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For each other
We're hoping to make our democracy better by getting ordinary Canberrans (like you) involved
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Intro
Concerns & critiques
What's next
A citizens' assembly brings together a group of randomly selected citizens to talk about a problem, and come up with a solution. It's one of the oldest forms of democratic participation, and was the main way Athens ran its democracy 2,500 years ago.
This guide from Democracy Next and UC's guide are probably better than anything we can say here, but here's a quick overview:
Randomly selected citizens (who accept the invite) are presented with a problem
The group learns about the problem - for example, by calling in experts and questioning them, or doing their own research
The group discusses the issue, and comes up with an answer - often in the form of recommendations that an elected government must consider
We want the ACT to set up a standing citizens' assembly, maybe similar to the one in East Belgium. We've only just started, so the exact model we're advocating for is still up for grabs - if you're interested, you can tell us what you think and get involved.
We're a group of Canberran volunteers interested in improving our local democracy. At the moment, we're small, but we've started this website to spread the word and hopefully get more people involved.
You may have noticed that democracy doesn't seem to be doing so great at the moment. We love democracy! And while we think Australia's democracy is in pretty healthy shape, we don't want to see the same thing happen here that seems to be happening elsewhere.
A standing citizens' assembly in the ACT could be a shining light, showing the rest of Australia - and the world - the ways in which democracies can keep on getting better and doing more for their citizens.
Today, citizens' assemblies are reemerging all over the world as a good way to strengthen our systems of government. Democracy Next has a great guide on how to run a citizens' assembly, Participedia and PeoplePowered's Global Hub have plenty of examples, and of course there's always Wikipedia if you want to learn more.
The ACT ran a one-off citizens' assembly (called a citizens' jury) to come up with an approach to third party compulsory motor insurance, and the University of Canberra's own Centre for Deliberative Democracy recently developed an excellent guide on how to run citizens' assemblies (amongst other forms of participatory or deliberative democratic engagement).
This is an example of what they did in Ireland:
Citizens are randomly selected, the same way we select a jury. Sometimes, if there are concerns about the sample not being representative, statistical techniques like stratified sampling are used.
Great question - very specific!
The ACT already ran a citizens' assembly on compulsory third party motor insurance, and there's a citizens' jury on voluntary assisted dying getting underway, both of which are very exciting. But these are specific, one-off events, rather than an enduring structure.
We are advocating for is a permanent citizens' assembly, which would regularly make recommendations to the government. A possible approach be the East Belgium model, but we're open to ideas - get involved!
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