Page 4708 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 31 October 2017
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agreements that the ACT Greens won in the parliamentary agreement, and I will talk particularly about citizen juries and participatory democracy. But still many in our community feel powerless over what happens in their local community.
The dissatisfaction and the cynicism come through loud and clear, I am afraid, when I speak to everyday Canberrans. It is depressing. Community members constantly say they do not have the information they need, they do not know who to talk to, they do not know what the process is or, which is actually more concerning, they feel it does not matter what they say, as the result of the consultation has already been predetermined and the government is going to do whatever it was the government originally planned to do. That is the most disturbing feedback of all.
The Greens strongly believe that better citizen participation in decision-making will not only make citizens feel more empowered but also genuinely lead to better outcomes for Canberra. That is one of the reasons why last week I amended Ms Lawder’s motion about Red Hill to require an integrated process that would look at the impacts of development on the nature park of Red Hill and on the local traffic and amenity issues in a way that the government process as previously outlined simply was not doing. The local residents had got to the point where a petition had already been launched expressing their dissatisfaction about the process. We should not have to come to that. That is why I was very pleased that Ms Lawder brought forward the motion, and that is why I amended it to require integrated planning, which is clearly what the community wants. I am also very confident that, in the long run, it will bring the best possible outcome rather than doing developments bit by bit.
Another way of getting better outcomes for the community and for Canberra as a whole is deliberative democracy. This was part of the parliamentary agreement, and I am really pleased that it is starting to come into operation. Ms Cody talked about the carers citizens jury, and she mentioned the CTP citizens jury, which we are all aware of. I spent an afternoon as an observer of the citizens jury process. One of the things I reflected on is how much better information the citizens juries had than the public accounts committee did when I chaired it in the Seventh Assembly and we did an inquiry into CTP. We did not have nearly the breadth of information that the citizens jury is going to have. I commend the government for this—it was strongly encouraged by the Greens—and I am really looking forward to the results.
I am also really looking forward to the participatory budgeting trial, which was a result of a motion that I moved earlier this year. I think that all the citizens of Canberra appreciate that real budgets involve choice, trade-offs, priorities and compromises. We all have to do our own household budgets. But these realities of government budgets often can be lost on the community because of poor reporting by the media, intentional politicking by the opposition or the fact that no-one in Canberra has enough time or energy to think deeply about all of these matters, with the possible exception of a couple of people in treasury.
The ACT government has a budget consultation process, but unfortunately it is unknown to most Canberrans. In practice the only groups that take part in it are groups that are already engaged with the government. The average citizen does not
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