For a couple of years from the late 1990s I was involved in a major national civics and citizenship education program, known as Discovering Democracy. Civics is about government structures and processes, citizenship is about being actively involved. With Meg, and others, I worked on the adult education part of the program. While I can’t claim to have educated many people I learnt a lot. And I’ve been horrified ever since at what people don’t know. Or don’t care about. A colleague from those days, Bob Boughton, summed it up when he said: “The problem is not that people don’t know the difference between the House of Reps and the Senate, the problem is that people know they don’t know the difference, but they don’t think it matters.”
Around this time I worked as a volunteer facilitator on a couple of national Deliberative Polls, which had around 350 people in Canberra for a weekend to learn more about issues concerning the Republic and Aboriginal reconciliation. I learnt much about how people can rise to the occasion and engage with complex issues that normally don’t get much attention. See http://cdd.stanford.edu/polls/docs/summary/ for information about Deliberative Polls.
The key to this is the deliberation that people engage in. Deliberation means careful consideration before decision – the antithesis of most people’s experiences of making choices in the political arena. In deliberation people take note of and question expert opinion and share their personal views while aiming to find common ground.
Decision-making follows reasoned and respectful discussion. Self-interest is put aside as the consequences of different options are explored and the common good prevails.
I had a number of other experiences with deliberation before, in February 2009, I worked again as a volunteer facilitator on Australia’s first Citizen’s Parliament. This had large numbers of people from around Australia considering our democracy and how it could be improved. This went on for several months before 150 of them met in Canberra for four days of discussion and deliberation. If you didn’t hear about it that’s, at least in part, due to the fact it took place at the same time as the devastating Victorian fires, but information is available at http://www.newdemocracy.com.au/
I have a fundamental belief that people have a right to meaningful involvement in the decisions that affect them and, at the local level, have had a direct experience of that over a few years from 2007. This concerned development and planning decisions in the area where I live. Like many people who were involved in these issues, I didn’t feel that involvement was meaningful.
July 2010 saw Shoalhaven City Council release a draft Community Engagement policy. You may have guessed this is an area of vast importance to me and I spent a lot of time on this. That first draft was very limited and barely provided any real engagement opportunities. In my submission I suggested that, as a show of best practice community engagement Council should hold a community engagement workshop – to give people the opportunity to contribute to the development of the policy. I was delighted when they did that.
In early 2011 a revised draft went out again. This was a major improvement but still well short of a good policy. Some of the elected Councillors took issue with it, fearing it reduced there rights as elected Councillors and would give authority to un-elected citizens. Nothing of the sort was possible but Council decided to take the policy to a Councillor briefing. These are, in effect, confidential sessions, with the added bonus of not being called a confidential session. I suggested that Council should make an exception and invite the public into this, and – more delight – they agreed. A first as far as I know.
Following this briefing (which was more of a workshop) six community representatives were chosen to work with elected Councillors and staff to produce a draft policy to be presented to full Council. I have been one of the community representatives, and, after four meetings up to August, the end is getting close. The outcome, when the policy is presented to Councillors will be of great interest.
In May 2011 Council hosted a local Open Government Summit. This was a staff initiative, and it was made clear there was no commitment to any ongoing action or any change. This was quite reasonable and Shoalhaven was the only Council in Australia to hold such a forum during this period, which had some recognition as an open government week. The summit only drew an audience of about 50 people on a Tuesday morning but I was inspired by this. I gave a presentation and finished by saying this is too important to be left to chance. I also had an opinion published on OnLine Opinion, available here as a previous post "Open Government Should Start Locally".
Pecha Kucha is a simple presentation format where 20 PowerPoint images are shown, each for 20 seconds. The images forward automatically and you talk along to the images. This means you get six minutes and 40 seconds to do your stuff. The idea was invented by some architects working in Japan as a means of creatively, and quickly, presenting their ideas. Wollongong City Council hosted a Pecha Kucha in June 2011 and I gave a presentation on Strengthening Local Democracy. Wollongong Council was sacked in 2008. They are holding fresh elections in September 2011 so the timing was pretty good. Generally, I loathe PowerPoint presentations as I think they are over done and badly done. But I have never had so much fun with PowerPoint. My presentation (not as visually creative as I would have liked) is here also as a post "Strengthening Local Democracy - Pecha Kucha"
I think it’s just coincidence that some of my most worthwhile experiences, personally and professionally, that I have mentioned above, have been as a volunteer. GRASSROOTS is no different. This is my voluntary effort at trying to make a difference at the local level. As I said at the Open Government Summit in May, this is too important to be left to chance.
Following my experiences in the period leading up to the 2008 Council elections I have written a book. At the moment I am looking for a publisher, but if I don’t find one (a distinct possibility) I will look at E-publishing options. The book finishes by offering a better way of doing local politics and the final chapter has formed the basis of an essay; Beyond the (local) ballot box is available here as a separate post.
More soon.
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