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
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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...
Manningham Council is partnering with newDemocracy to deliver the Manningham Community Panel. The Community Panel will feature 40 people chosen through a democratic lottery and tasked with providing recommendations they find agreement on to answer the question: Council has a budget of $147 million, but we can’t do everything and need to make hard choices....Continue reading
Read our submission here. We thank the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters for this opportunity to contribute to the inquiry into the administration of the 2023 NSW state election and other matters, including political donations and truth in political advertising. Reforms to the political donations and campaign financing laws in New South Wales must...Continue reading
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
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...
newDemocracy received a brief from Climate 200 to explore how electorate-level engagement could be improved by applying deliberative principles. We agreed that local Members of Parliament (of all parties) could better engage with a wider range of citizens if a more representative and meaningful approach could be developed. newDemocracy undertook a pilot project with Member...Continue reading
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...
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