The Otago Opportunity - Episode 5 - Citizens Assemblies

Join host Pauline Moore, Opportunity candidate for Dunedin Dave Bainbridge-Zafar, and Gareth Hughes, Director of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, to discuss Citizens Assemblies - what are they, and how might they effect you?

Find out more at www.opportunity.org.nz

Authorised by H.Cargo - secretary@opportunity.org.nz 

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Coming up on the Otago Opportunity, we're talking to Gareth Hughes, Director of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Atioroa about citizens' assemblies. This is the Otago Opportunity, a limited series look at the future of our province. I'm your host, Pauline Moore, and in this series we're taking the policies of the Opportunity Party and moving them out of the Wellington think tank and into our own backyard here in Dunedin. Each week we'll hear from local business owners, students and families about how a tax reset or citizens' assembly would actually impact their daily lives. It's not about the politics, it's about the future of the place we call home. Welcome to the Otago Opportunity. Welcome.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Kira. Kira Gorua.

SPEAKER_04 1:00

Gareth, can you tell us a little bit about the Wellbeing Economy Alliance?

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Yeah, so we're a think and do tank with a big mission, which is to reshape our economic system around the well-being of people and planet. At the moment, we have a pretty unjust, unsustainable economic system that despite GDP growth where we're not seeing children lifted out of poverty, we see inequality growing, we see the biodiversity crisis and planetary boundaries being breached. So this is the big mission we're working on. And we convene networks, we do research reports, push for some big ideas like intergenerational policy making. We're part of a global network with hubs in 25 countries around the world, uh founded s from some pretty incredible global economists such as Kate Roweth, responsible for donut economics, Jason Hickel, Catherine Trebek, Tim Jackson, and many others.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Wow. And and how did you get involved with them, Gareth?

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Well, actually, it was down in Otago, living on Carmo Totua, Quarantine Island. Um I had escaped from a decade in politics as a member of Parliament in 2020, moved to Quarantine Island, uh wrote a biography of my mentor, the late Jeanette Fitzsimons, and was ready to get back in the battle of ideas. And when I reflected across my career, I've used so many different levers from activism when I was a campaigner at Greenpeace, politics, governance, judicial challenges on the island and in the community, getting active on food security and conservation issues, but personally feeling like I was diligently working to improve the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. We really needed to think upstream, look at the drivers of some of our big challenges like child poverty, climate change, infrastructure deficits, etc. And it uh all came back to economics. So it was a privilege for me to be the founding director of We All Al Tioroa. Uh, we've grown our team to seven people, and we've done everything from uh wonderful reports to sold-out conferences to really popular social media campaigns. We're building a movement uh to reshape the economy. Our key message is what we see in the world, the bad things, they're not accidents, they're not forces of nature. In fact, they're inevitable results of policy design. To me, that's a hopeful message. Our system and the outcomes are products of design, therefore they can be redesigned.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

That's fantastic. And there's so much there that we can get into. Um, but today we're gonna kind of focus on citizens' assemblies. So I saw uh an article from yourself on LinkedIn not so long ago talking about citizens' assemblies. Do you want to kind of give us a summary of your view on a citizen's assembly, what what they are, how they could be used?

