Possible new priority 1. Citizens and governance

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Overview

Points were made about citizens and governance across all Future Melbourne 2008 goals. This discussion is ordered by the 2008 goals. This statement summed up a broad collaboration approach, which many sought, across a broad range of areas.

Collaborative green governance -- Our city is an interconnected system and the governance of it should reflect that connection. How can we collaborate across community, government and industry to make better decisions?

Governance and people (109/231)

A large number of people stated that they want increased engagement between authorities and the community. Some used terms such as participatory government. This was one succinct comment that summed up many people’s views.

I also think community engagement needs work, if people feel they are valued members of a community & they are more likely to look after & support their local communities. Inclusiveness is key.

Overall people wanted enhanced community engagement on a number of different levels and in different forums. Some questioned whether there was an over-emphasis on the digital approach, and others thought that more traditional face-to-face methods of engagement still need to be used. This was noted to be particularly the case for those not internet-connected or otherwise hard to reach, such as those where English is a second language. A few described tools, such as modelling funding allocations; that can be used by citizens as a way to gauge their priorities, and as a way for different groups to share their priorities with each other.

Several people described having more responsive community infrastructure through greater direct community feedback and through being able to inform authorities of actual needs. This was one comment that described the depth of involvement that some people seek.

Enhancing citizen participation -- Increasingly the mechanisms through which the community can engage with council on new ideas and innovation on how to tackle complex issues e.g. climate change. Both information provision, but also engagement opportunities that are genuinely open. iTree is great as a concept - harness this + make it more open to enhance community engagement. Other examples include InfoBox - Guggenheim in Berlin

People wanted more inclusion in designing solutions and making decisions on their implementation, across a broad spectrum of communities. Inclusion of the Aboriginal community was discussed in several comments, as is outlined in the statement below.

Built environment - The protection and development of Melbourne’s urban form should be underpinned by Indigenous knowledge. Having the right conversations before and during a project is important. We need to include Indigenous representatives in strategic planning boards. We also need to find an exemplar program/project to show how it can be done well. Collate knowledge from Indigenous cultural leaders and develop new ways together.

This was another idea regarding Aboriginal decision-making and the City.

First Nations Treaty – Authorisation for a Treaty process and rejection of Recognition. More Forums to come. City of Melbourne may need to reconsider their position on Treaty and scope their own First Nations Treaty as the City of Moreland is considering. The Victorian Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Centre in the CBD is also supported as a Treaty and needs a home among other things. The next step is a Feasibility Study after the five year Research Study just completed.

One specific idea was that the deaf-blind community have a representative on transport boards and project advisory committees, so that their needs can be represented. Another idea (to achieve greater input from more diverse groups), was to create a Diversity Advisory Committee, described in this idea.

The creation of a Diversity Advisory Committee of Council would help to start to address some of these issues. By engaging a variety of ethnic, LGBTQIA, youth, aged, Indigenous, homeless and disability groups, and letting them set the terms of the committee,…

While this idea stated that there should also be more support for people who are disabled.

Support for disability -- Development of strategies at the City of Melbourne and CoM encourage other organisations to employ people with a disability Poorly funded community groups cannot access meeting spaces at the Melbourne Town Hall, therefore being denied access to the democratic symbol of Local Government

There were several comments specifically related to youth engagement, people wanted to include them, gain their ideas and provide them with responsibility. One detailed idea described a 24 hour youth hub where youth can meet and discuss issues.

Increase positive youth participation -- North Melbourne Agency Collective (The NAC) is a network for agencies and groups who work with local communities in North Melbourne and its surrounding neighbourhoods. The network recently worked together and identified that there is a strong need to increase positive youth participation and engagement - civic, school, community.

Better information sharing between The Council and the community was sought by several people. An app was suggested to measure the city’s cultural ‘heart beat’ and provide feedback on how well the city is performing. This mapping idea was also proposed to promote community services.

BETTER 'MAPPING' OF COMMUNITY SERVICES -- How can we ensure that services and programs delivered by government, NGO's and not-for-profits are responsive to community need? … North Melbourne Agency Collective (The NAC) … recently worked together and identified that there is a need for an increase in structured collaboration between those delivering community services. How can we also enhance community consultation/engagement to benefit community

Decision-making and ownership within communities was also discussed. With suggestions of having leaders appointed within communities. This was one related idea, discussing community governance.

Community governance of the city -- Shift governance of the city to give more responsibility to the community, fostering ownership and stewardship of the city. This could include more opportunities for volunteering in different capacities, where council facilitates citizen care of the city, rather than owning total control of public spaces.

Groups working across a range of sectors wanted more information, engagement and influence. For example, a sports group sought more information on grants, and heritage advocates were seeking more consideration of their issues. The artists’ sector had this comment about the influence they could have.

