By Sebastian Rosenberg, The Conversation Citizen panels and juries around the world are having their say about how health funding is prioritised and allocated. It’s time this happened in Australia, particularly when it comes to deciding how best to carve up Australia’s limited resources for tackling mental health. This is because constructively engaging with the...Continue reading
Author: Jen Roberts and Ruth Lightbody Released: February 2017 ClimateXchange. Scotland’s centre of expertise connecting climate change research and policy. During a citizens’ jury, participants need to learn more about the topic at hand before they go on to deliberate the issue and agree collective recommendations. Citizens’ juries are one of several deliberative processes, which...Continue reading
New report coincides with art exhibition at Dunfermline Fire Station Collective developing designs for a national monument to citizenship.A DETAILED plan for a new Citizens’ Assembly, acting as a second revising chamber in the Scottish Parliament, has been published by Common Weal, the Sortition Foundation and newDemocracy in a new report. ‘A Citizens’ Assembly for...Continue reading
By Janette Hartz-Karp, The Conversation All governments would like to overcome impasses caused by contentious issues. Particularly when they turn into a political slanging match, the result is loss of money, time and public trust. Take the decades-old, contentious dilemma in Western Australia of whether to build the Roe 8 highway through the Beeliar wetlands...Continue reading
Read the Citizens’ Jury’s Final Report here. In developing its 5-year costed plan, Yarra Valley Water must pair customer and community feedback with their own in-depth knowledge of their water and sewerage networks, and the challenges these services face. Pricing cannot simply be an expert task. Additionally, Yarra Valley Water is faced with the fact...Continue reading
Krystian Seibert. Comment. Sydney Morning Herald, 9 January 2017 The recent release of the Australian National University’s election study showed that just under half of respondents were not satisfied with the state of democracy in Australia, the lowest level since the 1970s. It’s not surprising that there’s such a level of disillusionment. One explanation may...Continue reading
By Michael Koziol, Sydney Morning Herald In a stylish waterfront office, not 500 metres from the Sydney Harbour Bridge, a high-powered group clink champagne flutes and imported Italian stubbies in the name of pre-Christmas cheer. There among the crowd, poised as always, is Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs. Former NSW premier Nick Greiner chats amiably...Continue reading
By Helen Christensen and Bligh Grant Australian governments of all levels are increasingly familiar with two trends in public budgeting. Firstly, the pressure to deliver ‘more with less’ in public budgets; secondly, an increased realisation by communities that they have a democratic right to participate in public policy decisions. In local government, processes of participatory...Continue reading