CAPaD and Active Democracy Bean are hosting a four‑part event series exploring how the ACT’s political and governance systems can better serve Canberrans and nature.

Across winter and spring, we’ll bring together former leaders, community voices and local residents to reflect on the past, examine the present and co‑design ideas for the future.

The series includes:

Reimagining how the ACT Assembly might work: looking back, looking forward

Video of the June 15 event is here.

Notes from the Panel are here.

The Poll results for the Co-Design Workshop are available here.

The Full Report from the Re-Imagining the ACT Assembly series is available here.

Videos of the Co-Design Workshop groups report back are here (part 1) and here (part 2).

Spotlight on Community Councils

– what do they do, challenges and opportunities, and where to from here?

Spotlight on Community Councils looked at what Community Councils themselves, the government, other parties in the Assembly and the community think their role in governance (not government) of the ACT might be.

On July 20^th, at the Irish Club in Weston, CAPaD and Active Democracy Bean hosted a panel discussion with representatives of the Community Councils Jeff Bollard and Nelson Tang, Andrew Braddock from the Greens, Fiona Carrick Independent and with long time involvement in the Woden Valley Community Council, Peter Cain from the Canberra Liberals and Taimus Werner-Gibbings from the government.

In the recent events on Re-Imagining the ACT Assembly, Canberrans ideas regarding possibly extended roles for community councils included:

• Make Community Councils directly elected by citizens, receive funding from the ACT government, and require their consultation on issues,
• Create development committees in each suburb to provide responses to all development applications affecting the suburb,
• Consultation needs to be real. Community submissions taken seriously and genuine attempts made to achieve best outcomes for all development (this catches the current role of community councils as consultative bodies).

YouTube Video links

Spotlight On Community Councils_Part 1 - panel discussion.

Spotlight On Community Councils_Part 2 - audience conversation.

The summary report is here.

Expanding the ACT Assembly for better government – is it time?

• 19 October – Do more MLAs make for better government?

A Standing Citizens Assembly for the ACT

• 16th November - A Citizens Assembly for the ACT project launch, (see tab below).

These events are designed to spark public conversation, generate practical proposals and build momentum for democratic renewal in the ACT.

More details for each of these events and registration links can be found on the Events page as they are opened.

This poll and the Community Assembly on March 8th was an experiment in how we, the constituents, might extend how we participate with our MPs in supporting them fulfill their representative role.

The poll helped us find what government actions Canberrans agree are the most important for our MPs in 2026.

The Community Assembly derived two proposals for our MPs:

1. Implement a gas export levy in line with the ‘fair share’ levy (as proposed by the Super
Power Institute), and

2. Implement all the recommendations of the Murphy Report (You win some, you lose more,
the report of its inquiry into online gambling and its impacts on those experiencing gambling
harm).

The final Report on the 2026 What Canberrans want our MPs to do Poll and Assembly is here.

The follow up Assembly, to ask our MPs to tell us how they contributed to implementing a gas export levy and the Murphy Report, is scheduled for December 6th. Woden Valley Uniting Church at 1400.  See our Events page for more details.

In 2027 we plan to repeat the Poll and the Community Assembly process to help our MPs in their representative work.

Further, the REPORT from the Poll is here. Further Poll Thematic Analysis is here.

Reflections on Pol.is by the Committee and from the After Surveys are here.

A Summary and a full copy of the After Survey results are here (summary) and here (full copy).

Statements were moderated. Proposals that were offensive, off topic, vague or didn’t contribute to the conversation were rejected. A full copy of the Moderation Policy is here.

The video introducing Pol.is and how CAPaD is using it, is here (it's a bit rough).

Here’s a 7min video of how Pol.is is being used in Taiwan to increase participation in their government.

Find further information about Pol.is here.

The ACT Standing Citizens’ Assembly (SCA) is a three-year project to trial well facilitated input from Canberrans to governance in the ACT with the purpose of assisting the ACT Legislative Assembly to govern and have better social and environmental outcomes. It builds on international experience of citizens’ assemblies.

