We’re free, we have few limitations on what we say or do, we have free and legitimate elections at all levels of government, we have free speech and the future is ours to shape as we please, most would argue.
Some, however, would see it differently, as beyond the federal election every three years, we are functionally mute.
Yes, we can protest, we can march in the streets, we can support this or that petition, we can seek hearings with various politicians, we can write letters to the editor, and we can make our views known through social media outlets, but generally, despite our actions and feelings, nothing much changes.
So what do we do if we have a government that has gone rogue or pursues ideas about which we are uncomfortable?
Well, we sit out the three years and then, as best we can, patch up the damage with the election of a new government and, hopefully, a new regime sensitive to community needs.
There is, however, an alternative, and the people of the Goulburn Valley, along with all other eligible Australians, are offered the opportunity to experience a fresh way of engaging with democracy through the Online Citizen Assembly.
The idea comes from the fertile mind of La Trobe University Emeritus Professor of Politics Joseph Camilleri and his counterparts at the Melbourne-based Conversation of the Crossroads, which he convenes.
Using software from the American Stanford University, this idea breaks with the existing in-person citizen assemblies and being online it allows people from all over Australia to meet and talk.
As with all things, the Online Citizen Assembly comes with a caveat for although people from all parts of the country may say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a particular issue, nothing will change unless all our decision makers hear, know and understand what voters are saying.
With that in mind, the group has a contact list for all Australian politicians, other decision-shapers and a broad array of people from around the country who will be alerted to the assembly’s findings.
And of course, those contacts on the alert mail-out list include the country’s media outlets and various influencers on social media.
Campaspe Shire recently had a version of a citizens’ assembly when 25 people, chosen at random, met on a Friday evening and then Saturday and Sunday to discuss and make recommendations on some of the shire’s thorniest problems.
They were each paid $350 for their contribution.
Such assemblies are not uncommon as the city of Paris now has a standing citizens’ assembly that guides policy, and has committed to distributing more than €100 million ($175 million) a year through participatory budgeting.
Mexico City has crowdsourced a constitution for its nine million people.
In Reykjavik, game designers have built a participatory democracy platform that has brought thousands of people into direct involvement in the operation of the city.
Writing in their book, Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us, Jon Alexander and Ariane Conrad declared that “all of us are smarter than any of us”.
And the director of the Reinventing the Commons Program at the Schumacher Centre for New Economics, David Billier, said local communities normally did a better job of stewarding shared resources than market-based approaches.
Those eager to know more about the Online Citizen Assembly should visit the Conversation at the Crossroads website (tinyurl.com/25f2fmwe) or listen to an interview on the podcast Climate Conversations with one of the organisers, Eddie Kowalski (tinyurl.com/mw3cv6ak).
In promoting the assembly, Professor Camilleri said he saw it as a vehicle to reinvigorate democracy and again put that power at the centre of peoples’ lives.
The first online assembly, to be held before the May federal election, will consider both the good and bad aspects of nuclear power plants.
Robert McLean is a former editor of The News.
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