Approach: ‘Deliberative Town Hall’ The purpose of the Connecting to Parliament project was to link a representative sample of constituents with their elected official in town hall conversations about the issues that are subject to parliamentary debate in Australia. This one focused on mitochondrial disease and donation which involves an IVF-based assisted reproductive technology. It has the potential to prevent mitochondrial disease in babies born to mothers who may otherwise pass on the disease. Find out more here: https://connect2parliament.com/ Problems and Purpose The purpose of Connecting to Parliament is to expand the democratic functions of existing political institutions like the Australian Parliament, by specifically establishing more direct connections between constituents and their elected representatives. This is done by gathering a representative sample of constituents in conversation with their elected official about controversial issues that are subject to parliamentary debate. This parliamentary procedure allows MPs to vote according to their own conscience rather than based upon party discipline. It provided a unique opening to host discussions with the public. MP Andrew Leigh, MP for the Fenner Constituency near Canberra was not sure how to vote on the issue and as the vote in Parliament was a free vote (where MPs are not put under pressure to vote a certain way by their party) he wanted to see what his constituents felt about this complex issue after they had learned about it. MP Andrew Leigh decided to base his conscience vote on a combination of quantitative and qualitative findings from the research and experience in the two town hall forums. Having constituents directly inform how MPs vote in parliament is a unique aspect of this democratic innovation, and provides further opportunities for addressing democratic deficits as well as enhancing parliamentary engagement procedures. Who took part Participant selection was based on stratified sortition (much like the selection process for this Citizens’ Panel event). Every household in Fenner, Australian Capital Territory received an invitation in the mail (via electoral roll) to participate in a direct conversation with their Member of Parliament on the topic of mitochondrial disease/donation. Interested residents indicated their intention to participate on the Connecting to Parliament website, and were then filtered by key demographic indicators to ensure the “Town Hall Events” were representative of the community. What Went On: Process, Interaction, and Participation Participants were given a short video and access to learning material from the National Health and Medical Research Council website. Town hall sessions were facilitated by a neutral third party and were unscripted interactions directly between residents and their MP. Two town halls were hosted between residents and their elected representative. On September 20, 2020, an online discussion was hosted online for 90 minutes. Residents presented questions via chatbox to their MP on the issues surrounding mitochondrial disease/donation. On September 21, 2020, a second town hall was hosted in-person at the University of Canberra following a similar format, with the added feature of roundtable discussions near the end of the session. Outputs and Lessons Learned Researchers observing the process saw a moderate increase towards perceptions of political efficacy, which means that forum participants considered the process favourably, particularly enhancing the MPs image. Simultaneously, participants were likely to be interested in more types of engagement as well to address certain flaws in what they consider to be larger problems with Australian democracy, i.e. party discipline and lack of cross-party collaboration. Furthermore, residents called for a more expansive process that involves further dialogue, the inclusion of experts and stories of those with lived experience. When debating the Bill in the Chamber, Andrew Leigh said: “I would encourage other members of parliament to consider deliberative democracy processes when future conscience votes arise... deliberative democracy processes can help to bring citizens into the public conversation. It's vital that we do this; all members of the House should be committed to it.”
Challenges: cost implications for process
Liked: more people directly affected by things given opportunity to get involved
Recommendation for use in parliament: ensure all MSPs taking that approach so consistency across all regions
Improvements: be careful about the type of subject chosen for that type of approach
The canberra MP talked about using his free vote. However how many occasions does our Msps actually have a free vote. It is more democratic for them to vote for something they are advocating for on behalf of their constituents rather than having to vote on party guidlines.
This content is created by the open source Your Priorities citizen engagement platform designed by the non profit Citizens Foundation