Welcome to our Spring newsletter.
This week newDemocracy announces a 2-year agreement with the United Nations Democracy Fund. We've been selected to write the book on 'Democracy Beyond Elections' and then deliver three demonstration projects around the world. We were identified by the United Nations for our leading role domestically and internationally in designing and operating deliberative democracy projects. This announcement marks an important point in the momentum building behind newDemocracy's work in demonstrating a way to do democracy differently. This Spring update also includes a wrap-up from the ACT Housing Choices Collaboration Hub, Victorian Government's Gender Equality Citizens' Jury and Evidence Based Policy Research Project.
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United Nations Democracy Fund Project: Democracy Beyond Elections
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newDemocracy and the United Nations Democracy Fund have announced a 2-year agreement centred on the demonstration of complementary processes that help leaders lead. Making democracies more inclusive requires bold and innovative reforms to bring the young, the poor, and minorities into the political system to start to address the crisis of political representation which sees people becoming less and less engaged.
We have been selected to develop and distribute a handbook on ‘Democracy Beyond Elections’ designed to show how nations at various levels of development can apply the principles of representation and deliberation in ways that are appropriate for their economic and educational circumstances.
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Our focus on designing and operating live, real world projects was a central reason for our appointment by the United Nations Democracy Fund.
For this reason, the project will also fund three pilot projects to demonstrate different contextual applications of deliberative principles and produce a documentary based on one of these to document how deliberative democracy can work in practice. Among citizens, the project will enable everyday people to be involved alongside government in making decisions that affect them, and thus build trust in government. Among elected representatives, the project will work to stimulate a greater openness to complementary democratic models in which citizens explore and recommend policy solutions on key issues.
The following video is an short conversation between newDemocracy Executive Director Iain Walker and United Nations Democracy Fund Executive Head Annika Savill. They discuss the scope of the project and introduce its mandate for the next 2 years.
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United Nations Democracy Fund and newDemocracy Project Announcement
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Solving a hard problem: Housing Choices in the ACT
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Planning decisions are hardly ever trusted by the public. High levels of cynicism surround developer involvement in making long-term decisions around construction, zoning and housing with the public perception being that power and influence triumph over public decision making. This makes it difficult for Government to make long-term decisions. This is coupled with a feeling that, currently, planning rules potentially don't allow people and communities to create the dwellings and neighbourhoods they want to create.
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The Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate sought out innovative and participatory forms of planning that included members of the community in the trade-off decisions for the place in which they live.
To accomplish this, the Directorate recently conducted a review of Housing Choices in the ACT. This involved a deliberative Collaboration Hub for which newDemocracy provided design and oversight for. The goal with the Collaboration Hub was to shift public engagement away from 2 minute survey replies to considered public judgment after 40 hours of thinking and education on the topic. 36 randomly selected members of the community met 5 times between May and July to make recommendations to the Minister in addressing the question:
Canberra is changing – and there are many different ways our housing needs can be met.
What should we do?
Minister Gentlemen reflected on the process: "The final report of the Housing Choices Collaboration Hub is an exciting achievement for local democracy. I would like to extend my thanks and appreciation to the Collaboration Hub participants for committing their time and effort to the task before them. I am grateful for their contribution and for preparing the report. This was an innovative, exciting and genuine opportunity for the citizens of Canberra to influence the future of housing and planning for our city."
Ultimately, the group made key recommendations around design and construction quality, zoning, housing affordability and the environment in their report. You can read their final report here, and the Government's response here.
For more information about the project visit our project page here and visit www.yoursay.act.gov.au.
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ACT Housing Choices Collaboration Hub Day 1 Video
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Victorian Government's Gender Equality Citizens' Jury
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There are few, if any, “right” decisions for a government; instead, the ideal decision is simply one that reflects a position of informed support from a wide cross-section of the community. Equally, in some policy areas any decision (from left or right) will earn criticism – the Victorian Government’s proposed Gender Equality Bill is one of these decisions. This drove our interest in becoming involved in a process already well advanced.
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While gender equality itself might often be taken as a given principle of our community, the specific actions we take to improve or adjust gender equality are not themselves self-evident. This requires nuanced, informed and patient debate between all sides to assess the pros and cons of varies strategies and their outcomes.
The Gender Equality Bill Citizens' Jury was held over the weekend of 15-16 September 2018. It allowed 84 Victorians from all walks of life to inform the government's public sector gender equality quotas after taking time to think and discuss, not just have an opinion reaction. It ensured a range of perspectives from different ages, genders and locations all across the state were able to respond to the remit:
The Victorian Government is drafting a Gender Equality Bill.
The setting of quotas for public sector organisations is a key part of this.
What Gender Equality quotas are fair? How can they be best implemented?
newDemocracy had a review and oversight role in the process to advise on project design decisions that had already been made. These included specific considerations around information, diversity of speakers and the remit. Our advice can be seen here.
The Minister for Women, The Hon. Natalie Hutchins, attended the second day of the Citizens’ Jury. She is taking the advice provided by the Jury directly to government. The outcomes will inform Victoria’s first Gender Equality Bill in early 2019.
You can read the Jury's report here. For more information visit the Victorian Government's site here and our Advice page here.
