Could "Australia in One Room" be the "national conversation" the Government has promised?
Without a different kind of national conversation, major policy reform proposals are doomed to fall flat with the public again
TLDR: Australia should replicate an event called “America in One Room” to serve as the “national conversation” the Government has repeatedly promised on certain major policy issues
The Australian Government continues to flag the need for a “national conversation” about several major policy issues. These issues include the question of whether Australia should become a Republic, structural economic challenges and a nationwide housing affordability problem. They affect everyone and they’re complex. But what form will this national conversation take? Letting the conversation play out through soundbites and slogans in the media, traditional advocacy approaches or non-representative public consultations and summits won’t create buy-in to any of the major potential changes that meaningfully addressing these big policy issues must contemplate.
We have a model of national conversation at our disposal that is inclusive, representative and creates the space for people across the political spectrum to go beyond a soundbite or a single anecdote and change their minds about complex issues. America in One Room brought together a microcosm of the entire American electorate to a single location. It allowed Americans to come together to deliberate with each other and engage with different opinions at length on major policy issues. They deliberated on an informed basis, with reference to briefing materials prepared and vetted by a distinguished group of policy experts from across the political spectrum. The document was balanced with arguments for and against specific policy proposals across the five issue areas and the process was designed and evaluated by Stanford’s Deliberative Democracy Lab.
The conversation was rich and respectful, and the results showed dramatic changes in opinion.
We should replicate America in One Room in Australia in early 2024 and advocate the process and findings to the broader Australian public. The process could tackle the questions of the Republic, two-three major potential tax changes and housing policies. The findings would be used to inform and generate buy-in to the Government’s policies and inform its advocacy. It would be a national conversation that is consistent with the Government’s commitment to conciliatory and inclusive politics and the broader political commitment to meaningful citizen engagement. It would better serve the objective of generating buy-in from Australians across the political spectrum to reforms that are difficult to sell in a soundbite but that can have profound effects on the wellbeing of the Australian public.
The Government has committed to tackling major policy issues that can’t be addressed without major, politically challenging reforms
These reforms would affect big chunks, if not all, of the voting public. They include two constitutional reforms that require referenda: introducing an Indigenous Voice to Parliament and making Australia a Republic. The former has been described as “Australia’s longest-standing and unresolved project for justice, unity and inclusion;” the latter is a bid to change our system of government at a time when in the aftermath of the Queen’s passing, a “resounding majority” of Australians wanted to retain the Monarchy. Even putting aside the gravity of these specific reforms, constitutional change is notoriously difficult; of 44 referendums in Australia, 8 have been successful.
The Government’s ambition isn’t confined to constitutional change. To cite two major examples, the Government has also committed “to address the significant challenges across the housing spectrum” and to tackle the economy’s structural challenges (which necessarily contemplates tax change). Leading political and economic commentators have repeatedly observed that meaningfully tackling these issues requires “hard decisions”, “big change,” “political backbone” and even in some cases, “political suicide”.
Enacting these reforms requires generating voter buy-in through some form of conversation with the Australian public.
In the case of referenda, public support is legally required to enact the relevant constitutional changes. In the case of the other reforms, failure to attract greater public support could lose the ALP the next election. More Australians consider themselves swinging voters than ever before; while in the mid-1960s, more than 70% of voters said they always cast a ballot for the same party, by the 2019 election, that had fallen below 40%, the lowest share on record. Without voter buy-in, the change isn’t likely to be sustainable.
The notion of a need for dialogue with the Australian people to successfully enact the Government’s agenda certainly isn’t a revelation; to the contrary, the Government has repeatedly acknowledged this need. Its acknowledgements have become so commonplace as to motivate the observation of one commentator that “Australian politics is becoming skilled in the art of “national conversation” about the need for national conversations. From energy to taxation to social spending priorities, political and community leaders solemnly agree on why these conversations must be had in order to confront various economic challenges and contradictions.” On the Voice, the Government has emphasised the importance of an education campaign. On the Republic, Assistant Minister for the Republic Matt Thistlethwaite has acknowledged that “discussion must be genuine…we cannot impose another unpopular model on voters only to have them reject it.” On the economy, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has explicitly made assertions to the effect that the Government “want[s] to engage Australians in a big national conversation about the economy and the opportunities ahead.”
Trying to have a national conversation in traditional ways is doomed to fail.
Much political communication takes the form of relatively short-form and often editorialized media reporting on government action and policy announcements. Policy announcements in turn often take the form of short talking points and soundbites and slogans. Direct public consultation, including for example, town halls and focus groups, is less common. We might also expect efforts at grassroots advocacy campaigning through organisations like GetUp! And the last form of “national conversation” I’d note is something in the nature of Kevin Rudd’s 2020 Summit. I’d argue that these methods aren’t likely to generate the shifts of opinion and public buy-in that the government needs: in short, they don’t engage the voters who need to be engaged and they don’t create the space for voters to talk about difficult trade-offs that can enable politically tough but effective policy reform.
