Beyond the loudest voices and immediate marketability: could deliberation get more good policy ideas on to the political agenda?
Too many transformative policy ideas get left off the political agenda because they're not sexy, shouted loudly or marketable enough. Deliberation could level the agenda-setting playing field.
TLDR; A deliberation process convened by think tanks and advocacy groups could get more good policy proposals on to the political agenda
Our political agenda today is shaped significantly by who has the loudest voice and the most resources, and by the imperative of immediate marketability.
Reform proposals from organisations with less resources, like service and citizen groups and in particular, somewhat complex policy proposals that can’t be sold in short soundbites, often fall off the political table.
A deliberation process convened by the groups whose proposals often tend to fall in these categories, including think tanks and advocacy groups, could put them back on the agenda. The groups would nominate reform proposals that deserve greater political attention, and citizens selected by lottery would deliberate to select a shortlist.
Why might and why should this process be a more effective advocacy tool than the standard advocacy these organisations already do? A representative and robust citizen-led process of deliberation lends the advocacy effort credibility, and it could be championed by a coalition of smaller groups and think tanks across the political spectrum, as well as crucially, by participant citizens themselves.
Agenda-setting power matters
The election of a new federal parliament in May has put a lot of new reform proposals on the table: multi-employer bargaining, co-ordinating the rollout of fast-charging sites for electric vehicles, registered nurses on site 24/7 in aged care facilities and a Help to Buy home ownership scheme, to name just a few.
But for every reform proposal that’s put on the political table, there are many, many more that are left off it. A plethora of other possible reforms put forward by think tanks, smaller service-oriented advocacy groups, independent commissions like the Productivity Commission and intergovernmental agencies like the OECD, just don’t get political attention.
So who and what determines the reform proposals that get on the table for discussion? Even more fundamentally, who and what determines the political issues we’re talking about in the first place?
It goes without saying that this matters enormously for the welfare of Australians. As Grattan Institute has written and provided extensive evidence for, “who’s in the room – and who’s in the news – matter for policy outcomes.”
How might you define the reform proposals that we should consider “important” and put on the table? If you were to paint an ideal system in very broad strokes, you might say that there should be plenty of space for citizens, experts and innovators to put their ideas out there, and those ideas should be fairly considered according to the informed views of citizens about what’s most important.
If we’re talking about an ideal system, it also seems pretty uncontroversial to suggest that you shouldn’t be able to buy your way onto the agenda.
The agenda today is shaped significantly by the loudest voices and immediate marketability
In our current system, it’s elected representatives whose role it is to represent the informed views of citizens about what’s most important.
The current policymaking process gets many big issues on the table.
At this particular moment, we’re benefiting from a diverse parliament and public appetite for reform in a post-election period.
But that doesn’t mean that the system is always operating fairly, or that many reforms with the potential to achieve better, fairer and more efficient outcomes aren’t seeing political daylight.
In our current system, albeit not directly, you really can buy your way onto the table with money and political connections. Readily marketable ideas also of course have a major advantage; if your idea takes longer to communicate or explain, you’re going to have a tough time getting it onto the agenda.
Lobbyists and advocacy groups with the most resources
The Grattan Institute has very compellingly documented the ways in which money and power can buy you access in Australian politics.
Commercial lobbyists are one small part of the access picture. According to Grattan’s research, “businesses in highly regulated industries account for the lion’s share of external meetings with senior politicians on both sides of politics. And there are plenty of opportunities for informal interactions as well, ranging from corridor catch-ups in Parliament House to corporate boxes at the AFL Grand Final.”
In addition to most major corporates, most “major unions and not-for-profits employ government relations or executive staff whose job is to manage relationships with policymakers. Yet their access is almost entirely invisible.”
At the federal level, we don’t have access to any information about who gets access to policymakers, how much lobbying occurs or the relevant policy issues discussed.
Influence of course also takes place through influencing the public debate. This in itself of course isn’t problematic, but influencing the public debate takes money, and a lot of it. The Grattan report notes that “major advertising campaigns are the preserve of well-resourced groups: unions, industry peak bodies, and GetUp! were major spenders in the past decade”.
Public opinion research and media
Scott Morrison’s penchant for focus groups was widely appreciated. It has been said that “his beating heart is a focus group.” But reliance on focus groups is not confined to one party or candidate, as The Chaser has helpfully also pointed out. The increasing use of focus groups is one aspect of a broader trend toward the professionalisation of political campaigning and policymaking, which allows parties to “target and refine the content of their campaigns to appeal to particular segments of the electorate” and indeed in between elections. Opinion polling matters in setting the agenda.
Public opinion research is rarely informed in the ways we’d ideally like it to be in a fair process of identifying the issues and reform proposals that get onto the table.
Sometimes polls straight-up give respondents a pre-populated list of issues to rank, so there’s no opportunity for them to suggest issues openly. It has long been recognised that “pollsters [have] a lot of running room to “manufacture” opinion, especially on issues of narrow rather than wide concern.”
Other polls ask questions about what issues matter to voters more openly. But even where polls ask the question openly, we know from almost three decades of intermedia agenda-setting research that the traditional news media plays a critical role in influencing what’s top of mind for voters. This is of course problematic when media coverage can be arbitrary and heavily skewed away from “coverage of actual policy and topics voters genuinely care about.” Out of sight, out of mind.
Ultimately, polls and focus groups tend to pitch ideas and solicit feedback in a pretty superficial way, not leaving much room for meaningful deliberation or consideration of evidence and alternative arguments. Their most trenchant critics would argue that “opinion polling has changed every liberal democracy by turning politics into a contest between two sales teams trying to synthesise a product they believe voters want and diluting what was once the key role of politicians: to provide leadership.”
