Australia 2020 Summit: Where are the bloggers?

Maybe bloggers have too much to say?

HeraldSun.com.au has made a big deal about the ad hoc invitations that traditional media are receiving directly from Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s lips:

Kevin Rudd locks more media outlets in behind his summit:

The Sunday Age is offering one reader to take a brilliant idea to the Prime Minister 2020 summit…

ONE lucky Daily Telegraph reader has the chance to gather among the nation’s “best and brightest” for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s 2020 Summit.

WHEN 1000 of the nation’s “best and brightest” gather for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s 2020 Summit, one lucky Herald Sun reader will be among them.

Add those to this:

First Rudd asks Kerry O’Brien, host of the ABC’s 7.30 Report, live to air: “Do you want to come along? You can participate or you can cover it.”

And this:

Now [3AW’s Neil] Mitchell gets rung by Rudd’s office to send a listener.

This summit is being stacked – and simply to made Rudd look good and to stifle criticism. And this stacking of the 1000 “best and brightest” summiteers is at the very least a breach of a promise the usually vigilant media is overlooking:

Rudd denies this, claiming … his 1000 new advisers will all be chosen by ”a panel of 10 experts (who will) have the job, arms’ length from government”.

UPDATE

Rudd lays another brick in the corporate state:

UNIONS will be given a formal role in Federal Government policy development with plans to revive a body that would see Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his top ministers meet regularly with senior union officials. ACTU secretary Jeff Lawrence said talks were under way on reviving the Australian Labor Advisory Council, which has been dormant for years but had played an important role in previous Labor administrations.

UPDATE 2

Reader Steve points out the Rudd last week also invited the ABC’s Jon Faine to come to the summit.

Remember the YouTube Australia fiasco? We were invited, (WE MEDIA) but put up in the rafters, where nothing could be seen. Traditional media were given the plush seats at the front. However traditional media wrote nothing – not a skerrick- on the Australia YouTube launch, whilst the bloggers wrote plenty. Mostly about how crap the view was, I guess.

Which top Australian bloggers – not media journos, and not PR/Marketing types – have been invited to participate? Anyone know?

Don’t forget to nominate (must be registered) or vote (don’t have to register) on Bloggerati.com.au for your fave nominee. Your country needs you. Or, at least, the blogosphere does. Heh.