The 2020 Summit was held a year ago this week. Now the Government has announced its responses to last April's summit, to coincide with this week's Community Cabinet visit to outer-suburban Perth. The deliberate juxtaposition of these two community events showcases contrasting approaches to community consultation.
Coincidently Professor John Dryzek, one of the founding academic members of the approach that has come to be called deliberative democracy, is speaking tomorrow in the Senate Occasional Lecture Series about the Citizens' Parliament that was held last February in Old Parliament House.
The 2020 Summit was a government-sponsored event for 1,000 selected individuals, divided into 10 groups, to discuss long-term policy ideas for Australia's future. The topics included The Future of the Australian Economy, Strengthening Communities, Supporting Families and Social Inclusion, and Towards a Creative Australia. The participants gathered over a short weekend in Parliament House amid great media attention. They included some of the country's best-known activists, experts, academics and celebrities.
The Citizens' Parliament, an alternative to a government summit, was a privately-sponsored event for 150 randomly selected ordinary citizens, one from each federal electorate. They gathered over a long weekend to propose and evaluate ideas to improve our system of government so that it will serve us better. The participants brain-stormed among themselves, listened to various experts, and then refined and consolidated their ideas for presentation to government.
The Community Cabinet is another idea broadly out of the same stable as both of these other avenues for community consultation. They all adhere to the principle, as Kevin Rudd told the 2020 Summit, that not all wisdom lies in Parliament or in government and that good ideas and wise counsel can be found elsewhere.
They are also driven by the belief that government has become increasingly isolated from the public and that too many government discussions are held in-house in the restricted milieu of Canberra (or one of the state capitals, in the case of state politics). Community Cabinets are now common among state and federal governments as another way of getting out and about, listening to and talking with a sample of a local community.
The contrasts and similarities between the 2020 Summit and the Community Cabinet are clear. Both are staged events that supplement, but do not replace, the normal processes of government. The former brings the people to Canberra in one fell swoop while the latter takes the Federal Government to the people on a regular basis but on a smaller scale. The former enlarges the Canberra-based policy discussions while the latter is a travelling carnival to show the flag, to listen to complaints and to make some targeted announcements.
The summit was high profile, while a community cabinet is much more low-key. The summit was specifically long-term while the travelling cabinet is directed towards the immediate concerns of citizens. The former was by invitation only and closed to outsiders, while the latter is open to anyone who wishes to attend. The former brought together an elite group while the latter, while not neglecting local elites such as mayors, is specifically targeted at the general community.
These initiatives have a long lineage but are still relatively new ways of addressing the limitations and flaws of parliamentary government. Before anyone rushes to judgement about them they first should recognise the events for what they are and only then do they deserve to be greeted with some gentle skepticism, but not outright cynicism.
They have their place. They are supplementary forms of governance. The test is whether they add value at reasonable cost to the existing ways of doing things.
They should all be recognised as a mix of politics and showbiz alongside genuine discussion and consultation. The politics is about showing the Government in the best light. The discussion and consultation is about bringing different people inside the tent, even if briefly.
They provide opportunities that usually only the most privileged or the most determined few in a democracy are given. These opportunities are to meet those in government personally and to vent your feelings about issues. There is a clear element of letting off steam, a crucial democratic function, in both cases.
The 2020 Summit had flaws both in principle and in execution but in my view also had potential. Others thought it was too self-indulgent and always likely to be a flop.
As time elapsed without a full government response, the temptation, fuelled by partisan politics, has been to treat the whole exercise with derision. For instance, former Treasurer Peter Costello has taken the summiteers to task because they did not predict the global financial crisis.
Now the Government has announced its response. Government action has been announced on nine proposals, including backing for the bionic eye and for a children's television station. But, in addition, of the more than 1400 ideas put forward, more than 700 have been taken forward and about another 450 are to be considered further.
Exercises like these make an easy target. If they are judged by immediate tangible outcomes only they can look ineffective. But viewed through the wider lens of citizen participation they should be seen to make a more useful contribution.
Don't judge the 2020 Summit too harshly. It might look as though the 1000-legged elephant has laboured long (though really only for two days) and hard to produce just a few small mice. But there is more to it than that.
And much of the work of its formal counterpart, the Parliament, is similar anyway.
John Warhurst is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Arts at the Australian National University.
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