How Healthy is Australia’s Democracy? newDemocracy’s Executive Director Iain Walker joined ANU’s Jill Sheppard for an election morning interview with Nick Bryant on ABC Radio National’s Saturday Extra, Saturday 3rd May 2025. Listen here.
Media
Question to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese from Geoff Gallop on ABC Q+A
Question to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese from Geoff Gallop on ABC TV’s Q+A 24/2/25: Allegra Spender is asking for a Citizens’ Assembly to open up the tax reform conversation. What do you see as the pros and cons of agreeing to this?
How Julia Gillard could have helped to save the voice
By Dennis Shanahan, in The Australian Fifteen years ago a political misjudgment by Julia Gillard at the start of her 2010 election campaign effectively destroyed Australian support for the idea of a citizens’ assembly to help develop new policy on difficult and divisive issues outside the traditional political parties. Indeed, the searing political and public...Continue reading
Happy Anniversary, Australia Self-Rule
By Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, Mon 26 Aug 2024 in The Mandarin Two hundred years ago yesterday, self-rule began in Australia. On the 25th of August 1824, a group of people met for the first time to have a say about the workings of the fledgling colony. A majority vote of the five members of this first...
Gaza needs democracy without elections
By Iain Walker, March 14, 2024, published by the Jerusalem Post. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu receives regular criticism for failing to share the plan for Gaza after the military role concludes. The lack of an official position on this subject could stem from the fact that all over options are unattractive, and so a new approach is...Continue reading
Convene a Citizens’ Assembly to Address Housing Affordability
By Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, 4 March 2024, published by The Mandarin. The issue of housing affordability isn’t going away – even though it seemed that the Albanese Government had settled the matter last year. Now the Greens are baulking over the ‘Help to Buy’ bill. In September, the government passed what it described as ”Landmark legislation...
Could the Voice referendum process have benefitted from an Irish-style Citizens’ Assembly?
By Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, 24 Nov, 2023 and published by the ABC. The divisions surrounding the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament had as much to do with referendum process as anything else. The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters missed a golden opportunity earlier this year when, in proposing a Bill to reform...
A trail of one-upmanship
By Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, in The Mandarin 3/8/2023 The way we do politics is all wrong, and the Voice highlights how bone-headed our system is. As the political scientist and my former co-director, Ian Marsh, said: ‘Firstly, political incentives undercut bipartisanship. Secondly, since the primary channel for the leaders is the media, there is no systemic ability to...Continue reading
If politicians can’t fix the housing crisis, can the people do it for them?
Peter Hartcher, Sydney Morning Herald – June 10, 2023 Australia is an entire continent that is failing to build enough homes for the population of a mere city, but the federal government’s plan to fix the crisis has hit a brick wall. That wall is political intransigence. Specifically, it’s the Coalition and the Greens. They’ve combined...Continue reading
Citizens’ juries can help fix democracy
Citizens’ juries can help fix democracy Western polities are ailing — deliberative assemblies would revivify them By Martin Wolf “Brexit has failed.” This is now the view of Nigel Farage, the man who arguably bears more responsibility for the UK’s decision to leave the EU than anybody else. He is right, not because the Tories...Continue reading