The death last week of Mikhail Gorbachev was an apt precursor to the Jobs and Skills Summit, Australia’s attempt at perestroika. Representatives of Big Australia: big government, big business, big labour, big academia and big industry associations gathered in Canberra in a demonstration of central planning with Australian characteristics. It remains an unsettling reflection of the Commonwealth government’s extensive role in the lives and jobs of all Australians that such a summit can attract so many.