So what’s falling off the agenda today?
Proposals from lesser-resourced organisations
Researchers Bert Fraussen and Darren Halpin have generated a map of the Australian interest group system, which is extremely useful for understanding how resources might shape what’s most politically visible. At a high level, they observe that “the most visible part of the interest group universe – the groups that figure prominently in the media and often have been subject of case studies and broader scholarly interest – are likely to represent only a very narrow slice of the larger system and therefore conceal the size and diversity of organised interests in Australia.”
Their research suggests, perhaps not surprisingly, that certain types of causes and policy issues fall off the radar because they have lesser resources to organise and advocate.
More specifically, they find that “social welfare clients…are predominantly organised by service groups, with very few actual interest groups. These sets of interests are in principle much more vulnerable to the changing patterns of state tolerance for organisations that combine service delivery with policy advocacy.”
They also find that economic interests overwhelmingly dominate the interest group landscape numerically; just including business and professional groups together, they account for nearly 75% of the entire national system. By contrast, citizen groups are far less prominent. Within citizen groups, “there are a disproportionately high number of groups for privileged communities.”
They conclude that “there is reason for concern about the lack of voices for less-privileged and resourceful groups in society.”
Complex issues, dominated by misperceptions
Some reforms are complex and shrouded in misperceptions that it takes some time and discussion to debunk. To name just a few:
Raising the age pension – myths include that people won’t be able to work past 65 or that this would take away the jobs of young people
Limiting negative gearing – myths include that changes will disproportionately hurt mum and dad property barons and limit new housing supply
Putting housing first – myths include that most homeless people have mental health issues and that mental illness is a primary cause of homelessness
These issues often fall off the agenda because as long as the myths persist, they won’t win a whole lot of votes, and there simply isn’t space in short soundbites to bust them.
Complex issues involving complex trade-offs
Relatedly, some reforms entail complex trade-offs that are more likely to make sense when you think about them for a while but that might not intuitively appeal from the outset. One example is increasing middle-ring housing density. If we want to manage prices and rents, we need to build where there is demand. Many state and local governments restrict medium and high-density developments to appease the most vocal local residents concerned about road congestion, parking problems and damage to neighbourhood character. It’s an understandable objection, but what if people were put in the decision-maker’s shoes and asked to consider bigger picture trade-offs to manage national house prices and rents?
This issue of course also happens to reflect the “loudest voices” problem: local residents are most likely to organise and be vocal, while the rest of the population who might not be as immediately or directly affected are less likely to organise to advocate for their position.
Periodic deliberation could get things back on the agenda
We need to create a space for these issues to be put on the agenda in a way that’s fair, transparent, politically legitimate and politically practical.
I reckon there’s a very neat solution worth considering. It’s not radical. It would be a way of periodically giving other proposals a shot at the public consideration and understanding they deserve. But I think it could be transformative.
Advocates nominate reform proposals to be put on the agenda, citizens selected by lottery deliberate on a shortlist
Here’s what the process would look like:
1. Groups or individuals with an interest in making their voices better heard nominate their proposals via a standardised one-page template that levels the playing field – a no-frills, two-page description of the reform, summary of its benefits and costs, with supporting evidence, and reasons why it might have unfairly been left off the agenda to-date.
2. A citizens’ jury composed of ~50 individuals deliberates (as usual, at length, over several days, with reference to balanced expert advice that they take the lead on sourcing) on the two to three proposals that they feel are most deserving of greater political consideration (let’s call them the “selected proposals”). At the outset, before viewing the proposals, they could also deliberate on the criteria they feel should inform the selection of issues (which might include, for example, cost efficiency, equity and even political feasibility). The jury could take place over two stages: a shortlisting and an-depth review stage.
3. The groups and individuals who nominated proposals, together with participating citizens and high-profile champions of deliberation, collectively advocate for the selected proposals to be put on the political agenda, through pitching their findings to potential political champions across all parties and independents, and it would only take a couple of champions at the outset to guarantee their support in putting the issues back on the agenda (more on this below); and through other traditional modes of advocacy through various media.
The process, which could cost ~$100k, could be funded by a combination of lobbyists making small contributions and philanthropy. What if 10 think tanks, academic institutions and advocacy groups each pitched in $5-10k at the outset?
The idea of using deliberation for agenda-setting is absolutely not new. In fact, it has already been institutionalised (at a far grander scale than a one-off pilot like this) elsewhere with great success.
From a practical perspective, why could this work better than current methods of advocacy?
The process would be supported by a politically legitimate and representative group of citizens who have taken the time to come to an informed view. While think tanks and independent bodies can generate proposals and provide expert advice on their ramifications, these issues ultimately also involve critical normative questions and trade-offs that require more than expertise – they require democratic decision-making.
In this way, it’s aligned with both the ALP’s and the independents’ platform of more meaningful citizen engagement and a fair go for good ideas. It would only take a couple of parliamentarians to raise the political profile of the issue far beyond what it might have been before.
The process would also be supported by not just one advocacy group going it alone but by a coalition of groups and individuals who recognise the need for greater voice in the policymaking process. They could use their traditional relationships to advocate where they have them, but now joined by a chorus of other parties.
You could definitely follow up on the reform proposal with a jury on the reform itself – but you wouldn’t have to. To decrease the perception of political risk, you could just use a jury to put the issue on the agenda without asking the relevant political champion(s) to commit to a particular course of action.
We deserve as citizens to hear the best ideas for how to improve our lives and our society. At very low risk and at very low cost to potentially interested advocacy groups, this solution could yield enormous potential gain.