The PM has appointed a steering committee to run his summit of 1000 top brains in the country who are supposed to come up with a vision for the future during 2 days in April. The steering committee comprises 10 people who are supposed to lead groups of 100 each. The only woman in the steering committee is Cate Blanchett whose brief is "towards a creative Australia". 69% of SMH readers think there should be more women on the steering committee. Vote here.

Others include former deputy PM and National Party leader Tim Fischer (future directions for rural industries and rural communities); banker and former Liberal MP Warwick Smith (economic infrastructure, the digital economy and future of our cities); John Hartigan, chairman of News Ltd (the future of Australian governance) [OMG!]; Rev. Tim Costello (strengthening communities, supporting families and social inclusion) [Tim is a left-wing Christian and local chair of World Vision]; Aboriginal surgeon, Kelvin Kong (indigenous affairs); the health guru is Michael Good [interestingly, another expert in the area of Aboriginal health - and, guess what, from Queensland]; former Westpac CEO David Morgan [that's two bankers out of 10]; former head of the Department of Environment and Heritage, Roger Beale; foreign policy expert Michael Wesley [another Queensland mate!].

The PM has made a big blunder here. He and Melbourne Uni vice-chancellor Glyn Davis, will be co-chairs of the summit. Otherwise six out of the 10 panel co-chairs from the government side will be women. But that leaves only 7 women out of 22 in total and a major impression that women really are not among the top brains in the country. Not only that, but Kelvin Kong and Penny Wong will be the ONLY representative of the non-anglo culture! As Eva Cox said: "For an innovation summit, they ha[ve] not shown a lot of innovation in the selections."

The only good news here is that there are three academics and not one from the ANU!!!