Meet four men who have prospered hugely under our current political system, yet want to dramatically overhaul it for the greater good. On the cover of Oz magazine’s February 1964 edition three young men – one dressed, incongruously, in a suit – stand at the Tom Bass public sculpture in Sydney’s Hunter Street, pissing into...Continue reading
Geelong will have the council structure it wants with the passage of City of Greater Geelong Amendment Bill 2017. The Legislative Council passed the Bill last night, bringing about the new structure for the City of Greater Geelong following the Council’s dismissal in April 2016. In an Australian first, the Geelong Citizen’s Jury process put...Continue reading
Premier Jay Weatherill has officially walked away from one of the major policy hallmarks of his term in Government, pronouncing the nuclear waste dump “dead” and vowing he will not revisit it if he wins another term in office. The position appears a significant rhetorical shift from his stance last November, when he pledged to...Continue reading
In his talk Brett Hennig presents a compelling, coherent case of fixing broken democracy by replacing elected politicans with ordinary people. Sounds crazy? You’ll be suprised to hear, it actually works.Dr Brett Hennig (taxi driver, software engineer, social justice activist, mathematics tutor, PhD in astrophysics) is a director and co-founder of the Sortition Foundation whose...Continue reading
Justice Mary Laffoy and the Citizens’ Assembly have done the State some service in terms of determining future approaches in law on abortion – and their deliberations must be listened to and acted upon. The Assembly voted to repeal Article 40.3.3 and proposed that a new constitutional provision be inserted granting the Oireachtas exclusive power...
There’s an asterisk on a lot of political analysis, a rider at the end of deliberations about the impact of this or that event: “So long as the voters haven’t stopped listening.” When Malcolm Turnbull pulled off a budget policy flip that would have made Nadia Comăneci proud, we all pondered whether he had outmanoeuvred...Continue reading
Australia is a representative democracy. Citizens who are equal, with a shared responsibility for good government, elect people of different backgrounds and perspectives to set community standards. Those elected are not obliged to tell the truth or act in the public interest or forbidden to act in their own interests or the interests of their...Continue reading
The troubled Geelong City Council is likely to go to election in October after the Victorian Government announced it supported recommendations from a group of local residents. The council was sacked last year and put into administration following a report which found it was so dysfunctional it could not govern properly. Councillors, including high-profile mayor...Continue reading
Infrastructure Victoria’s experience shows citizen juries can play a vital role in delivering major milestones. This lends weight to the idea of institutionalising deliberative democracy. Infrastructure Victoria’s year-long journey to create a 30-year infrastructure strategy was a big undertaking for the newly formed organisation of around 30 people. It knew it was crucial to get...Continue reading
RECENTLY I was contacted by The Daily Telegraph’s Andrew Clennell about a story on the number of younger than average people who are ministers in Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s Cabinet. A range of ages is a good thing and nothing to be concerned about. What concerns me is the lack of breadth of experience we find...Continue reading