Aiming to shape a long term strategy for the nation's future, the 2020 Summit was held in Canberra 19-20 April 2008. Prior to the Summit, individuals and organisations were invited to prepare submissions against 10 key topic areas.  Speech Pathology Australia took this opportunity to put forward submissions under two topics that were the most relevant to the speech pathology profession and the needs of our clients with communication and swallowing impairments.

Submissions were made to the following topics:

The productivity agenda – education, skills, training and innovation.
Our key message - Speech Pathology Australia advocates for a national policy which mandates the provision of an appropriate level of speech pathology service for all children across Australia as an investment for our future.

A long-term national health strategy – including the challenges of preventative health, workforce planning and the ageing population.
Our key message - Timely and affordable access to appropriate health services, including speech pathology, is a right of all Australians.

Submissions were strictly limited to 500 words and those prepared by the Association can be viewed below.  
The productivity agenda  
A long-term national health strategy

For details on the overall outcomes of the Summit, the Initial Summit Report can be found at http://www.australia2020.gov.au/final_report/index.cfm

Speech Pathology Australia member attends the Summit

Juliet gets her say on speech  
Kevin Rudd addressing the productivity agenda session

Tasmanian Branch Public Affairs Leader, Juliet Vanyai, was selected from a Mercury Newspaper competition to attend the 2020 Summit.  While attending as a general public invitee, Juliet was able to represent and reinforce the position of the Association and profession, as a participant in the Productivity stream.  This topic included areas relating to education, skills, training, science and innovation. Juliet was able to speak to her ideas for the future, which involved improving early childhood intervention services for children, with a particular focus on fostering oral language competence. Juliet commented that the ideas generated at the summit which were relevant to speech pathologists included “one-stop shops” for the delivery of early childhood community services and an emphasis on prevention and early intervention in health strategies.

Juliet was fortunate to have the opportunity to speak personally with the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and in relation to the proposed “one-stop” health and childcare centres reinforced the importance of allied health professionals as crucial members of the early childhood development team.  Juliet commented that it was a challenging but exciting two days.