The Foundation exists with a goal of finding improvements to how we make trusted public decisions – democratic decisions – which represent the informed general will of the people. To do so, we seek to run practical projects in controversial areas of low public trust and where genuine public discourse is impossible as the topic...
The City of Greater Bendigo has a large urban area home to around 85% of the local government area’s population; in turn this is surrounded by an array of rural areas and small towns. In most circumstances this pattern generally leads to a sense that the centre “gets everything” at the expense of the outer areas. We had no...Continue reading
Like many local government areas in NSW and across the country, Eurobodalla Shire Council faces the challenge of having significant infrastructure to manage, maintain and renew as well as having an enormous breadth of services to deliver. Coupled with finite income sources; a geographically, socially and economically diverse community; and a level of existing community...Continue reading
As citizens and voters we all want and value infrastructure. Unfortunately, over the years this has led to the community looking at public decisions about major public investments with a weary cynicism: is this really the project we need, or is this simply a project to appeal to a marginal electorate? This perception is enough...Continue reading
Obesity policy and how to respond is a challenging area for governments around the world. The current situation leads to billions of dollars in care costs borne by the state and its citizens, but efforts to change this rarely survive the test of the daily headlines. Food is at once something we all understand, and...Continue reading
Balancing competing needs in a growing community Penrith City Council is a large, iconic council area and like many local government authorities in New South Wales, it is growing and changing rapidly. That change brings with it both opportunities and pressures on services and finite resources. With nearly $300m of future infrastructure needs already identified...Continue reading
Who Pays? Agreeing Fair Shares in Infrastructure Funding (South Eastern Drainage) Many government decisions fall into the category where all avenues of action are open to criticism from some interested party. This is especially the case where it is viewed that “the government should pay” – and more so when government has historically done so....Continue reading
In 2013 Noosa Shire Council de-amalgamated from Sunshine Coast, with the elected representatives ascribing their electoral success (and that of de-amalgamation) to their position of putting more decision making in the hands of the local community. In 2014 newDemocracy was approached to provide advice on structures and processes which could deliver on that commitment. The...
Like many councils across the country, Marrickville Council face the challenging problem of renewing a vast portfolio of aging capital assets – from roads, to parks, to pavements, stormwater drains and beyond. There are also new assets the council may wish to build such as cycleways and greening initiatives to be factored in – while...
Read the Panel’s recommendations here. Participatory budgeting processes traditionally focus on a component of discretionary budget – such as a representative’s ability to ringfence a couple of million dollars for community facilities. However, in many ways the larger challenge in budgeting is the dominance of interest groups coupled with the capacity to present any and...Continue reading