Reaching the public
First, status quo political communication through the media isn’t likely to engage large new segments of the public, beyond a small percentage (around 10%) who take an active interest in politics. Most Australians don’t actively seek out political content. Two thirds of Australians say that, give the opportunities they currently have available to engage, they have little or no interest in politics. Communicating new ideas can’t do much to change minds if it’s not reaching them in the first place or reaching them in different ways that motivate engagement. But even stepping outside traditional campaigning methods and toward forums that can more accurately be described as dialogues like town hall meetings tends only to engage the “usual suspects” and the “loudest voices”. Certainly, the 2020 Summit, though impressive for its focus on bold new ideas, was not in any way representative of the Australian public. Advocacy by groups traditionally affiliated with the ALP and the left of politics, which we might assume will occupy the lion’s share of public advocacy for any new policies put forward by the Government, may not engage voters with conservative leanings. Liberal politicians have traditionally been wary of left-leaning advocacy groups like GetUp!, for example.
Generating buy-in
Second, to the extent that folks do consume political content, even if passively, communicating in talking points, short soundbites and slogans isn’t likely to open minds at any point on the political spectrum, allowing discussion of nuanced trade-offs. Watching politicians talk or media describe politicians talk also doesn’t constitute two-way conversation, inclusively allowing people from across the political spectrum to provide their informed viewpoint.
When we passively receive information without the opportunity to discuss it or interrogate countervailing views with others, motivated reasoning often operates to confirm our existing beliefs or partisan leanings. These are shaped of course by other more powerful influences, like family and our social environment.
Talking in soundbites and slogans also renders new ideas particularly susceptible to myths, scare campaigns and misinformation, often drawing on our status quo bias. Negative gearing and capital gains tax reforms are steeped in myths that are perpetuated by powerful vested interests. Almost every major tax reform in Australia has been politicised by all sides of politics. To cite another admittedly extreme example, the Republican movement was recently described by one commentator as “a “feckless, ‘all about me…vanity project” and a “new fang-dangle sparkly political toy” that “trade[s] off a functional and stable system to indulge an ideological preference.” Both proponents and opponents of the Voice have already noted the intrusion of misinformation and fear, abuse and threats into the public debate.
While advocacy campaigns often deploy a storytelling or emotion-laden approach to structure their public messaging and a shared, positive narrative, these approaches also aren’t likely to be effective at drawing out more technical considerations. And these technical considerations are often the ones that militate in favour of reforms that are unpopular on the surface but that have much to commend them according to experts. What are the legal and international implications of various models of an Australian Republic? What are the implications of a wealth tax for GDP and the budget and who would be hit hardest? What housing policies best balance economic efficiency and equity?
If the Government really wants to open minds to new reform possibilities and generate buy-in, it needs a very different kind of national conversation.
It doesn’t need a conversation that fails to engage all but the loudest voices, the usual suspects and the traditionally politically active; it needs a conversation that is inclusive, fair and representative. It doesn’t need a two-minute, one-sided conversation in soundbites and slogans; it needs a conversation that is informed, balanced and deliberative, to give people a chance to engage with the facts and change their minds. It doesn’t need a conversation that isn’t actually a conversation; it needs a dialogue that leans into genuine trade-offs and takes into account views across the political spectrum.
The characteristics of inclusiveness, representation and balanced deliberation are the centrepiece of deliberative democratic processes, like citizens’ juries, citizens’ assemblies and deliberative polls:
· Inclusion and representation: They use random selection to engage a representative sample of the community, which includes citizens who wouldn’t otherwise engage, compensating participants for their time
· Deliberation: They present participants with a range of balanced information and arguments (typically carefully vetted by a politically balanced or independent stakeholder group) on critical issues, which participants discuss with each other typically for several days to arrive at a conclusion
Deliberative democracy is recognized globally by scholars, politicians and governments and intergovernmental bodies as a powerful tool for meaningfully engaging citizens and informing policymaking. More than 300 deliberative processes have been convened across the globe.
Australia in One Room
One deliberative model that has already been run with great success provides an incredibly valuable precedent for national conversation on challenging policy issues. It is inclusive, creates the time and space for citizens across the political spectrum to change their minds, and provides a forum for uncovering common potential solutions to complex problems.
America in One Room
“America in One Room” assembled a stratified random sample of ~500 registered voters from around the US to Dallas for a discussion of five contentious issues over four days: the economy, health care, the environment, immigration and foreign policy.
Upfront, I should note that “Deliberative Polling®,” the methodology used as part of this experiment, is a trademark of Professor James S. Fishkin and all Deliberative Polling® experiments typically entail collaboration between the Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab and partners from the local country. I haven’t yet asked them to consider this post and they haven’t provided input into it.
