Page 424 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 20 February 2018
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
and provide appealing ways for them to participate in policy development and decision-making.
Of course, peak bodies such as the Youth Coalition of the ACT do provide frank and fearless advice on the interests and wellbeing of the estimated 78,000 young Canberrans aged between 12 and 25 years and those who work with them. But governments must do more to build direct lines of communication and consultation with their young citizens. Current events in the US demonstrate that, if you do not build them, they are going to come anyway. In the last 24 hours dozens of teenage students held a lie-in on the pavement in front of the White House to demand presidential action on gun control after 17 students were tragically killed in a school shooting in Florida.
Internationally, we are seeing a resurgence in activism and political innovation driven by young people, with memberships of groups like Unite, Momentum and the Democratic Socialists of America, mostly people under 30. In Australia we have AYCCC, the Australian Youth Coalition for Climate Change, which I always say to people is hopefully going to be the salvation of the world. Here at home the recently announced online community panel is another positive step towards broadening community engagement with a more representative group of Canberrans, including young people who connect, communicate and mobilise online.
A key point I would like to make, however, is that it is not just the breadth of government consultation that matters; it is the genuineness. Genuineness means that the issues on which the public are consulted are issues about which the government is actually curious and truly open to a range of outcomes and truly open to the community’s input. Genuine consultation means that the public’s contribution will actually influence the final decision and participants will be informed on how their input impacted the decision.
In my electorate of Murrumbidgee, the management of Woden’s urban renewal has certainly caused the community to doubt the genuineness of government consultation. The Woden town centre master plan was developed by the ACT government, with extensive community consultation, in 2015. It was a good plan with community support. But implementation has lagged and the community have been let down by planning decisions that are inconsistent with the master plan that they agreed with.
The people of Woden are particularly disappointed that a conspicuous 26-storey tall tower has been approved for Bowes Street, contrary to the 12-storey limit that was agreed by the community in the master plan. The existing skyscape of Woden already shows that very tall buildings can create dark and unpleasant streets, not the busy, active streets that the community wants.
The point is that no matter how innovative and far-reaching the government tries to be in its consultation methods, if the decision-making does not actually reflect community feedback then, really, there is no point doing it. The community has, in a number of instances, worked that one out and feels often very cynical about government consultation.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video