Media

Kathy Jones, speaking as a board member of newDemocracy, discussed this challenge in a speech to the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2). Overcoming this distrust of politicians and planning requires finding innovative ways to communicate not only with those residents who are already “engaged and enraged”, but also with community members who are hard-to-reach....Continue reading

From one of our founding board members. Ian Marsh. Australian Financial Review, 28 May 2014. Tony Abbott’s fall from grace has been precipitous. But it is not unprecedented. Its causes are much more fundamental than poor political judgment. How so? Take the precedents. The Resource Super Profits Tax was released in May 2010, and was followed...Continue reading

Forget democracy, we need a new way to govern Sydney Morning Herald, April 22, 2014 Ten years ago, in 2004, I decided to jump off the merry-go-round of political party fund-raisers. I found both the rubber chicken and the political offering equally unappetising. My Liberal and Labor party hosts, on the other hand, seemed perfectly...

By JAMES GORMAN  A GREATER variety of entertainment options for different age groups is one of the key recommendations made by a citizens’ jury looking into Sydney’s troubled night-life. In September last year, the City of Sydney formed the jury, made up of 43 randomly selected citizens from across the city. The jurors met five...Continue reading

On March 3 2014 Geoff Gallop delivered the Manning Clark Lecture in Canberra, making the case for a new way forward for the Australian Republican Movement through the use of deliberative democracy. The ‘third republic’ – as Geoff calls it – would be more likely to be achieved if those advocating change would be willing...

By Rachel Browne, Social Affairs Reporter. Sydney Morning Herald. It is a problem politicians and experts from law enforcement, the health sector and the community have failed to successfully tackle. Now 43 average citizens have been tasked with finding a way to reduce the violence on Sydney’s streets while maintaining the city’s vibrant nightlife. The...Continue reading

Posted November 29, 2013 by Marcin Gerwin (in Polish) on Krytykapolityczna.pl This is the English Transcribed Interview.   Lyn Carson is a professor with the Business Programs Unit at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her research areas are community engagement and deliberative democracy. She is also a director of NewDemocracy Foundation. Marcin Gerwin: There are many...Continue reading

By Geoff Gallop Lecture at the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre, Adelaide Wednesday 20 November 2013 My aim tonight is to advocate for political reform but not before analysing why I believe it to be important.  I want to encourage you all to learn about and encourage your politicians to learn about a whole range of  democratic initiatives that go beyond our normal consultations, that can be more representative of ‘the people’  and which work harder at ensuring our focus is on deliberating for the public interest. I want you to start to think about the concepts of empowerment, random selection, and deliberation. in doing this I want you to reflect with me on the issue of how we imagine our democracy and how we actually operate it. What is going on in politics and how is it affecting governments today? Are there things we can do to make our system work better? I’m particularly interested in the 552 governments that operate throughout Australia – the Commonwealth, the States and Territories and our Local Authorities. None of these governments can operate without constraint but they do have degrees of executivepower and the responsibility to give leadership to their communities.    Full Lecture Text Continue reading