SPEAKER_01 3:45

I love talking about citizens' assemblies because there's something that gives me hope in these days of polycrisis where so much seems to be falling down around us from our infrastructure to our social cohesion to geopolitics, and we've got these huge challenges which successive governments haven't grappled with. One of my reflections on being a politician for so long is how little time and thought is actually given to deep systemic thought, how many of our fundamental challenges are deeply politicized, we're becoming increasingly polarized and partisan. So, yeah, we're not grappling with these big challenges. So citizens' assemblies or citizens' juries, participatory, deliberative democratic approaches, as they're sometimes known, I think are a great example how we can do political decision making differently in ways that builds trusts, that builds confidence in democracy, ultimately sees better, more enduring policy decisions being made. Ian Walker, the Australian practitioner and expert, was recently in New Zealand and he described it when we look at the judicial or the legal system, judges find huge benefit and complementarity of citizen juries. It's a shame in New Zealand that our central government politicians haven't seen that similar advantage and complementarity of having citizen juries. Citizens' assemblies have been different sizes and different examples from around the world, but at their heart, you get a representative uh sample of ordinary citizens in a community, a town, or even a country, uh selected essentially through sortition. So they're not politicians putting their hand up running for campaigns. These are regular citizens given access to experts to the advice that decision makers like politicians would normally get, hopefully, given some agency, what they collectively decide has a really good chance, unless there's a good reason why not, of actually becoming the policy outcome. So that's at their heart. They've been used on everything from abortion law changes in Ireland to climate policy in France to water infrastructure investments in Auckland through to my hometown of region where yesterday's solution, forestry, is today's problem, and they're doing one on land use transition and the pine tree problem in Tarafidi. So yeah, they've been used really successfully overseas, much more enduring policy outcomes, and in a time where trust in democracy and politicians is at an all-time low, I love the idea that we can empower ordinary citizens and play a more active role in our democratic decision-making.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Yeah, and an opportunity party would fully agree with that. You know, we call this policy citizens' voice, and that we want to introduce citizens' assemblies for various kind of big issues. And like you say, the jury analogy is is perfect. You know, if you take a a big meaty issue that's being discussed at the moment, the the age you get your super, the age of retirement in New Zealand, should it be increased, should it be kept where it is? Um, you know, that's a big difficult issue that kind of no politician really wants to touch because it's you know it's a it's a bit of a hang grenade issue for a politician to deal with, but giving it to a citizens' assembly, a group of representative people, giving them access to the experts, just like in a jury case, you know, the prosecution will present their argument, the defence will present their argument, and the jury decides, that that seems like a really good way of getting out of this gridlock, and certainly that's a frustration that that I see is that some of these big issues, political parties, government doesn't seem to want to deal with it because it might be unpopular and we might not get re-elected. We see that at a local government with, you know, underfunding and infrastructure because they want to keep the rates low. We see it at central government, they don't want to deal with these big issues because they might be unpopular. Handing them over to a citizens' assembly seems like such an easy win for a politician. What why do you think it hasn't happened already?

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Well, we all are Tiro, we've hosted a few events with international experts to address this topic, and some of the international experts have said that politicians are really reluctant to cede power. Um to my mind, you know, there's some intractable issues that our politicians and successive governments of all different stripes have failed to grapple with and just have kicked the can down the road. So look, if the politicians aren't sorting it, I'm baffled why they're not using this really practical, effective tool that's worked overseas. Uh, we've seen it work really well in local government in New Zealand. Again, in Australia, there are many examples in towns and states where it's worked really well to solve these really tricky, thorny questions and actually take the heat and the politics out of some of these uh issues. However, in New Zealand, we haven't used it at the central government level. So I do congratulate Opportunity Party for having uh this crafted policy. I'm aware other parties have put out positive statements and policies as well. I think I'd be urging all political parties to be using this tool. It it works. And I think that's at the heart of the issue. We should be using uh a tool in our toolkit if it works.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Yeah, I mean that that's absolutely opportunities and you know, whole thinking, you know, we're not an ideological party, we're an evidence-based party. If it works, we should do it. It doesn't matter where the idea came from. And you mentioned Ireland earlier. That that for me is the perfect example. Abortion rights in a really Catholic country, hugely contentious issue, no politician wanted to deal with it, handed it over to uh Citizens Assembly, they came up with a solution, and it enables the politician to kind of be slopey-shouldered and say, oh, it wasn't me, but this is what the Citizens Assembly decided, so this is what we're gonna do. That seems like such an obvious, you know, no-brainer win for a politician to kind of hand that one away. Um I don't really get why it's not happened yet. Hopefully it will happen soon. If it does, what do you see as the kind of top of the list first issue you would like a National Citizens Assembly to deal with in New Zealand?

