WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.160 My name's Jan Terweer. I'm the executive producer of the Festival on Popular Culture, 2 00:00:04.860 --> 00:00:08.240 which is an initiative of the Format Collective, supported by the Festival Ideas, 3 00:00:08.240 --> 00:00:10.100 Thinkers in Residence and the Adelaide City Council. 4 00:00:10.620 --> 00:00:14.720 And I'd like to begin today by acknowledging that we're gathered on the traditional country 5 00:00:14.720 --> 00:00:16.600 of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains. 6 00:00:17.280 --> 00:00:21.320 And I'd like to particularly welcome you all to our Government Engagement Strategy. 7 00:00:21.820 --> 00:00:26.760 So the Government Engagement Strategy is an initiative Format's been working on for quite a while now, 8 00:00:27.500 --> 00:00:31.800 since about 2007, and we're very pleased to have a whole bunch of experts 9 00:00:31.800 --> 00:00:37.120 in the field of Government Engagement on our panel as part of our partnership with the Festival Ideas. 10 00:00:37.700 --> 00:00:41.500 Now, if you're into the Twitters, which is something to do with the internet, 11 00:00:42.600 --> 00:00:48.180 I think the hashtag for the Festival Ideas is AFOI, 12 00:00:48.940 --> 00:00:54.900 and if I recall correctly, the hashtag for this particular event is FUCGES, 13 00:00:55.540 --> 00:00:56.740 in capital letters, all of them. 14 00:00:56.760 --> 00:00:59.260 And FUCGES is one word, which I assume is some sort of acronym. 15 00:01:01.420 --> 00:01:05.660 Now, the notion of doing a Government Engagement Strategy arises from Format. 16 00:01:05.700 --> 00:01:11.080 So Format is an organisation that was formed sometime in 2006, 2007, 17 00:01:11.380 --> 00:01:15.980 when a friend of mine and I decided that instead of whinging about the things we disliked about the world, 18 00:01:16.140 --> 00:01:18.880 we'd try and produce the culture we wanted to see. 19 00:01:19.900 --> 00:01:22.840 And somehow that turned into a not-for-profit volunteer-run organisation 20 00:01:23.540 --> 00:01:26.220 aimed at setting up resources and infrastructure for people 21 00:01:26.220 --> 00:01:26.740 who were doing the same thing. 22 00:01:26.760 --> 00:01:30.280 And we started doing interesting things, particularly we tend to work with younger people, 23 00:01:30.420 --> 00:01:34.300 so people who've grown up in the wake of things like globalisation and economic rationalism. 24 00:01:35.320 --> 00:01:38.380 And what we found is that very early on, 25 00:01:39.060 --> 00:01:42.340 we had a lot of people who wanted to take part in producing culture, 26 00:01:42.880 --> 00:01:46.340 but nobody wanted to give money to a bunch of mid-twenties somethings 27 00:01:46.340 --> 00:01:50.120 who really were just interested in social justice and producing ideas that made no sense. 28 00:01:50.660 --> 00:01:53.680 So we began thinking, well, there's a lot of people that want to do this, 29 00:01:53.780 --> 00:01:55.540 there's not a lot of resources for it, 30 00:01:55.600 --> 00:01:56.740 so what kind of organisation would we want to be? 31 00:01:56.740 --> 00:01:59.920 And how do organisations have money that would support us to do this? 32 00:02:00.720 --> 00:02:03.700 Can anyone guess the largest organisation we initially found 33 00:02:03.700 --> 00:02:08.820 that helped us produce social innovation and social justice ventures? 34 00:02:10.160 --> 00:02:11.980 It was the Graham F. Smith Peace Trust, 35 00:02:12.480 --> 00:02:14.520 followed later by the Australian Centre for Social Innovation. 36 00:02:16.160 --> 00:02:20.940 What we found after we did that is that we needed to start working with government. 37 00:02:21.100 --> 00:02:22.520 Partly we needed them to give us their money, 38 00:02:22.640 --> 00:02:26.720 partly we needed them to get out of our way and stop us doing the things we were trying to do. 39 00:02:27.480 --> 00:02:30.940 That involved trying to actively engage people in government, 40 00:02:31.020 --> 00:02:33.500 which turned out to be a very interesting experience. 