The future of Australian governance: open government (including the role of the media), the structure of government and the rights and responsibilities of citizens

Governments are ultimately formed by how the numbers fall. That’s democracy.

Governance evolves.

But governance exists between the demands of the changing world, and the changes Governments make to that world. Economic, environmental, social.

As populations become more educated; as technology allows more participation; as Governments grapple with the complexities, this affects the way our governance modulates our democracy.

At the same time, 19 th Century Constitutional frameworks can constrain the Government’s responses to 21 st Century demands.

The law requires Australians to vote, and 95% of us do, which means at every election, almost everyone in the country has a personal stake in the outcome – whether they like it or not.

How can Government better promote participation after an election than just by claiming victory and doing business as usual with the usual suspects?

How do citizens find ways to sensibly inject their opinion into the Cabinet room?

Is a mature democracy one that sets up mechanisms to protect citizens’ rights or does our democracy do the job already??

Good governments always have their own ideological position, but are responsive to argument about what’s best- they open themselves to a degree of scrutiny, they are answerable to the voters. But do they make the right decisions? And do these decisions protect the citizen, or protect the Government?

Governments operate in a wash of voter opinion, media and polls. New modes of opinion making and opinion giving are under construction on the internet, at the dawn of the e-age.

Decision makers are served by a mature, stolid public service; they are besieged by growing phalanx of fleet-footed lobbyists, NGO’s; peak industry bodies; think-tanks and unions.

And then there’s State and Territory Governments.

Governments take advice from a plethora of sources - they create in-house expert advisory bodies; they seek advice from consultants and Ministerial advisors; and they fund academics. And they are advised by their public servants.

Legislation, laws, and our society are defined by these opinions and the decisions they influence.

Are the structures in place to ensure those decisions are made in the interest of the Nation, not just in the interests of political victory?

Do those traditional checks and balances allow enough scrutiny of advice givers and decision makers? Or do they now scare the decision makers from taking unpopular yet correct decisions for the long term?

Does the media have a responsibility to report and manage public discourse or just a responsibility to shareholders? Is the rising tide of infotainment drowning public debate?

And given no referendum has been passed for 40 years, what are the chances that Australia can modernise its creaky constitutional framework? Or was our rejection of the Republic at the end of the last century just healthy cynicism about the model we were asked to buy?

In the end, governance all comes down to the decision: the structures which make that decision possible; the way it’s made; the way it’s perceived; the way it’s reported; and the way it’s received.

This Governance session is a great opportunity to test our mature institutions – Parliament, executive Government, the public service, the Constitution - against the flux of our contemporary society in the run-up to 2020, as we grapple with the way the media and its new digital technologies change the way opinions are broadcast and opinions are formed.

And as those who govern ask more of the public, and the public ask more of them.

As we chart our way towards 2020, those decisions have to be made.

Background paper

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