Citizen Assemblies – why have them?
Trust in politics and parties is at an all-time low
We all support the idea of democracy, but Australians have become so disillusioned with political parties that today less than 0.5% of citizens bother to join a party. Funding of parties by vested interests, the favour trading that goes on between them, and the revolving door for staff at high levels from parties and ministerial offices to senior positions in industry and commerce, and then back again, has seriously undermined the objectivity of our representative democracy. It is no longer impartial, and measures to improve our wellbeing and quality of life are constantly trumped by corporate interests depicted as ‘political reality’.
Democracy has been hacked
As Al Gore put it,, representative democracy ‘has been hacked’ by powerful vested interests that now have inordinate influence in public policy making. These interests simply do not care what the public think or want. All that matters to them is growth, profit and returns to their shareholders. Bank rolling political parties, politicians and their election campaign generates expectations of favours in return. An example today is governments in many countries continuing to grant exploration and extraction licences for coal and gas, including Australia, when almost everyone agrees it is deeply harmful in the face of climate change.
Political parties have basically become a mechanism for large vested interests to control the agenda in areas they care about. This is referred to by some as ‘state capture’.
Furthermore, even the best politicians, those with a good understanding of what their electorate really wants, can find themselves overruled by their own party. Their loyalty to the party’s positions on all topics is demanded, regardless of what they or their electorate may think.
Quote from John Dryzek here:
‘Australia’s federal parliament is today … not a deliberative assembly [but] rather a theatre of expression where politicians from different sides talk past each other in mostly ritual performance. Party politicians do not listen, do not reflect and do not change their minds. The same complaint can be made about parliaments and congresses throughout the world…’
https://theconversation.com/the-proposed-senate-voting-change-will-hurt-australian-democracy-55297
The Greek solution
Sortition, involving the random selection of citizens for service in deciding public policy, was fundamental to the governance of Athens in 462-322 BC. It survives today in the use of juries.
The ancient Greeks took a very different approach to governance 2500 years ago. Instead of political parties making government policy – there weren’t any political parties – citizens were selected by lot – ie at random, like a jury is today. With a new selection made each day, assemblies of citizens would carefully deliberate and come to a consensus about an issue – then move on to the next matter. The system was complex, with different randomly-selected assemblies charged with different responsibilities – eg one proposed legislation, while another would debate, amend and finally agree on a version. Magistrates in the legal system were also selected by lot. All 30 000 male citizens were eligible to serve, and were paid for their time. In its final and most advanced form, the system lasted 130 years, before Athens was conquered and its governance system overturned. Versions of the approach survived in Renaissance Italy, not disappearing altogether until about 1800.
Today the principle of power being allocated by lot endures in the Western legal system, where juries are selected at random from the electoral roll. We greatly respect this system, and give it enormous power over the lives of our fellow citizens. A guilty verdict from a jury can lock someone up for life in Australia. In the US it can lead to their execution. Selection by lot is known as ‘sortition’, and we take its inherent integrity and objectivity very seriously. We trust it to deliver justice and real social benefit.
Here then is a way forward for democracy. We have the mechanism. It works and is trusted. We do not need political parties or politicians. Good, paid managers will still be needed to implement policy, but not to develop policy or set spending priorities. Those decisions can made perfectly well and more fairly by impartial citizen assemblies.
In SA, CAFSA is calling for CAs to be used routinely by government in developing important public policy, and in setting spending priorities.
A longer-term goal for SA would be to establish a permanent sortition-based chamber, as now exists in the municipality of Paris, and in the eastern province of Belgium (Ostbelgian). More such chambers are being planned around the world. CAFSA calls upon the State of SA to live up to its reputation for national, indeed global, leadership in social and political reform, and embrace this goal too.
Further reading
Articles
‘It gave me hope in democracy’: how French citizens are embracing people power’
The Guardian – November 2020
https://demnext.substack.com/p/how-a-permanent-citizens-assembly (by the French civil servant who oversaw the process for the city of Paris)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/22/irish-readers-citizens-assembly-worked-brexit (on why the Irish CAs worked so well)
https://www.noemamag.com/a-movement-thats-quietly-reshaping-democracy-for-the-better/ (by Claudia Chwalisz from Democracy Next)
https://democracyinpractice.org/
https://democracyrd.org/work/
Books
Alexander, J and Conrad, A (2023), Citizens, Canbury Press, UK
Dunlop, T (2018), The Future of Everything, New South Publishing, UNSW, Sydney chpt on Government pp.113-139.
Dunlop, T (2022), Voices of us, New South Publishing, UNSW, Sydney
Fishkin, J S (2009), When the People Speak, OUP, UK
Hennig, B (2017), The End of Politicians – Time for a Real Democracy, Unbound, UK
Murray CK and Frijters P (2017), Game of Mates – How favours bleed the nation, Australia, ISBN 978-0-6480611-0-6
Smith, P (2023), Rescuing Democracy: How Public Deliberation Can Curb Government Failure, ebook, University of Tasmania
https://figshare.utas.edu.au/articles/book/Rescuing_Democracy_How_Public_Deliberation_Can_Curb_Government_Failure/23042876?file=40784669
Surowiecki, J (2004), The Wisdom of Crowds, Little-Brown publishers, UK
Van Reybrouck, D (2016), Against Elections – The Case for Democracy, Bodley Head, UK
White K, Hunter N, Greaves, K (2022), Facilitating Deliberation – a Practical Guide, Mosaic Lab, contact info@mosaiclab.com.au
Materials produced by CAFSA
U3A lecture 24 Aug 2022.pptx
Talk to Lyceum Club Sept 2024.pptx
ERA talk 30 Nov 2024.pptx
Simon John Birmingham is a former Australian politician who was a Senator for South Australia between May 2007 to January 2025.