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Well, there's so many issues that I think it would be just perfect for New Zealand that these tricky, thorny issues that we haven't managed to grapple with, that there's a lot of heat, a lot of light, maybe not such great considered public discourse around. Something every political party is talking about this election is things like superannuation, the age, compulsory kiwi saver contributions, uh, should babies be enrolled at birth. I think this would be a perfect topic for a citizens' assembly where you could get people from across generations uh to come together in their diversity with access to economists and experts and actually resolve this question. The political fault lines, both left and centre-right governments, uh are pretty divided on the issue of the superannuation age. We do know this is going to be an issue going forward. When we effectively designed our superannuation settings in the 1970s, there were seven workers for every uh retired person receiving superannuation. That's currently at about four in 50 years. There'll be two workers for every retired person in New Zealand. Now, there's lots of other conversations we could have around how government books should be run and the budgets, but I think this is a real live issue that would benefit from this. Other areas from climate adaptation to local council amalgamations, there's so many other issues that we could be using these policies as well. One of the things I really uh take a lot of confidence and hope for the future out of them, you talked about the Irish referendum on abortion. Paris, France also had a very successful one on climate policy many years ago, responding to the George LA protest, the yellow jacket protest and issues around just transition. Of the ordinary citizens who participated in that process, around 5% of them ended up running for local government in France. The message I take out from that is when citizens see their democracy working, they want to get more involved in it. And that's such a positive feedback loop.

SPEAKER_04 12:09

We talked to some people on the street asking them if they could be on a citizens' assembly, what big issue they'd like to discuss. And we'll just go to San Oo, who was talking about the superannuation that you were just talking about, Gareth.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

My name is San Oo.

SPEAKER_04 12:26

Hi, nice to meet you.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:28

You live in Duneda?

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 12:31

Um we're just talking about citizen assembly. If you have the chance to go on a citizen assembly, what do you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_02 13:05

We must be able to meet the application of the years to articulate that the inflation is not high at the moment. Great. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 13:21

So Sanu talking about the proposed changes to super and being raised to six percent and how people who are just scraping by now would be able to afford that and just yeah, talking about that broader issue in a Citizens' Assembly would be able to nut out those issues a bit more thoroughly.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Oh, I think it you know it's a classic issue that we haven't grappled with historically. Some big pressures, some big questions. Do we means test it for those getting super at the moment? When should any age changes start? How do we save for it in the future? Likewise with tax policy, I see you know different parties talking about capital gains taxes, wealth taxes, land value taxes, uh, tax exemptions for landlords. There's lots of different issues that I think we could, you know, go to ordinary citizens. I think one of the main objections people often raise to citizens' assemblies is the cost of paying ordinary citizens for their time to participate in this project. I'd look at the counterfactual, which is how much money are we wasting on policies that go nowhere, policies that flip-flop between successive governments? Take state housing. I think this is another classic one we could ask ordinary citizens for advice in direction going forward. Historically, we see one party or one government side build a bunch of King Ora state houses and another side sell them off, and then the cycle returns. You know, could we have a much more enduring uh consensus across society what the appropriate level is, how we can actually commit to housing all New Zealanders? So I think we would actually ultimately save a hell of a lot more money than the relatively small amounts of money we would spend convening citizens and asking for their expert advice.

SPEAKER_04 15:03

So citizens would be paid to be on a citizens' assembly? Do you how would that work?