ARTISTS@THE TABLE FOR ALL PUBLIC MATTERS -- Artists need to be involved in decisions that affect us as citizens, and not just for decisions that involve the arts. Artists should to be given a seat at the table to contribute our ideas and perspectives and unique skills. A truly cultural city would embrace having artists in the dialogue about public matters that go beyond decision making for the arts.

Some ideas were specifically focused on children, and identified where the city can support their safety.

…All children need to be protected from harm, abuse and disadvantage and we need to pay particular attention to protecting children from indigenous backgrounds, culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and children with disabilities, who are potentially more vulnerable. The City of Melbourne can lead the whole community to create a Child Safe City where all children can then have a voice, are listened to, their views are respected and they can contribute.

And children wanted to have their say on how the city is run.

City Rules by Children -- Be Kind, No Fighting, More Dinosaurs, Play Everyday, Be Awesome, Help people, No littering, Space travel is welcome!

A few Melbourne City flag change ideas were proposed, with significant conversations generated both supporting and opposing changing the current flag. The quote below is part of an original idea, which received significant positive and negative responses in a conversation.

A New flag for a modern city -- The current flag for the City of Melbourne represents an antiquated and singular representation of its citizens.

A few statements requested more regulatory action be taken to deliver higher quality and aesthetically pleasing living environments. This was one request for action.

Second point. Urgent need is required by the State Government to legislate about short stay apartments in residential buildings. We have moved out of one building because the partying on weekends, it was unbairable.

Governance and the creative city (5/231)

One idea, already quoted above, stated that artists should have more say across a variety of areas. One idea that supported this notion in a practical way was artists informing the design of spaces from an acoustic perspective, to improve human experiences. Championing Melbourne’s community radio was seen as a way to increase public engagement with the creative life of the city. Some simply stated that they want less regulations and more creative influence.

Governance and prosperity (52/231)

Future economies

Many ideas, and comments on them, related to the reorganisation of economies in the future. At the heart of most of these points was a need to reorganise how economies are regulated and managed.

One idea stated that the nature of work is changing, with the potential for radical disruption, including trends and issues like co-working, working from home, flexibility and automation. Alternative ways of organising economic systems in the future were identified as being needed, and importantly people need to be provided with an opportunity to make these changes. The benefits seen were new pathways to success and greater inclusion of broader, currently marginalised, groups. These were some of the alternative economic systems that were identified.

Alternative economic systems include the sharing economy, the craft and maker space niches, the creative arts, the circular economy (closed resource loop), solidarity economies, gift economies, and innovations in local currencies, cryptocurrencies and the blockchain.

A couple of people specifically discussed some of the alternatives listed above. One person stated that the circular economy will be worth billions in the future and Melbourne should be at the forefront in embracing it. Another person presented the sharing economy like this.

Sharing City Melbourne -- The sharing economy is an exciting new story for a new economy. It’s an idea that’s going mainstream and is about matching needs with haves and connecting supply and demand at the peer to peer level. Sharing provides opportunities to better utilise idle city assets and share surplus resources, skills and stuff . …City governments can help strike a fair balance by putting citizens first and embracing disruptive technologies …

The way that economic success and individuals’ contributions are measured was important to some. For example, it was stated that people’s wellbeing and happiness should be more highly valued, as this leads to things such as benefits from connectivity between people. This is the beginning of an idea that described extensively the importance of having a different approach to measuring value creation.

Wellbeing and happiness as key criteria -- Social wellbeing and happiness is a critical aspect of Melbourne’s future economy. The city’s economy should foster happy and healthy people that can navigate change successfully. This is especially so for an economy in transition where large segments of the population will experience economic and social disruptions over the coming years…

A couple of comments suggested that there are significant benefits, including economic that will come from shortening the working day. One idea was to cut it to four hours and the idea quoted below suggested 5-6 hour working days, and explained the benefits.

Introduce a 5-6 hour work day -- …I vision a city where many of the residents are only working 5-6 hour work days and this is backed up by academic studies where many day-to-day jobs can be completed in 5-6 hours rather than 8 hour. It is found that fatigue and concentration levels are low for workers who do 8-hour workdays leading to distractions which further delay their work… As we have more time during the day and as our energy levels are strong Melbournians can spend their energy doing more things they want to do outside of work. Whether this is spending more time with family, friends, and the overall community everyone will benefit. This includes business' who would see a rise in people activity leading to more money and jobs as workers will have more energy and time to enjoy beautiful Melbourne.

One idea stated that a guaranteed basic income should be explored, which is paid by the government. It was stated that this is being considered in other places and Melbourne should follow suit.

