Photo by Brian Rope

CAPaD promotes individual and community well-being and the common good in a healthy environment by advancing education to inspire people to participate in strengthening democracy.

Our Vision

A democratic Australia — where citizens trust their elected representatives, hold them accountable, engage in decision making, and sustain the public good.

Our Mission

To promote individual and community well-being and the common good in a healthy environment by advancing education to inspire people to participate in strengthening democracy.

Our Creed

Real democracy is Participatory. It produces decisions that put people first — all people, not just the top 1% and not just the political class.

Does it mean we do politicians' work for them? No, it means we help them to work for us.

Will it really work? Yes! There is ample evidence and experience around the world, but there is also strong resistance, so we need you to be a part of building an unstoppable social movement.

We believe there are better ways to govern ourselves than the current choices offered us, and so government in Australia can be made a lot more democratic than it presently is.

We believe that the most important thing to do is get people more actively participating in the decision making process. There are many ways to do this, and many places in decision making for people to join in.

The key thing is to get involved in what interests you at whatever level you like in acting for change.

CAPaD’s Theory of Change 2025

The Canberra Alliance for Participatory Democracy (CAPaD) believes good governance is fundamental for the wellbeing of people and the planet. The key to good governance is a strong democratic political system.

CAPaD aims to make the political system work more democratically by fostering active community participation in governance through experiential education.

By engaging, involving and collaborating with people, communities, organisations, public servants and members of parliament (MPs) to promote:

  • understanding of governance, power, and political systems;
  • conversations about good governance and democracy;
  • communities contributing to government and parliamentary deliberation about the decisions that affect their lives;
  • governments using inclusive, deliberative, and transparent community engagement processes;
  • selecting representatives who can effectively contribute to good governance, contribute to the public good and genuinely represent their communities; and
  • creating mechanisms to hold MPs accountable;

we contribute to building community capacity for meaningful participation in government processes so our political system will function more democratically, and governments will make wise, long-term decisions for humanity and all species—even when facing resistance from powerful interests.

 

Operating Style and principles driving the Alliance

The Alliance places high value on

  • Commitment to
    • sustainability
    • equity
    • inclusive prosperity
    • justice
  • Community focus
  • Democratic outlook and practice
  • Respect for all
  • Diversity
  • Non-partisan approaches
  • Trustworthiness
  • Credibility
  • Transparency
  • Wide accountability

 Style of Operation

  • Seek broad-based participation across Canberra
  • Strengthen existing community, faith, environmental and civil society groups
  • Build on volunteerism and publicly acknowledged donations
  • Employ a learning-by-doing mode.

2024 - 25 Committee Members:

Convenor: Peter Tait

Deputy Convener: Barbara O'Dwyer

Secretary:

Treasurer: Mark Spain

Ordinary Member: Bob Douglas

Ordinary Member: Gilles Rohan

 

 

For more details about the Committee, see our Committee page.

Constitutional Objectives of the Association

To promote individual and community well-being and the common good in a healthy environment by advancing education to inspire people to participate in strengthening democracy by:

(1) empowering people in Australia, and particularly Canberra, to own and effectively participate in creating our common future by developing and supporting genuine citizen, community and civil society engagement in public decision making,


(2) stimulating and facilitating opportunities for citizens and community to participate in government and particularly parliamentary deliberation,


(3) developing and assisting citizen and community capacity to hold government, parliament, our elected representatives and policymakers more directly accountable,


(4) to establish and maintain a public fund to be called the Awakening Democracy Foundation for the specific purpose of supporting the educational objects of CAPaD, and


(5) any other purposes beneficial to the general public and analogous to the other charitable purposes

 

Download the CAPaD Constitution.

Where the Alliance came from

The Canberra Alliance grew out of a series of “Kitchen Table Conversations” held in Canberra by SEE-Change in 2014 which identified many issues of concern to participants who believed they were being inadequately addressed by governments.

Issues included the high-speed rail link, food production, housing availability, fairer taxation, refugees, environmental regulation, overseas aid, public transport and climate change.

A common thread in conversations was the failure of government to protect the common good.

The full report from the kitchen table conversations is available here.

The Canberra Alliance was formed by some of the participants from these conversations, with the aim to develop strategies to make the views of members available to decision-makers, and bring the power of the people to bear on government decision making through various participatory and deliberative democracy methods.