I am writing in response to your editorial of Thursday, October 12 (CCN 411) in which you incorrectly use the term “participatory democracy” to describe our existing system of local government.
While your call to our local citizens to nominate as candidates in next year’s council elections is to be wholeheartedly welcomed, their participation in our local representative democracy should not be carelessly mis-labeled, lest the cohort of newly elected councillors later come to discover that the advertised “participatory democracy” is not what is contained in the package they have signed-up to.
Indeed, our new councillors will find that their actual existing ability to affect the everyday lives of citizens, infrastructure development and public services, environmental policies and community development is severely constrained, being limited to the residual issues the NSW Local Government Act, state planning legislation and other laws and regulations permits them to decide.
Local planning powers have been progressively removed from our council, the system of state planning policies and wide-ranging ministerial discretions prevail over the preferences and aspirations of our local populations and councillors need to navigate a maze of imposed regulations before stepping-up to the microphone in the council chamber.
More recently, it has become fashionable to liken our council’s governing body to that of a board of directors in a corporation, the citizenry being consequently reduced in status to “shareholders”.
This neoliberal tendency, if allowed to take hold, represents a further decline of the core democratic principles we ought to uphold.
Our system of representative democracy empowers elected decision makers to govern on behalf of citizens.
This is the basic model in operation at local, state and federal levels.
While this system has begun to include some nominated opportunities for consultation, comment and objection from citizens as well as making very limited provision for referenda, it cannot be said that this amounts to a participatory democracy, no matter how much consultation, commentary or other forms of reactive involvement citizens are afforded and engaged in.
In contrast, a participatory democracy empowers citizens to directly make decisions on issues that affect them in the areas they live in.
In effect, their decisions would become binding on any jurisdiction – local, state or federal and prevail insofar as a decision is otherwise lawful.
By definition, a participatory democracy incorporates features of a direct democracy in which citizens are afforded a measure of self-governance in local matters.
Clearly, we don’t hold citizens assemblies or town meetings to decide on issues like the proposed construction of a sea wall or the development of the Gosford City waterfront because our Local Government Act does not allow for such a democratic process to take place. Instead, we are invited to make submissions and representations – none of which legally bind the decision makers.
Likewise, we are not asked to share the responsibility of setting council’s budget (participatory budgeting) nor do we have precinct committees to select delegates to local planning panels (participatory planning).
As local citizens, we ultimately have the ability to seek redress in our excellent courts when we are unsuccessful in our representations to councillors and council’s administration.
This is our legitimate democratic right but a last and very unappealing recourse which illustrates the limit of the participation we are currently entitled to under our present system.
I appreciate that your editorial is designed to encourage locals to come forward as aspiring civic leaders to represent us in the democracy we have.
While there are many good and worthwhile things that councillors can do to promote and advocate for the aspirations we share as local communities and to help prevent the kind of developments and trends that patently lack a local social license, we should be careful to not attribute powers to them which they do not have; powers that belong to others working out of Macquarie Street and state government departments.
Among the goals that our new councillors can strive for is a transition to a genuine participatory democracy.
While their responsibilities will not include the making of changes to NSW legislation, their advocacy of and support for a grass roots democratic role by local citizens in our affairs will be essential.
Email, Oct 14
Wolfgang Koerner, Point Clare