Queensland Plan set back by 'motherhood statements' It has been described as putting the cart before the horse - but the government says that was the point. An ambitious attempt to include the entire state in planning the next 30 years - The Queensland Plan - will culminate next week in Brisbane at a summit for the whole community, including representatives of youth, industry, business and politicians. The idea, which began in February, was developed at a community summit in May and went through a three-month public consultation process. But not everyone has been impressed. Brian Feeney, a retired town planner of the Gold Coast, said the process has "lacked direction." Mr Feeney brought together an environmental management consultant, a health policy worker and another town planner for a separate "discussion day" to address issues they say the government missed at the community summit. "There was this summit being held and the people who were going to be there had been selected through a process where the local MP did the picking," Mr Feeney said of the community summit in May, which attracted about 40 people. It seemed potentially quite unrepresentative as a process. Mr Feeney said one of his greatest concerns was the lack of context for the process. "The engagement they have come up with is quite superficial," he said. Unless people are given some kind of context, you end up seeing the motherhood statements which have been posted on Twitter - 'as Queenslanders we need to nurture a caring and sharing community'. To me that sort of statement is quite useless in formulating any kind of plan for the future as it doesn't imply any particular course of action. At Mr Feeney's discussion day key issues included climate change and a need to stop relying on fossil fuels, such as coal and gas mining. But the government says it wanted to start with any and all responses; the discussion papers, context and direction would come later. A spokesman said the community was supposed to drive the process rather than government-speak. Instead of the government presenting policy and then asking for submissions, it asked delegates at the community summit in May, held in Mackay, to develop questions the state needed to answer. The community was then invited to submit answers and with those submissions, which will be fine tuned at next week's summit, the government plans to develop policy. US-based long range planner Steven Ames praised the process, saying its length, the approach and techniques used in gathering responses "should enable the outcomes to represent a greater degree of consensus." But Mr Ames said the proof would be in the final outcomes. Andrew Powell, the minister in charge of The Queensland Plan, said he had been "amazed at the unprecedented scale of engagement." He said 60,000 people (from a population of 4.6 million) had formally submitted feedback, but he was "always happy to receive more." "The next step is the Brisbane Summit on October 9 and 10, where hundreds of Queenslanders will fuse together the diverse opinions, then work to deliver real and tangible outcomes that will help shape The Queensland Plan," Mr Powell said. It will be a shared vision that will guide not only policy now and into the future, but can also guide business and community groups across the state.