A member of the Liberal Party, he served in the Morrison government as Minister for Finance from 2020 to 2022 and as Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment from 2018 to 2020.
Dr Sonia Randhawa helped to establish the Sortition Foundation’s Australian branch. She has worked on recruitment for over 50 democratic lotteries, and is working with educators to develop curriculum for secondary school students on deliberative democracy. As part of the organisation’s commitment to acknowledging the First Nations people of Australia, she recently completed an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Competence course and is undertaking a Certificate IV in Training and Education.
A founder of the Coalition of Everyone, she focused on Citizens’ Assemblies, building capacity for deepening democracy. Previously she has worked on media democratisation, freedom of information and media freedom in her birth country, Malaysia and as a journalist in both radio and print. She holds a PhD in media history from the University of Melbourne, and an undergraduate degree in philosophy, politics and economics from the University of Oxford.
Emma Fletcher is Co-CEO of Australia’s leading deliberative democracy company – democracyCo. In this role she designs, and project manages large and complex engagement projects.
She has an exceptional ability to support governments in building genuine collaborative relationships and partnerships with key stakeholders.
Emma’s commitment and passion to raise the voices of all citizens within the democratic process is one part of the driving force behind the success of democracyCo. This vision is foundational in ensuring that democracyCo is a national leader in engagement.
Emma’s background is in public policy, having worked at the highest echelons of the public service in South Australia and abroad. Emma has an unparalleled understanding of the workings and challenges of government having worked across many different areas of policy, inter-governmental relations, politics and in Parliament.
David Van Reybrouck is a Belgian cultural historian, archaeologist and author and is considered ‘one of the leading intellectuals in Europe’ (Der Tagesspiegel). He is a pioneering advocate of participatory democracy. He founded the G1000 Citizens’ Summit, and his work has led to trials in participatory democracy throughout Belgium and The Netherlands. He is also one of the most highly regarded literary and political writers of his generation, whose most recent book, Congo: The Epic History of a People, won 19 prizes, sold 500,000 copies and has been translated into a dozen languages. It was described as a ‘masterpiece’ by the Independent and ‘magnificent’ by The New York Times.
Effective April 1, 2025, David will be appointed Philosopher Laureate of The Netherlands He will devote the next two years to what he calls “vérdenken. On the occasion, he wrote the essay The World and the Earth.
Jay Weatherill AO is a former politician who was the 45th premier of South Australia, serving from 21 October 2011 until 19 March 2018. Weatherill represented the House of Assembly seat of Cheltenham as a member of the South Australian Labor Party from the 2002 election to December 2018, when he retired.
In 2015, Weatherill initiated the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission to investigate opportunities and risks associated with expanding the state’s involvement in the nuclear fuel cycle. The Royal Commission report indicated that it was not commercially viable to generate nuclear power. Weatherill used the release of the report as an opportunity to undertake “one of the largest” deliberative democracy processes in Australia’s history. Weatherill stated early that a nuclear waste facility would need both public and bipartisan support.
In 2019, he was appointed as an industry professor at the University of South Australia. Weatherill moved to Perth in 2020 to lead the Minderoo Foundation’s early childhood development arm Thrive by Five. In 2024, he joined the Leeuwin Ocean Adventure Foundation as chairman of the board and in 2025, he was appointed by arts minister Tony Burke to the Council of the National Gallery of Australia.
An award-winning writer, columnist, critic, academic, broadcaster, public intellectual and former political candidate. Dr Elizabeth Farrelly is trained in architecture and philosophy.
Elizabeth trained in architecture and philosophy, practiced in London and Bristol and holds a PhD in urbanism from the University of Sydney, where she is also a former Adjunct Associate Professor.
As an independent Sydney City Councillor (1991-95), Elizabeth initiated Sydney’s first heritage and laneway protection policies, and was inaugural chair of the Australia Award for Urban Design (1998). She was also Manager Special Projects at the City of Sydney during the Olympic preparations (1998-2000) and is an award-winning writer and published author.
Elizabeth holds a number of national and international writing awards. As Assistant Editor of The Architectural Review (London) Elizabeth edited the August 1986 special issue ‘The New Spirit’, which won the Paris-based CICA award for architectural criticism. Her other awards including the Pascall Prize, the Walter Burley Griffin Award, the Adrian Ashton Award and the Marion Mahony Griffin Award.
An articulate, interesting and engaging speaker, Elizabeth Farrelly is skilled at making complex issues accessible to diverse audiences both in Australia and overseas.
Nicholas Gruen, CEO of Lateral Economics is a widely published policy economist, entrepreneur and commentator. He has advised Cabinet Ministers, sat on Australia’s Productivity Commission and founded Lateral Economics and Peach Financial.
He is Visiting Professor at Kings College London and Adjunct Professor at UTS. He chairs the Open Knowledge Foundation (Australian Chapter) and is Patron of the Australian Digital Alliance, which brings together Australia’s libraries, universities, and major providers of digital infrastructure such as Google and Yahoo. He is a member of the Council of the National Library of Australia.
Iain Walker is the Executive Director of The newDemocracy Foundation, an independent non-partisan research institute exploring how to do democracy better.
nDF sees the democratic innovation problem to be solved in terms of the constraints on elected representatives as a result of the pressures of uninformed public opinion, with the solutions lying in public judgment mechanisms akin to the criminal jury. They design and operate real-world demonstration projects for elected representatives at all tiers of government, and their advisory work includes a range of governments internationally and projects for the UN Democracy Fund and OECD.