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Yeah, that has been the case. Uh that citizens are remunerated for their time uh in most of them. I know in Tadafadi with their land use transition, uh uh a generous donor is supporting that to take some of the pressure off the council uh overseas where governments have been convening them or Australia, people are remunerated, much like when someone's you know on a jury duty, they're um fairly compensated as well. We're not talking about huge amounts of money. I think it's a question of fairness. But what's really interesting is when you do have these citizens' assemblies, Simon Wilson, the New Zealand journalist, was recently talking about one in Auckland uh where they were looking at the Takapuna golf course and some of the contentious community issues around there. Um for me it was a really good example. That the citizens had there was a 0% dropout rate. I believe it was maybe three Saturdays that the citizens were convening to talk about these Takapuna golf club issues. Zero people dropped out. They were so invested in it. Overseas, we've seen examples where they've voluntarily reconvened after they've given the feedback to the government or decision maker because they wanted to follow up on how things were going out. At the moment, our feedback mechanisms, I think, are broken. Uh, we've seen twice as many submissions to Parliament this term, I believe, in the last few decades. Um, but I don't think they're really changing policy. I've chaired a select committee, I've seen how um often they are treated across party lines. Governments don't necessarily listen to submissions that are opposed to the intent of the policy direction. We're kind of stuck in these old models which just aren't working anymore. I'm not arguing against consultation. I'm saying we should be enhancing it and using new tools, including new technologies or processes like citizens' assemblies to make sure the consultation's actually working ultimately so we get better decisions.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Yeah, and that that's the key thing for me. You know, we've seen the social cohesion uh report from the Helen Clark Foundation, we've seen, you know, lessening trust in politics. And it's because people don't know how the decision's been made, why the decision's been made. And if if I could go into a citizens assembly and maybe see that actually 90% of the people in the room think we should do X, but I think we should do Y. But I can see I'm in the minority. I'm gonna be kind of more okay with that decision because I understand that my view is the minority view. Everyone else thinks this, and I I've seen both sides, so now I accept it. At the moment we've got a lot of angry people sitting at home thinking, oh, why have they done that? Oh, they're stupid, oh they don't understand. Whereas if they'd been in the room and and heard both sides, they may be more understanding. They may not agree with it still, but at least they'd be understanding. And that that for me is key to building trust, building engagement.

SPEAKER_04 18:01

Aaron Ross Powell What what happens if they get their recommendation at the end of the Citizens' Assembly and the government chooses to ignore that? How does that work?

SPEAKER_00 18:11

How does uh Yeah well opportunities policy would include the creation of a parliamentary commissioner that would force Parliament to respond to the recommendation of a Citizens Assembly. Um Parliament can choose to not do what the Citizens Assembly recommend, um, but they have to publicly say why we're not doing it. And of course then that's you know a decision for the voters to say, well, the people told you to do this, you said no, I'll bear that in mind when it comes to election time. So the the policy allows for the issue to be debated in Parliament, the recommendation for the Citizens Assembly to be publicly debated in Parliament, and Parliament have to choose not to follow it if they want to and explain why.

SPEAKER_04 18:56

Right, let's just hear from someone else. Uh we've got Laura here talking about AI. Her name's Laura. Hi Laura. If you were going to be on the Citizens Assembly, what bigger shoe would you like to have discussed or to talk about?

SPEAKER_03 19:10

Um personally interested in how territory education and equip students on employment and how um they can work together with AI and being a channel issue and obstacle to overcome something like that. That's great.

SPEAKER_04 19:28

Thanks, Laura. Thank you. So Laura talking about the big issue of AI and how we can prepare um students through tertiary education and for employers to um work with that rather than seeing it as a massive obstacle.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Oh, another great topic where, you know, we've got this almost like a speed and freight train coming right at us. We don't know what the impact's gonna be, but we know it's gonna be huge. How do we grapple with it as a society? Likewise, you know, social media, we see different political parties talking in countries looking at social media age bands. You know, again, I'd love to be talking to ordinary folks. Reflecting on what Ian Walker said when he was in New Zealand, you know, when a politician launches a policy, um, you know, people see, you know, and have um a view of politicians or, you know, often if someone from one side says it, people automatically think, oh, of course that person or that side would say something like that. We wrap, you know, um bias and invested interest in these decisions. If people see other citizens just like them, without those vested interests or biases, come up with policy solutions. I think it is what you were just saying before, it really helps build that collective trust.