You can find more information here. If you are interested in being involved, email the Secretary.

Project launch (formal), November 16th, 6pm, Irish Club Weston. See Events.

Direct Democracy is an ideal. It seems to work in small groups but in large and dispersed groups, can we do direct democracy?

Sociocracy provides an answer.

This session will explore questions such as: what is it? does it work? do we spend all day in meetings? Is direct democracy achieved?

A conversation between Peter Tait and Yolanda van Gellecum of Co-operative Bonds and NENA.

Video of the conversation is here

2026 February 1 AI in Democracy Part 2

‘Well, that was unexpectedly good fun’, one participant in the exercise asking KairosGPT what it advises in answer to these questions:

1. What do you do about improving democracy in Australia when people won't change their mind and won't listen?
2. How can we use the apparent weaknesses of democracy to strengthen democracy?
3. How can we make democracy work effectively in everyday activities?
4. Could you turn all of this in our conversation into the outline for a learning program for the community?

The full transcript can be found here.

Finally it suggested some remarkably sensible ideas for a course teaching democratic practice. Core Lesson: forget the theory and ideology, teach people to build and use democratic structures.

A couple of other observations:

Democracy’s greatest strength is that it assumes the worst of human nature — and plans accordingly.

Video links: Part 2a Continuing the Journey https://youtu.be/M0NJ6CRu0sY; Part 2b Course outline https://youtu.be/iEWaCT7PHe0

2025 December 14, Pol.is – finding what the people want

This session explored the Pol.is app, its origins and how it has been used elsewhere. It introduces CAPaD's project to help our ACT federal MPs know what Canberrans want them to focus on in 2026.

The video is here (it's a bit rough).

More details, and access to the live Pol.is poll can be found on this page in the What do we want our MPs to do tab (just at the top of these tabs).

Here’s a 7min video of how Polis is being used in Taiwan to increase participation in their democracy.

2025 November 16, Exploring radical political change with AI; What could go wrong?

Several themes came through.

Overall participants found the event useful, with most attendees changing their mind and feeling more informed about the use of AI. Ecological and social adverse impacts of AI were noted. If choosing to use large language models (LLMs/AI), the platform chosen is important because different applications are programmed to take different approaches to gathering and reporting information. The information gathered is not new and reflects what we already (mostly) know. It is however presented in a way that can save time. Use of AI can also develop into a conversation with the machine. Lots more in the video and much more to discuss.

Video here.

The Chat with AI on democracy notes.

2025, October 26 Lawrie Nock: five ways to improve government in Australia:

Secret e-voting in Parliament, Selecting Executive Council not from MPs, Selecting Australian Head of Government from the people, Multi-member electorates, Taxpayers allocate their tax.

2024 June 11, Local government in Australia: an institution for deliberative power sharing?

Anne Jedzini discusses her research on the scope for power-sharing between citizens and local government power-holders. She explored whether council actors considered if they shared power, and if so how. Were there deliberative elements; what conditions allowed power sharing and how did the different councils deliberate and share?
Essentially all councils thought they were sharing power but the inclination to do so and how it was done differed. The prior culture of each council was a determining factor.
For CAPaD the question then is how can citizens gain an increase in power with local government? Local government, being the 'closest' level of government to the people, is a logical site for greater democratic participation.

Video here.

2023 September 3rd, Living Democracy Conversation 3

It is clear that attendees know that we are in strife and the world as we know it is falling apart, that government is not acting as we expect and need but instead seem to have stopped caring and focus on risk management. Tim re-emphasises the need to build substitute systems even as existing ones crumble. Attendees were keen to form community and work together for solutions.

Video here.

July 2, 2023 Exercising our democratic muscles and 3rd September Making Living Democracy – zoom events

Building on the May Canberra Conversation, this event explored Tim Hollo's Living Democracy, with a focus on withholding consent and building the alternative systems.

A write up summarising the event is here.

The Zoom Recording is here.

The video of the third Canberra Conversation zoom on Living Democracy into being is here.

