Our vision: a democratic Canberra, where citizens trust their elected representatives, hold them accountable, engage in decision making and defend what sustains the public interest

We want to do more than just describe what a better democracy might look like, we want to actually make it happen in the ACT

Action Focuses

  • Continue to work with the ACT government and citizen groups to get our citizen voice heard in decisions through evaluating and advocate for more mini-public trials in the ACT
  • Building the resources ‘library’ for members and the public
  • Working between academe and the public on bringing participatory and deliberative theory into practice
  • Promote a Statement of Expectations for MLAs and Active Citizens that sets out what quality representation is
  • Promote a conversation about MLA and citizen roles across the ACT electorates
  • Run a Candidate Statements exercise for the 2020 ACT election
  • Promoting our Kitchen Table Conversations (KTCs) Tool Kit for community groups
  • Engage and work with community groups to enhance their campaign objectives

EVENTS

Featured Event

Sunday 26th July, 2-3.30pm

A CAPaD Zoom Event

Government with the people – building trust in deliberative processes

Lyn Stephens will present CAPaD’s reflections on the OECD review of citizen deliberative processes and its relevance for the ACT experience of deliberation.

A CAPaD Zoom Event - register at Humantix here. The link to the Zoom event will be send on registration.

Our report Citizen Review of 2017-18 participatory deliberative processes in the ACT can be found here.

The OECD report, Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions, is here.

 

Sunday 30th August 2020

Mark Evans, Institute of Governance and Policy Analysis (IGPA), discussing the joint IGPA and Museum of Australian Democracy Democracy 2025 Project.

More details in later July.

Upcoming Events

  1. CAPaD Committee

    29 July @ 19:00 - 21:30

View All Events

2020 ACT Legislative Assembly Election

 

We want to help voters compare candidates on:

  • why they are qualified to represent you
  • how they will protect good government and
  • how they will support public participation in policy and decision making.

We invite you to compare the candidates in your electorate on our website.

Look at our 2020 Election page.

 

Find our report on our 2019 interviews with ACT MLAs here

Exploring political representation in the ACT

 

Have a look at our activity focus for 2020

Getting a Better Democracy - 2020 ideas

 

Find out about Kitchen Table Conversations ...

Kitchen Table Conversations are a great way to build a network of friends and neighbours to find out what you are concerned about and to look for ways to change that.

... here

Deliberate ACT

Exploring how citizens and governments can better deliberate and decide together.

We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we live, work and meet, especially the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people of the Australian Capital region, and pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging.