Give us a break, Louise!

How can we foster a population with wide-ranging intellectual and creative curiosity? asks the blurb for Kevin Rudd's 2020 Summit. Don't bother to ask book publishers, for starters.

My good friend Louise Adler is the only publisher invited to the Summit and therefore has the great responsiblity of representing the interests of the entire $1.4 billion Australian book publishing industry on her own.

'I am going to Canberra to argue for more money for artists, for more support for the making of more Australian stories, a tax break for Australian book publishers, for the adoption of the French method of cultural protectionism, with a small levy on all movie tickets,' she wrote in The Age.

One can only hope her lone voice isn't drowned out by the 887 others at the Summit, including a healthy number of representatives from the film industry, theatre, TV and music.

No wonder the Australian Publishers Association is forking out a handsome sum on a new report from PR company Australian Public Affairs with the express purpose of raising the industry's profile with the Rudd Government. A pity it won't be published until after the party's over.