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Evidence Based Policy Research Project
The Symposium on Trusted, Long-Term Decision-Making event convened by newDemocracy sought to challenge opinion leaders by asking them what practical testable improvements could be made to our democracy in order to improve public trust in how we take public decisions. It sought to move the discussion from one of complaint about problems into one of potential solutions. The Evidence Based Policy Research Project is one of the leading ideas which emerged from this two-day event.
Many participants – spanning company directors, the advocacy sector, journalists and even former MPs – lamented that “evidence based policy making” had become an empty phrase which everyone claimed to pursue but no one knew how to quantify. A proposal was championed by former Secretary of the NSW Treasury, Percy Allan, to draw on work from 2012 by Prof. Ken Wiltshire from the University of Queensland originally produced for the Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA) which did attempt to set forth such a standard.
While it is one thing to author a standard, the greater challenge is to see that standard accepted. As a result, this research project sought to stress test whether a meaningful, widely-accepted standard for evidence-based policy making could be achievable, by asking two think-tanks known to have very different views to test 20 major policies and see if they could find common ground whether a standard was being adhered to.
The research was conducted by the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), a self-described ‘free-market’ think tank identified with the Right of politics, and Per Capita Australia, a self-labelled ‘progressive’ think tank identified with the Left. It is rare (we can’t find a precedent) to see such different think-tanks participate in a joint project such as this and their openness to the idea is appreciated.
You can view the media release here; the Institute of Public Affairs report here; and the Per Capita report here.
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Campbell Newman and Geoff Gallop at the recent Symposium for Trusted, Long-term Decision-making.
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Fresh new website redesign
Keen eyes may have noticed a change to the newDemocracy website. We have a fresh new look aimed to make key content easier to find. All of the previous content can be found on the new site, with a cleaner, sharper look. The site is in its early days, so despite persistent testing, some small bugs may have slipped through. Please contact us here, if anything seems out of place or does not do what it should.
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The Byron Model of Democracy
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Around the world, more and more people are trying to find ways to improve democracy, to make it more representative and clearly deliberative, with structures that restore trust. Byron Shire Council and newDemocracy are working together to create a local Byron Model of Democracy that empowers everyday people in decision-making.
With the aim to move beyond the impossible expectation of involvement in every decision and a culture of complaint, the Council will share its resources, share the decisions that must be made and empower the community to design an engagement process that they trust.
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The Byron Model builds on the success of the recent Community Solutions Panel (where community members developed infrastructure priorities for the next four years) in an attempt to continue doing something different – to demonstrate the valuable input, expertise, and willingness of local residents to work with Council to make trusted decisions that affect all the Byron community.
Ultimately, Byron Shire Council is taking on the need to do better when it comes to involving people in the decisions that fundamentally effect everyone. This means involving people from the beginning, sharing the challenge, and being open to any answer. It includes involving everyday people in making difficult trade-offs and giving authority to their final recommendations.
It is important that all members of the community feel that they’re able to equally contribute to this process. For this reason, we’ve decided to delay the project until the new year. Instead, the community process will now run February to April 2019.
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Media mentions and deliberative democracy in the news
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In SBS' 'The Feed', newDemocracy Executive Director, Iain Walker, reflects on Fraser Anning's path to parliament. Outlining the role in which everyday people can playing in making public decisions on behalf of all of us.
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In The Age, Jessica Irvine reports on our recent Evidence Based Policy Research Project. She highlights the agreement found between two seemingly opposing think-tanks when critiquing government policy.
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In The Guardian, Tim Dunlop makes the case for replacing voting with sortition as a means to including everyday people in future decisions for Australia. He explains the issues with voting and how deliberative democracy can take the form as a complementary mechanism that combines representation with public judgment.
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In The Mandarin, Professor Cheryl Saunders is quoted by David Donaldson putting her support behind the use of a Citizens' Assembly modelled on the Irish Citizens' Assembly to assist Australia resolving its Republic question.
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Journal of Public Deliberation: Seeking New Editors
After five phenomenal years of leadership and editorship by Laura Black, Timothy Shaffer and Nancy Thomas, the Journal of Public Deliberation is seeking a new editor or editorial team. The announcement and application instructions are below.
Position: Editor or Editorial Team for the Journal of Public Deliberation
Type: Volunteer
Commencement Date: January 1, 2019
The newDemocracy Foundation, the Deliberative Democracy Consortium (DDC) and the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2), who work in partnership to support the Journal of Public Deliberation (JPD), are beginning a search to find the next editor or team of editors for the journal. This peer-reviewed, open access, interdisciplinary publication appeals to practitioners, academics and emerging professionals interested in public participation around the world. JPD is the leading journal in the rapidly growing field of deliberative public participation. The journal is available at: http://www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/.
Applications close November 15, 2018.
For more information visit click here.
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The Demos
We’ve created a Facebook group as a space for discussion, action and collaboration on all things newDemocracy. We’re here to help answer questions, give you the tools for action, and discuss ideas about democracy. It has quickly grown to over 200 members. With people like Griff Foley being published in the Newcastle Herald, the group focuses on empowering people to think, write and act to spread the word.
This group will work best with lots of discussion, so please don’t hold back with your ideas, comments or questions. Whether they’re about citizens’ juries, deliberation, or the concept of democracy more broadly, the more respectful discussion we have, the better.
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