May 28, 2023 - Creating Democratic Energy Systems in Australia

Kevin Cox has been advocating for democratising energy for many years.

Mark Spain is active in promoting localised solutions in global contexts.

Wendy Russell has been researching community batteries and micro-grids for ANU.

They will introduce the ideas for localised democratic energy systems and then open up to discussion for how these might be created by local communities here in the ACT in particular. New thinking is required but not all is as easy as it seems.

The Zoom recording is here.

You can find more about Kevin's ideas for sharing profits leading to a circular economy here. Have a look at this outline for a way to fund well-being - or things that do not have to make a profit

October 23rd, 2022 - CAPaD’s future activity focus

Purpose:

To explore members views about the reasons for and implications of:

- establishing the Awakening Democracy Foundation to receive tax deductible donations for educational charity purposes;

- consequent key word changes in the objects in the CAPaD constitution (as per AGM proposal) from government to parliament, or some other wording, so that the objectives reflect our current focus;

- scope other possible constitutional changes to reflect our evolving activity focus; and

- members being involved in various action learning projects bringing democracy to the people

See Events to register and download background reading.

September 18th, 2022 - What have we learned from the 2022 Election?

The 50 minute YouTube video is here.

A brief summary of the session is here.

July 2022, 17th. The Genuine Engagement Tool.

In this 17 minute video Mark Spain outlines and explains the Genuine Engagement Tool that CAPaD has developed from our experiences observing citizen juries in action over the past several years, and from our collaboration with the OECD review of deliberative forums. For more information and a downloadable copy of the tool, see here.

September 2020, 2nd and 9th  Empathy and Collaborative Meaning-Making: An Overview of Citizens’ Councils

The details from the sessions held can be found on this page. This workshop gave a taste of Dynamic Facilitation as a process in the “operating system” of the Citizens’ Councils recently featured in the OECD’s report on “Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions”. It was hosted and facilitated by Rosa Zubizarreta, Andy Paice, Martha Cuffy and Mark Spain.

August 2020 Mark Evans, Democracy 2025 – bridging the trust divide 

The YouTube video in here. The powerpoint presentation is here.

July

2020 Citizen Review of 2017-18 ACT Deliberative Processes
Lyn Stephen's paper: Government with the people - building trust in deliberative processes, and slide presentation.

The YouTube video is available here.

June 2020 ACT Election - Choosing the candidate who will deliver government with we, the people.

Zoom presentation and discussion.

May 2020 Revitalising democracy: possibilities for electorate level mobilisations to achieve better parliamentary representation

Look at the session video here.

Genuine Engagement Tool for Participatory Processes

The Genuine Engagement Tool (GET) is designed to help any community reflect on their experience of how effectively their government is engaging with them to make wise decisions together for the public good.

It is designed to help communities stimulate their critical thinking by answering key simple questions in 11 categories to review any government engagement process and it is particularly suited to implementing effective citizens assemblies.

By using the tool, communities can get clear insights on how they can keep their own power and agency over what can work better and they can communicate more transparently about how governments can engage better.

You can get an open source copy of the Genuine Engagement Tool for community groups here and you can read the story of how it was developed here.

A brief video explaining the tool and how to use it is here.

Please download it, use this, acknowledge the source and feedback to us how you went with using it.

Active Democracy ACT

It’s time for our voices to be heard: Active Democracy wants to change how our federal MPs work with and for us.

An Active Democracy group has set up in Bean. Information and contact details are here.

People in Canberra and Fenner who want to join in, please click the Join in ... button.

The more people participating together, the stronger we can be.

The failure of civics education in schools is recognised as one factor in low 'political literacy' in Australia.

This project wants to see how teachers can be supported to provide civics education that students find fun and stimulating.

And to see what can be offered to adults, particularly migrants from other political systems.

One outcome might be a Community of Practice around education for civics what would provide a space to “explore and share questions and topics re democracy education; provide some advice, resources, and maybe even training to teachers to support their civics teaching”.

There are other possibilities.

Our conversation is only just beginning (May 2023).

Some early thoughts are set out here.

Ideas from our first conversation are here.