Here’s how it worked:
· The ~500 participants met in-person in moderated small group discussions and plenary sessions with competing experts and politicians
· Participants deliberated in depth on specific policy proposals
· To aid their discussions, participants used a detailed briefing book that discussed policy proposals in five areas, with balanced arguments for and against each proposal. The booklet was prepared and vetted by policy experts from both parties and a distinguished Advisory Committee
· Participants’ (and a control group’s) opinions on issues were measured before and after deliberation
Here are some of the most striking results:
· After the weekend, the percentage saying the system of American democracy was “working well” doubled from 30 to 60%
· There were dramatic changes of opinion from participants across the political spectrum. Some examples (I alternate below between shifts driven by Republicans and shifts driven by Democrats):
— Support for tough crackdowns on immigration dramatically declined; Republican support for forcing “undocumented immigrants…to return to their home countries before applying to legally come to the US to live and work permanently” was slashed in half, from 79 to 40%
— Support for some expensive but imaginative economic proposals, such as a bond for each child born or a guarantee of universal basic income fell sharply (from 43% support to 13% for “Baby Bonds”)
— Support for expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit went up from 73% to 81%, with the increase coming from both Republicans and Independents
— Support for increasing the federal minimum wage to 15 dollars an hour dropped from 54 to 39%, with support from Democrats dropping 23 points (“perhaps as they realized that different localities would adapt to this differently”)
— Support for using market incentives to reduce greenhouse emissions went from 61% to 72%
— Support for requiring zero carbon emissions for cars fell, with opposition increasing from 34 to 45%
· The event was covered by both right and left-leaning media outlets
· President Barack Obama called the event “a reminder that behind every opinion lies a human being with real experience and a story to tell” and said of the event that “if we want our democracy to work, listening to each other isn’t optional”
More broadly, the methodology of “Deliberative Polling®” (i.e., the use of a random, representative sample, baseline poll, balanced briefing materials, dialogue and post-deliberation poll) has been run more than 100 times in 29 countries, including in Australia.
What this might look like in Australia
We could replicate this model in Australia. We could use a slightly smaller sample size calibrated to the population (I’d defer to the statistical experts on this but typically, deliberative polls have recruited a minimum of 200 participants and one deliberative poll in Australia recruited nearly 350 in 2009.
I’ve cited four of the most contentious policy issues that have been the subject of calls for the boldest policy reform: the Voice, the Republic, housing and taxation. Depending on when the Voice referendum is held (with a promise made to hold it sometime in FY24), there may not be enough lead time between a deliberative process and the referendum to adequately communicate the results and the process to the broader public. But at least for the other issues, which in many cases the Government has flagged needing time to work through policy options and indeed, to have a national conversation ahead of reform later in its current term or in its next term if re-elected, a deliberative process would be the perfect step to take in the next two years.
Australia is home to global leaders in the study of deliberation (like the scholars at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance and ANU) and practice of deliberation, who could advise on the design and facilitation, and co-lead independent academic evaluation of the process, in collaboration with the Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab.
This process would be costly, driven by the cost of compensating the large number of participants. But it need not be funded by Government. Its mission aligns closely with a number of philanthropies, research institutions, think tanks and advocacy groups with an interest in facilitating an informed national conversation about hugely important issues that affect all Australians, who might contribute funding.
The process could be spearheaded and the design elaborated through partnership between universities with expertise in deliberation and practitioners of deliberation, and seek to engage “champions” from across the political spectrum (including respected leaders from civil society and former politicians). Ultimately, to avoid an expensive “talkfest,” it would need commitment from champions from within parliament to consider and respond to the findings, and treat them as a serious source of input into policy development.
In fact, a deliberative poll was run on the Republic in 1999, yielding a large increase in the yes vote. But as will be noted below and in contrast somewhat to “America in One Room,” there was not a focus on advocacy of the process and the outcomes to the broader public.
Will the rest of the voting public listen?
While the process is highly representative and fair, it would be naive to believe the public would engage with the results and trust the process per se.
But the unique features of a process like this, run in the Australian context, could lend themselves to highly effective advocacy of the process and results to the broader public in four ways:
· The engagement of “ordinary” people through the somewhat uncommon mechanism of random selection supports strong media coverage by outlets across the political spectrum (together, of course, with proactive investment in outreach to these outlets and PR)
· The engagement of a genuinely representative sample, including the traditionally disengaged has been found to facilitate trust in the process from “ordinary” voters, through “like me” perceptions
· Australians’ trust in certain media sources may have declined, but trust in fact-based non-commercial sources like the ABC remains high (only 9% of Australians distrust the ABC, vs 50% social media). If these sources came on board to report the facts of this process, given their basis in fact and evidence, might have a good shot at shifting opinions
· Crucially, the process is capable of uncovering the reasons why people change their minds about issues through the process of deliberation, which facilitates what Professor James Fiskhin calls “responsible advocacy” of bold reforms. This would entail advocacy that targets any false assumptions and misconceptions underpinning resistance to certain reforms
· In the Australian context, there is an unprecedented public appetite for meaningful citizen engagement and integrity. This aligns with the platform of the very strong cross-bench who campaigned on a platform of citizen engagement and the hallmark conciliatory approach of Anthony Albanese and his team
In my view, we are currently experiencing a unique moment in Australian politics, and a unique opportunity in the global context, to tackle major issues in a positive and conciliatory way, and to genuinely strengthen our democracy. It would be a waste not to seize it.