Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to update the House on the progress of the Canberra Forum, which is my Australian-first deliberative panel, which is being run by democracyCo. Emma Fletcher and Emily Jenke from democracyCo have very generously volunteered their expertise in running this deliberative process. This is a process by which randomly selected Canberrans—40 people—will participate over six months in choosing topics and coming up with recommendations on those topics, which I have committed to use in guiding my own advocacy in this place, to raise with ministers in our caucus and to publish in full on my website.

Last weekend we had our first working meeting, in which we began the process of choosing the topics. I must say this was, frankly, a heartwarming experience, to see 40 randomly selected Canberrans, who'd only really met each other once before at our meet and great meeting late last year, work together all afternoon in such an engaged and respectful way, to be really committed to choosing these topics, choosing the things they felt mattered most to Canberra—not just to Canberra, but to Australia and to our world.

The three topics at the moment, which will be further defined, are, of course, around climate change and the transition to a renewable economy, around social justice and the equitable access to services for all and also around community voices being heard in the parliament. Through hearing from experts and further refining these issues, we will pin down the topics, which we will then work towards the recommendations of.

I want to say again how proud I am to represent a community where these are the sorts of topics they turn their minds to. At the end of that session last weekend, we had an exercise where people talked about their experience of the afternoon, and it was very heartening to hear people say that they felt they had been heard, that they really appreciated the opportunity to work with their fellow Canberrans and that it was a respectful and positive experience. Again, I want to thank Emma Fletcher and Emily Jenke from democracyCo, who came up from Adelaide to run that session and will do for further sessions as well.

The next steps are to hear from experts as we refine those topics, and then we'll have further meetings over the next six months. I also want to acknowledge the Canberra Alliance for Participatory Democracy, a citizen group who help organise observers for the event and will be evaluating it. I'm really looking forward to the next steps of this process.