Keep an eye on our Events page for further meetings.

Why Kitchen Table Conversations?

CAPaD values the kitchen table conversation (KTC) method as a way to connect people through community-based, self-managing conversations. We believe that many people hosting and participating in KTCs will help create the pre-conditions for people to desire and be able to join in participatory democracy.

We want to use Kitchen Table Conversations as a way to bring people together to work toward all our objectives.

The primary aims of the KTC method are:

• to connect people
• to give them the chance to listen non-judgementally to what others think about things
• to safely express and develop their own opinions.

CAPaD does not primarily use KTCs as a way of gathering input to Government consultation processes.
We do advocate for other community groups and the ACT government to use community dialogue such as KTCs, but we support them to do that where we feel we can add value.

KTCs can feed into other participatory and deliberative practices.

The KTC Methods Action Group was formed at the start of 2018. It reviewed KTC materials developed and used by other groups (including SEE-Change in the ACT), and developed its own KTC Kit with optional discussion questions.

This was launched in November 2018 and is free for all to use. You can download the CAPaD KTC kit here.

Go ahead and develop new discussion topics and modify the process however you wish, and use it for any small-group discussion.

CAPaD would love to hear about your experiences and any feedback you might have. Please contact by emailing the Secretary.

What’s in the kit?

• 1. Summary of the KTC process
• 2. Why CAPaD recommends Kitchen Table Conversations
• 3. How the process works
• 4. The courage to host
• 5. Conversation agreements
• 6. Role of the Host
• 7. Role of the Scribe
• Attachment A: Conversation guide A: Democracy in the ACT
• Attachment B: Conversation guide B: What’s important to you? (ACT-region focus)
• Attachment C: Conversation guide C: Choose your own topic
• Attachment D: Sample invitation

DemFest 21

A festival celebrating  locally driven democracy in Australia.

We continue to hold conversations to look at how we can mend democracy. See our Events.

Visit the DemFest21 site to view the presentations and watch the videos of the sessions

DemFest 2016

DemFest 2016: People Power for Democracy : Canberra’s first Festival of Democracy was held over the weekend of 18–19 June 2016 at the University of Canberra.

2024-25 Project - Democracy in Action! Conversations

An offshoot of the Living Democracy program to develop awareness among ACT voters about representation for the public good and focusing on means to choose candidates who will work for the public good and community participation in politics. We run this for the ACT election in 2024 and the 2025 federal election.

In more detail:

Developing a more exact job description for parliamentarians in the lead up to the federal election, to capture in more detail how we expect them to work for the public good and then use that to develop a mechanism for reporting that to the MP’s electorate community.

Based in the outputs of the 2024 ACT election Democracy in Action! Conversations, hold another series of conversations to look at what the role of a parliamentarian entails and then use this to write a job description for them, including performance indicators.

Link this to conversation about candidate selection alternatives with Progress Action Labs work.

Holding another round of Know Your Candidate forums based on that job description and indicators for federal election candidates to explain how they will measure up to these.

Advocating for an ACT participatory budgeting trial with the new Assembly.

The current state of ACT finances has put a hold on this action.

The Canberra Forum: 'Another way of listening'

In 2023 Alicia Payne, ALP member for the ACT federal electorate of Canberra, and DemocracyCo ran the Canberra Forum, a citizen participation event to explore other ways for MPs and citizens to work together for the public good. Further information is available from Alicia Payne’s website.

CAPaD helped initiate and participated this initiative by coordinating support for observers and collecting observers' reflections on their experience.

The Forum chose Housing Affordability as their topic for deliberation.

The CAPaD Committee has used our Genuine Engagement Tool (GET) to reflect on the Canberra Forum. We obtained feedback from Alicia Payne and DemocracyCo. The completed reflection is available here.

Meanwhile the Report from the Forum is up on Alicia’s website and a 3 minute video reporting participants positive experience is also available.

We are interested in collecting further thoughts and ideas that you have about the Forum. If you would like to run one yourself, we are happy to advise. Again, please email us.

Deliberate ACT