Ambition

The participants of the Australian Governance stream set forth the ambition of a new Australian republic — one which clearly enshrines and upholds the rights, responsibilities, and reciprocal relationships of both citizen and government.

This is a vision of governance in which the rights of all Australians are recognised, their civic participation is supported and strengthened, the government is rigorously held accountable and open with a strong independent media, our current federal system is fixed, and the public service excels.

Priority Themes

A top priority in this stream was the need for an Australian republic, to be enabled by a proposed two-stage process, with wide community involvement and ownership of the outcome.

The group also expressed strong support for a statutory Bill or Charter of Rights, with minority support for a parliamentary Charter. They stressed the importance of Indigenous involvement in this process — as an integral part of the path to reconciliation.

Much was made of the need to fix federalism to create a modern Australian federation.

This stream also discussed the importance of a rigorously accountable and open government, and a strong independent media. Participants expressed a desire to revitalise the accountability of the Executive to Parliament, as well as to the public. In this they stressed the role of a stronger and more open Freedom of Information framework.

Another major theme was the need to strengthen the participation of Australians in their governance: a revolution in community and government interaction through grassroots and non-traditional community engagement, as well as more formal electoral processes.

Finally, the group highlighted the need for a strong and talented public sector workforce to enable these aspirations and ideas by 2020.

Top Ideas

1. Introduce an Australian republic, via a two-stage process, with Stage 1 ending ties with the UK while retaining the Governor-General’s titles and powers for five years. Stage 2: Identifying new models after extensive and broad consultation.
2. Instigate an overhaul of Federalism, including for example:
   • A constitutional convention to define roles, responsibilities and structures of our Federal system;
   • A National Cooperation Commission to oversee and recommend on intergovernmental agreement.
3. Open access to Government information (complete reform of FOI laws) and strengthen protections of free press in order to facilitate a more open and publicly accountable government.
4. Introduce innovative mechanisms to increase civic participation, collaborative governance to strengthen civic engagement and trust, facilitate “deliberative democracy” and strengthen citizen engagement. For example:
   • Universal automatic enrolment and re-enrolment of eligible voters;
   • Exploit broadband and emerging IT technologies to enable new forms of citizen involvement
   • Community Parliaments;
   • An online Citizens’ Cabinet; and
   • A public television channel with first-hand access to policy information and debate.
5. Encourage excellence in our public sector by expediting issues of remuneration, flexibility and mobility within the Australian Public Service, supported by a Commission of Inquiry. Facilitate and incentivise the transition of top Australians between the public and private sectors.

Pre-Summit Submissions

The overarching theme in many of the 800+ public submissions to the Australian Governance stream was greater civic participation for all Australians, and the accessibility, transparency and open dialogue with government that are required to achieve this goal.

Submissions suggested innovative ways that the Australian government and its people could seek out a new dialogue, including community forums, summits, regular polling of community views, e-voting, and a comprehensive Commonwealth government web portal (“Community Cabinet”) which shares information about upcoming decisions, encourages and hosts submissions from ordinary Australians, and brings together publicly available and easily searchable government reports and data.

One enabler of this open dialogue is greater freedom of government information to the public and to the press — facilitated by a clear government commitment and a stronger FOI framework. Specific ideas included ‘plain language’ budget and government papers, a Commonwealth Information Commissioner, and ‘shield laws’ to protect journalists from revealing their sources. Another innovative idea to encourage open sharing of information in the wider community was to make government funding of certain public or research projects conditional on providing open public access to reports and data.

Many submissions supported a re-evaluation of our 3-tiered government system. Some submissions strongly supported the empowerment of local governments — for example their Constitutional recognition, or direct funding grants from the Commonwealth to local governments for innovative community programs. Some submissions suggested a more simple 2-tiered system, abolishing either State or local government. Other suggestions for structural and electoral reform included many submissions about an Australian republic, fixed Federal terms, and tighter control over private donations to political campaigns.

Another major theme was the human rights agenda — with many submissions supporting an Australian Bill or Charter of Rights either in the Constitution or in legislation. This included discussion of legal reform (e.g. legal enshrinement of basic freedoms) and structural safeguards (such as government review mechanisms and a fair and transparent justice system). Many submissions stressed the need to continue vigorously supporting the role of women and Indigenous people in Australian governance.

I’ve written elsewhere how the Summit seems to have brought out the whingers who complain that their interest isn’t specifically listed in the topic titles. Today I’m wading through news reports which boast, as the Preston Leader does, that “nine Derebin residents” will be going to Canberra. Similarly, “A strong contingent of gays, lesbians and equal rights advocates has been chosen,” cheers Queensland Pride.

I’ve also written about who I think should be selected, on the basis of talent not quota-filling Nevertheless, the steering committee has magically arranged for 51% of their nominees to be female.

There’s also a heavy bias towards professional academics and professional politicians in the 884-personal list put forward.

“884?” I hear you ask? Isn’t it 1000 of our “best and brightest”? Well no. Though this wasn’t a secret, it wasn’t heavily publicised: space has been reserved for state premiers and various federal politicians.

And, as sociologist Mark Bahnisch noted in New Matilda, the fact that some delegates didn’t have to go through the nomination process creates a two-tier summit:

[A] number of the participants named didn’t have to go through the nomination process or submit a 500 word screed on their ideas for Australia. Rather, some summiteers were tapped on the shoulder by the secretariat in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet after having been picked directly by the summit steering committee. This lack of transparency hasn’t been publicly acknowledged, although some of the steering committee did (perhaps unwisely) allude to it early on.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with such an approach, but the sleight of hand involved in concealing it is deeply worrying. It suggests that there are two tiers of participants — those whom the Government and the steering committee really think are the best and brightest, and those who took the thing seriously but are in effect relegated to the second tier.

Bahnisch is also rightly concerned that a group of 100 usually can’t produce quality outcomes, and that the background papers will shape debate.

Those who will have the real power to shape the outcomes of the 2020 summit will be those who are in charge of setting the agenda, and cherry-picking the submissions to support working papers which will shape discussion. It may well be the case that the communiqué could be written before anyone even lands in Canberra. We may yet be surprised by the outcome, but we shouldn’t be surprised if the 2020 summit produces no surprises at all.

Sadly, after reading Peter Timmins’ comments on the papers for Topic 9, I tend to agree:

The set of 13 PowerPoints (PDF 260KB) includes one (9) on Freedom of Information that unfortunately does not provide basic information about debate on this topic. It consists of a claim that “granting rates” are 95% for personal information and 89% for other information, with the only qualification on this rosy situation in the form of three sentences from two court judgments about accountability and secrecy, and an unsourced claim that 70% of Queensland applicants were satisfied with the FOI process.

Nothing here about the stack of reports that have identified the problems in this area as an enduring culture of secrecy; lack of leadership within government; inadequacies in the law; technical legalistic responses; long delays; high cost and slow review mechanisms…

Then, in what will be a surprise to most government watchers, there is a table [on slide 8] that lists Australia as 12th when ranked against other countries in terms of “transparency of government policy making”. You have to ask yourself exactly what is being measured here when countries not renowned for democratic practices such as Singapore, are rated one, Hong Kong five and Malaysia 16. My guess from the footnote is that it is a score of something to do with monetary policy based on a survey of business leaders, but to put this forward as a positive general indicator of the trust in Australian public institutions is a bit of a stretch.

With all of the controversy about the role of the public service, the background slide (10) on this topic is devoted solely to how difficult it may be to recruit sufficient public servants in future.

It really makes we wonder what my role should be here. I mean, what my role really should be.