The Mackellar People’s Jury on Housing

In June I’m holding a people’s jury on housing, an all-day gathering where a group of 30 Mackellar residents will tackle one of the most difficult questions facing our community: how to make housing more affordable and available on the Northern Beaches. Why am I taking this approach? Because I believe in giving our community a genuine opportunity to have a say on critical issues like this. And there’s no shortage of wisdom and experience in Mackellar. 

Housing policy is complex. People often have different views influenced by their position in the housing market. A person who bought in the Northern Beaches 30 years ago might put a high value on preserving their amenity and house values. A person with an investment property might have a different perspective to someone trying to get into the market. Someone who is renting might prioritise cost and being close to transport and beaches. But that doesn’t mean they can’t see each other’s perspectives. 

A deliberative democracy event is designed to create a mini-public, a diverse range of people that reflects the community affected by the decision. This microcosm of a population is then allocated considerable time and information to help reach a consensus decision.  

The group is tasked with not merely considering what its members want, but also what trade-offs they can accept in order to agree on a list of priorities. Often the work is difficult, but we know citizens have the necessary willingness and skill to make these decisions, after all we trust juries to make the right and wise decisions on innocence or guilt of a person.  

Three ideals are prerequisite for a public deliberation: inclusion or representativeness; deliberation, during which strengths and weaknesses of various options are considered; and influence or impact. It’s important that decision makers agree to act on or have their positions informed by the recommendations of the jury, and if not, then publicly explain why. 

Deliberative democracy has had a recent renaissance, being used increasingly to resolve difficult issues and move forward. The leading country using people’s juries in decision making is Ireland where all parties have embraced the mechanism. In Europe it’s taken hold, as an OECD paper, the Deliberative Wave, shows. 

Over the last few weeks I’ve been undertaking the jury selection process in conjunction with the not-for-profit organisation, newDemocracy, which has expertise in running deliberative democracy events. We’ve sent invitations to 5000 random households who can indicate their interest in being involved, and newDemocracy will select the final 30 to ensure a jury reflecting the demographics of our Mackellar community.  

Everyone is invited to tune to the livestream as the housing experts present their solutions to the jury on June 15. They are Dr Peter Tulip from the Centre for Independent Studies; Melissa Neighbour from advocacy group, Yes in my Backyard; John Brockoff from the Planning Institute of Australia; Wendy Hayhurst from the Community Housing Association; and Dr Richard Denniss, from the Australia Institute.  

I will also be informing the community of the outcomes of the deliberation through an on-line presentation in early August. Your submissions and survey results will also be put to the Jury. So please send them in via my website. 

My role is to listen. Once I have the jury’s views, I will be communicating them to state and federal housing ministers. As Iain Walker the CEO of new Democracy says, “When given the authority, time, and information, everyday people take the tough questions, side-step party lines, and deliver sensible answers.”