Guaranteed Basic Income -- This is an idea to provide guaranteed basic income by doing away with other welfare systems and to provide one welfare system that pays everyone $1,000 per month. … giving people a basic level of security and decouple income from work. This better incentivises people to do stuff they don’t necessarily like doing. For example, people don’t like to exercise but there are huge social and medical and financial benefits. This extends to everything that has an intrinsic value to people and society but has no monetary value attached to it. This system could incentivise people to care for their parents and grandparents as they get older.

There was also a suggestion for a Melbourne currency to keep some money permanently within Melbourne’s borders. There was also a suggestion to take a modern and digitally supported approach to infrastructure and governance.

Build infrastructure and a governance culture that supports a 24 hour, digital economy that revolves around the consumer. Follow the models of AirBnB and Uber and truly become a

Regulation and development

Many comments were made about The Council’s role with developers and the outcomes they deliver for the city. Several wanted more controls in place to manage development. This was one comment.

Extreme population growth and forced approval of massive redevelopment is not the way to go. Melbourne is a city with a rich heritage that can and should be retained, with future development subject to strong leadership and controls by the city. Stand up and speak out for the city.

This idea suggested a collaborative approach to growth.

Engagement around urban development -- When considering all of the major urban renewal is occurring in the inner city (Arden Macaulay, eGate, Fishermans Bend, City North, Docklands...) how can government innovate to ensure that more diverse voices can be heard in community engagement processes around urban development? * What tools can be improved/invested in? * How can we support and build the capacity of community leaders and organisations to talk about growth and the opportunities and issues that come with it?

Some wanted more investment to go into developing business rather than things such as events. This was one comment that detailed support for business through resources for start-ups.

Foster startup culture – We need to propel a cultural change in order develop our capacity to foster an innovative start culture. We are missing the technical and commercial skills in the current and emerging workforce so promotion of software engineering combined with commercial skills is essential. Resources are also an issue. Government and industry have a role to play in doing more to provide resources for start-ups.

Governance and knowledge (14/231)

The idea below received several conversation comments and discussed increasing Aboriginal content in learning, for youth and children. The comments generally stated that this needs to be delivered from within the Aboriginal community.

Indigenous education- table 5 -- It's important that Aboriginal culture &; history be taught through out schooling system, wi Australian's. The history, culture and language of Aboriginal Australian's should be When discussing the the importance of making education a priority for First Nation youth we have to consider how distressing it would be for First Nation youth to be taught white washed history. Which leads us to another one of our points- the reform of curriculum by qualified Indigenous Australian individuals…

There were a few ideas provided regarding digital technology, one was a specific app for exploring the city and increasing engagement with it. There were also ideas regarding how the digital world will be organised and the role that organisations such as The Council should play. This idea was about exploring that concept of digitally facilitated Council engagement.

…This idea proposes that City of Melbourne facilitates a research and public engagement process for developing models of governance for digital urban commons in Melbourne.

Another idea was for The Council to provide internships for people with a disability who are studying.

Governance and eco-city (30/231)

Many people wanted greater collaboration on management of the environment for better outcomes, particularly in the area of climate change and community driven resilience. These ideas included creating mechanisms, such as an Urban Forest Charter. Others suggested that environmental values should be more highly prioritised in decision-making and a green commons community group was also proposed. This was one question posed regarding the environment and community participation.

Food and enabling people more control of its growth and management were common issues. On food, people also suggested that food wastage laws should be introduced. This idea received comments of support in a conversation.

People’s Food Task-force -- Empowering citizens to create a fair food task-force. The task-force would promote a shared understanding of the food system as it currently exists, identifying key challenges for action. Partnering with the community, the task-force would support grass roots initiatives, whilst developing strategies and policies for a more sustainable and resilient future.

The benefits from including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander influence in environmental management decision-making was also discussed by a few people. This was one idea.

Work to Translate Caring for Country for Melbourne -Caring for country is about understanding past traditions look after country and it will look after you. Traditional principles should be applied to care for today. Connection to country needs to be shared with everyone not just Indigenous people. This sharing will lead to a better understanding and therefore respect for land. Languages, songs and culture all need reconnecting and the benefit to community would be priceless. Placenames, bring back language in tangible ways. Use of playgrounds and other places to educate and have youth understand and respect Indigenous culture. Caring for country school programs. Knowledge is lacking, we need to educate. Caring for country is not only about land but also the languages and ceremonies (culture). We need to a plan for how we can connect Caring for Country stories into our modern culture.

Governance and transport (3/231)

There were a few comments regarding transport, stating that the public should have more say. This idea discussed integrated planning.

…But the most important single characteristic is integrated planning. In Australia, planning has often been fragmented between tiers of government and sometimes the decision-making process has been less than transparent. If we are to make Australian cities less vulnerable to increased urbanisation, changing demographics, diminishing resources, climate change and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, then the time to act is now.