challenging the power structure, whether religious or familial." Wendy McCarthy

"The issue for Australia is, can it cope with the assertion of a distinct cultural identity by Aboriginals or does it require its subjection in the interest of one Australia." Fred Chaney

"...as technology takes over the hard yakka of producing material goods... work may no longer be rewarded at all but ultimately itself become a reward." Richard Walsh

"Values worth pursuing - Democracy... Liberty...Equity ... Diversity ... Compassion ...Responsibility ... National self-realisation ... International sensitivity..." Gareth Evans' list of values developed at the end of the 1980 Conference