SPEAKER_04 20:43

So it becomes just more about the issue that you're trying to solve. The problem is that the right. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

And too often I think politics is sort of all about the retail, all about the headline, the slogan, the soundbite. In many cases, it can be a bunch of wish lists, wish lists for the future. I think what citizens assemblies help bring it the debate back to is the trade-offs. These are contentious issues because they're hard. There are very real trade-offs and complexities involved. I think if we can move it to a more s considered substantive conversation than just the soundbite slogans we hear too often in the media, we're ultimately going to build that trust and get better decisions.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Yeah, spot spot on, Gareth. Uh it's very, very rare that there's a policy that is good for everyone, that is a win for everyone. There's almost always going to be trade-offs and compromises and and benefits for some and and not so much for others. And understanding those those benefits and those trade offs and those compromises are are key, right? For to build that trust, build that engagement.

SPEAKER_04 21:46

Would only the people that are on the uh citizens' assemblies have input or is it will be other mechanisms or just the people?

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Um I think we s we see it very much like a jury, so rather than you know, two twelve People of your peers, we we think kind of a hundred, hundred and forty kind of people is a good number for a citizen's assembly. Um and that and they have various experts present um information. They can request more information if they need more information, if they want to dive into something, they can they can dive into something in a bit more detail. Um and all of that information is is then made public afterwards to kind of show everybody this is what they saw, this is how they made that.

SPEAKER_04 22:31

So the public can follow along.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Um, you know, I've not been called up for jury duty, but you know, anyone could get that letter in the mail inviting them to attend. And and that's really important. I I've seen criticism of citizens' assemblies of oh, it'll always be the same old people turning up. A bit like you get in in local government, you know, where where I work that it's the same people making the submissions and it's the minority that get their voice heard. It's really important that citizens' assemblies are not self-selecting. You don't get to put yourself forward and say, I'll do it. Um you get selected at random a representative group of New Zealanders to make sure it is it is fair and you're not having a minority influence the decision and put their put their thumb on the scales.

SPEAKER_04 23:15

So for the the question about superannuation, yeah, you obviously have a wide range of age. So the young people, older people, everyone in between, all the demographics.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Yeah, exactly. You know, some someone who's uh 64 may not want the retirement age increasing, um whereas someone who's who's 20, it may not really bother them whether they retire at 65, 66, because when you're 20, that's a million years away and that'll never happen. Um and you may be willing to, uh as Gareth was saying, you know, the trade-off might be, hey, we could potentially recrease increase the retirement age to 66 or 67, but then we could afford to give every baby born in New Zealand a thousand dollars kickstart in their in their KiwiSaver account. Um, you know, that that may be a trade-off that for some people they'd be willing to take, and for other people they may not be willing to take, but they can debate that issue and listen to both sides and and get some consensus and some trust in the decision-making process.

SPEAKER_04 24:11

What about the Maori voice?

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Would that be presented? That's absolutely crucial, and and we've um included that in our in our policy um that we'd make sure we we honor Tittariti to ensure Maori voices are integral to every citizens' assembly um through that participation and and dedicated engagement with with EUE and Maori organizations.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Maybe just on that point, uh, you know, we've been world leading in that regard with the first Indigenous-led citizens' assembly in Potidua convened by NATITOA, looking at climate adaptation and issues of climate change in that region. I'm and we all as part of Helmut Modlik, the CE of Natitoa's Reshape initiative, trying to make sure we modernize democracy so it's working uh for our age. And, you know, Helmet is a great champion for how that's worked on the ground to bring that community together to build trust. So yeah, we're seeing it everything from EWE led through to town and city, other governments around the world. I just think, wouldn't it be fantastic if a future government in New Zealand could use this powerful tool?

SPEAKER_04 25:16

Thanks, Gareth. Um we've we've come to the end already. Um thank you. We really appreciate the time you've spent with us. Uh thanks, Dave. Um and to our people on the street for adding their voices and thanks for listening. Next time on the Otago Opportunity, we'll be talking about teaching civics in schools. Did you learn civics at school? What do you wish you'd learned?

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Join us then to hear more.org.nz.