Among the thousands of words that could be written about the actual summit are: chaotic; engaging; chaotic; enlightening; chaotic; exhilarating; and chaotic. I was in the so-called Productivity Panel, which turned out to be less productive than I hoped for. This has nothing to do with my profound disappointment, indignation, resentment and bitterness about my brilliant idea, that income-contingent loans could solve all the world’s problems, being ignored. [Editor’s Note: On the contrary, his idea being ignored has everything to do with Professor Chapman’s judgment that his panel was unproductive.]

Several days before we arrived it was clear that the organisation, effort and planning differed hugely between the Panels, with the Governance Panel apparently having been manipulating, settling issues and signing agreements since the last major Labor summit of April 1983. On the contrary, members of my panel had no idea if we would even be in the same room, or where Parliament House was. It turned out that there were to be four sub-panels in the Productivity group, of about 25 people each. In other Panels, such as the Indigenous Policy group, there were around 10 sub-panels of about 10 each, and in the Economy Panel there were around five sub-panels, including a breakaway group that wanted to talk about other stuff.

What happened in the sub-panels seemed to be completely different, even within the broad groupings. It became very apparent, with 2020 hindsight [Editor’s Note: Professor Chapman stole this joke from Professor Ann McGrath], that the quality of the facilitator and the rapport between group members were both completely important to the worth of the process. In my group the facilitator seemed not to understand the area much at all, which was completely obvious because she could not see that income-contingent loans would solve all the world’s problems. Further, in this group we didn’t have rapport as such; more like antipathy, combativeness, hostility and self-promotion. Amazingly, I was the only one to focus properly on the critical idea, that income-contingent loans would solve all the world’s problems. [Editor’s Note: It has been reported by other members of this sub-panel that when it became obvious that Professor Chapman was a fanatical self-obsessed zealot they decided to discuss issues outside his interests and expertise, and of these there were a very large number.]

What became part of the Productivity Panel’s final list of ideas was a combination of opportunity, timing and mystery. The idea that got most media attention was that HECS debts should be reduced through community work, yet I have found no-one in my Panel who remembered that this was discussed. On the ABC’s The World Today the following Monday, Warwick Smith, who co-chaired our panel with Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, essentially said that indeed this idea wasn’t part of the Productivity Panel’s deliberations. Those ideas which did make it seemed to come from people being able to seize the moment with a compelling sentence (with a short and punchy justification) which was then not opposed.