Thoughts / opinions
I don’t get it. Citizens elect MPs for this very purpose. There is no reason to think that a group of randomly selected citizens will have a different political outlook than the people they elect into office.
I guess the difference is that a “jury” would not be worrying about the optics WRT their their election cycle. I would prefer that a panel of impartial experts be involved rather than random citizens though.
By listening to experts, organisations and impacted people, this group of citizens works together to find common ground and set the policy direction for the politicians to respond to.
I think the idea here is to tamper the expert opinion with real world lived experience.
This is covered in the FAQ, the talk-fest one:
More recently, Citizens’ Assemblies have been used by the Irish to navigate tense issues like marriage equality, or by the French in the wake of the Yellow Vest protests. In New Zealand, a group of randomly selected Aucklanders used a Citizens’ Assembly to set a course for their city’s water infrastructure. Their four recommendations were adopted by the Watercare Services board.
Sounds like a PAR-lite process that would live in the “tokenism” section of the citizen’s ladder of participation.
Reading the ladder, this seems more like step 6 than 5. Maybe more like 5.5; but
The Commissioner gives the policy institutional backbone – ensuring continuity across electoral cycles and demanding Government engages seriously with Citizens’ recommendations.
The key for me here is “across electoral cycles”. The left-right swings are a real problem here in NZ; long term systemic issues are not getting solved effectively.
It is obviously not, citizens forcing the government to do their bidding. But this is a major step in the right direction, if this party gets into power next year and manages to implement this policy.
