The City of Greater Bendigo has a large urban area home to around 85% of the local government area’s population; in turn this is surrounded by an array of rural areas and small towns. In most circumstances this pattern generally leads to a sense that the centre “gets everything” at the expense of the outer areas. We had no...Continue reading
Like many local government areas in NSW and across the country, Eurobodalla Shire Council faces the challenge of having significant infrastructure to manage, maintain and renew as well as having an enormous breadth of services to deliver. Coupled with finite income sources; a geographically, socially and economically diverse community; and a level of existing community...Continue reading
From Sydney Morning Herald. April 18, 2016. Legislatures, and the elections that populate them, have so many flaws that we might be better off picking our representatives at random. Before you chuckle, first consider how far we in the US have come since April 1776, when John Adams wrote that a legislature should be “in miniature,...
At the beginning of February, Premier Mike Baird came out fighting on GST, declaring: “I am convinced our political leaders and our community are ready to take the right, hard decisions for our future”. When Harold MacMillan, the British Conservative Prime Minister of the ’60s, was asked what can blow a government off course, he...Continue reading
Since the 1970s, the major political parties have seen their power slip as the ground moves from underneath them. Growing affluence, education/media access and discredited ideologies have helped tipped the balance in favour of the people. Yet the parties still lurch from one election to the next; forever hopeful that, out of the inane contest,...Continue reading
Deliberative democracy – does it really work? Public decisions that are more representative, less adversarial, based on public judgment not the loudest opinion – these are the fundamental principles espoused by the concept of deliberative democracy. Is there anything not to like about it? The newDemocracy Foundation has run over 12 juries for a range of government...Continue reading
The silent majority don’t speak unless spoken to, and when they’re “consulted” in polling or focus groups, no real opportunity is afforded for deliberation. They get asked opinions for two minutes, but rarely a considered view after learning more deeply about an issue. In December 2013, the City of Sydney and the state government decided...Continue reading
Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, Sydney Morning Herald. Comment. 17 February 2016. The silent majority don’t speak unless spoken to, and when they’re “consulted” in polling or focus groups, no real opportunity is afforded for deliberation. They get asked opinions for two minutes, but rarely a considered view after learning more deeply about an issue. In December 2013,...Continue reading
Athens can teach us a lot about real democracy – not the weasel democracy practised so often, British classics scholar Robin Lane Fox tells Kevin Chinnery.
As citizens and voters we all want and value infrastructure. Unfortunately, over the years this has led to the community looking at public decisions about major public investments with a weary cynicism: is this really the project we need, or is this simply a project to appeal to a marginal electorate? This perception is enough...Continue reading