During the 10 years of democracyco we have facilitated 120 deliberative projects, (some small and some large) across almost every conceivable area of public policy and have heard the voices of 20,000 people from around Australia and as far away as Bosnia.
If all this work has taught us anything – it is what communities want – from their democracy and from their leaders, as well as how best to involve and engage everyday citizens and stakeholders.
So we thought these learnings might be worth sharing…
Tongue in cheek, we have crafted “10 big, beautiful” learnings … indeed we had a hard time limiting it to 10 …. So many things to share …
In preparing this speech, I realised our learnings come down to three simple things…
We know from our work that Australians want to be able to influence those things that effect their lives.
Unsurprisingly – they will get involved where they can make a difference – where they will be heard.
We know this from research undertaken by the Museum of Australian Democracy – that found Australians see deliberative and co-design processes as providing important mechanisms for improving and strengthening our democracy. These processes have impact and influence.
In addition, our own surveys tell us that 80-90% of participants– would do it again and the vast majority of these would do it irrespective of the topic.
Whilst ‘yes’, many Australians live busy lives, and this can make it difficult for some groups in particular to engage …
The disengagement that governments often feel is in significant part because people don’t feel like their voices will be heard through the traditional consultation processes.
That raising their voice won’t make a difference – so what is the point in turning up?
The logical impact of this is that –when governments run traditional consultations, they only hear from those who are super passionate on an issue or in other words- the people who are strongly against something and or those who have lots of time (like retirees)– because only those groups weigh up the pros and cons and deicide it is worth their time.
Australians are creative, capable and caring … this is who we are intrinsically … We are not lazy, self-interested and competitive.
… but this isn’t necessarily part of what you see and your experience everyday … probably what you see is toxic, ill-informed extreme content most often via social media.
But this is not who we are.
As the recent Federal election outcome demonstrates – what we see on social media or even through the media doesn’t tell us what Australians are thinking and where they are at.
The public commentary seems to reflect a small number of very loud voices – created by an environment that is designed to divide and misinform ….
I am hesitant to raise it – but we had a real live case study of this in the nuclear jury – 350 people in one room – in the main having very respectful and thoughtful conversations – the very same group in an online forum (meant to help them share information) – became incredibly toxic.
Taking away the ability to speak eye to eye diminishes the qualities that people exhibit when they are together– their caring, capable and creative skills, that we know we as Australians have.
There are so many examples of how caring and capable Australians are – from every one of the 120+ processes we have run – but one that stands out is the work we did on energy pricing … for this process we recruited a significant number of people who were financially vulnerable – people really struggling to get by day to day … and yet these same participants voted in support of increasing their energy bills. They supported investment in a range of measures to support grid stability because they could see that the needs of the state to have reliable energy were greater than their needs as individuals for reduced energy costs.
This is just one of countless examples in each and every process we run.
Australians can consider tradeoffs on complex issues- including tradeoffs that affect their own hip pocket and come to conclusions that are to our collective benefit – and or the benefit of future generations… not just their own.
As I said Australians are creative, capable and caring.
“I felt much more empowered in the community than I have in a long time. It was also great to see other people from the community and hear different view points - as it seems easy to get into an echo chamber”
What’s more “we” as a society need our fellow citizens to participate in our democracy and we need to participate ourselves.
When we started democracyCo … my thinking was government needed Australians to participate in deliberative processes – because I could see that deliberative improved the quality of policy making.
In my mind citizens had knowledge that governments don’t and governments needed to hear it so they have the full picture when developing policy.
In addition, I could see that increasingly – governments and industry need this work to help build social license for change … this still stands true today …
The challenges we face as society are becoming increasingly complex and the tradeoffs involved in action – so acute, and hard– that we need engagement processes that build understanding of the facts and enable consideration of the tradeoffs.
Because of record levels of distrust in our institutions and politicians – they simply don’t have the social licence’ to make change.
As the last 15+ years of policy stagnation demonstrates.
However – in our 10 years at democracyCo – the rational for this work has grown – beyond social license … the threats to democracy are now more real … The need for deliberative is now ALSO about the role it can play in contributing to reinforcing our democracy – to social cohesion.
We need deliberative processes because they
At a time when 59% of Australians are concerned that government or business is misleading them and only 30% of Australians thinking that people in government can be trusted … now more than ever we need to be looking to processes that build relationships between our institutions and our communities.
If you want to learn more about how we can help you, we’d love to hear from you. Simply send us an email and we’ll be touch soon.
DemocracyCo’s work is undertaken on the lands and waters of Australia’s First Nations people. As we collaborate together, democracyCo looks to our First Nations people, the worlds oldest living culture, for guidance that will help sustain our connection to Country and inform the work that we do to bring people together. Our work is in service to Reconciliation and to moving forward together.
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