Deliberations

The full report of the recent Australia 2020 Summit was released yesterday. Unlike the initial report which was ambitiously produced on the fly and literally taken away by Summiteers as they left, this report is the complete record as captured by volunteer scribes and the materials produced during the Summit deliberations. It has been called the "final" report, but expectations now build for government ministers to do something with it.

This report is intended to provide a record of the Australia 2020 Summit and recommendations on each of the discussion areas for consideration by the Australian Government. It is based on ideas put forward by participants during the Summit discussion sessions, outcomes from preliminary Summit events and ideas generated from public submissions received prior to the Summit.

My PhD supervisor Lyn Carson is shown in a photograph in the report section about the governance stream, reproduced here--the gender imbalance suggests this conversation was about constitutional law. But in the end citizen engagement became a priority theme of ideas:

an online portal, free and searchable government information, and a space for citizens to participate and share their views - ourgov.au
AuSpan network – an Australian C-Span
deliberative inclusive processes that feed directly into government decision-making processes
active citizenship training as a universal component of primary and secondary school curricula and available to the broader community.

Under the theme of parliamentary reform, some related ideas also gained traction:

Improve deliberative democracy and equipping citizens to participate in an engaged, modern democracy, using and including:
online participation
citizens’ juries
citizens’ parliaments
participatory budgeting
21st century and electronic town meetings
active citizenship education as part of the school curriculum.

We are hopeful that our planned Citizens' Parliament project can ride the rising wave of interest for public engagement that the 2020 Summit has reinforced.

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