41 00:02:34.160 --> 00:02:36.580 Partly we found a lot of people in government who were very, very good 42 00:02:36.580 --> 00:02:38.060 and wanted to produce new ideas, 43 00:02:38.280 --> 00:02:41.540 and partly we found a lot of people who seemed to actively feel that 44 00:02:42.100 --> 00:02:44.000 ideas from outside the government sector, 45 00:02:44.340 --> 00:02:47.140 ideas coming from what gets loosely called the community sector, 46 00:02:47.660 --> 00:02:50.960 were at points sort of a threat that they found them hard to deal with, 47 00:02:51.040 --> 00:02:52.840 they found them hard to fit into existing systems, 48 00:02:53.100 --> 00:02:56.720 and the very productive relationships we had with people working in government, 49 00:02:56.740 --> 00:03:02.340 were often stifled by this sense that there was a division between governance and community, 50 00:03:02.480 --> 00:03:06.180 and that community was a sort of passive mob that needed to be helped. 51 00:03:07.040 --> 00:03:10.240 We've spent a lot of time trying to bridge that governance-community divide, 52 00:03:10.500 --> 00:03:13.940 as have all the people here who have a great deal of experience in the topic. 53 00:03:14.880 --> 00:03:17.000 Now, I'm going to start by introducing you all. 54 00:03:17.740 --> 00:03:21.060 Teresa Cray is the lead creative for the City of Norwood, Payneham and St. Peter's, 55 00:03:21.060 --> 00:03:22.320 and currently completing a PhD. 56 00:03:22.660 --> 00:03:24.000 What's your PhD topic again? 57 00:03:24.460 --> 00:03:26.580 It's in narrative and digital. 58 00:03:26.740 --> 00:03:26.980 Digital media. 59 00:03:28.740 --> 00:03:31.540 Brenton Caffin, who is the CEO of the Australian Centre for Social Innovation 60 00:03:31.540 --> 00:03:33.660 and a former professional darts world champion. 61 00:03:37.320 --> 00:03:38.200 Brenton's asked me... 62 00:03:38.200 --> 00:03:40.380 Anyone who wants a challenge later, we'll go to the pub. 63 00:03:40.660 --> 00:03:44.400 Brenton has specified that he won't be answering dart-related questions today. 64 00:03:45.860 --> 00:03:48.880 Next is Will Emmett, who is the CEO of LeftRight Think Tank, 65 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:51.920 Australia's first independent and non-partisan think tank of young minds, 66 00:03:52.540 --> 00:03:55.700 and Lisa Phillip-Harbert, who I'm guessing a lot of you probably already know, 67 00:03:55.780 --> 00:03:56.720 who is the director... 68 00:03:56.740 --> 00:03:57.540 of the Community Arts Network. 69 00:03:58.380 --> 00:04:01.040 Now, the current thinker-in-residence, John McKernan, 70 00:04:01.060 --> 00:04:02.920 was originally going to be on this panel. 71 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:03.700 He had to pull out. 72 00:04:03.720 --> 00:04:04.420 He sends his apologies. 73 00:04:04.960 --> 00:04:06.980 But John's a kind of a good place to start. 74 00:04:07.220 --> 00:04:07.700 He has... 75 00:04:07.700 --> 00:04:10.520 If anyone's seen him talk before, he has this story he regularly tells 76 00:04:11.280 --> 00:04:13.500 where he was out engaging the community. 77 00:04:13.720 --> 00:04:19.160 He was doing a community engagement strategy as part of something in the UK. 78 00:04:19.720 --> 00:04:22.560 And he was out standing on the stage engaging the community, 79 00:04:22.660 --> 00:04:24.740 and one of the community engaged back and said, 80 00:04:25.420 --> 00:04:26.720 community is a word that people like... 81 00:04:26.740 --> 00:04:28.580 you use to describe people like me. 82 00:04:29.660 --> 00:04:31.540 This is something I guess we've all hit up on, 83 00:04:31.580 --> 00:04:32.740 and we're trying to go the other way. 84 00:04:32.840 --> 00:04:36.340 So how do we have initiatives that come from people in the community 85 00:04:36.340 --> 00:04:37.340 that work backwards? 86 00:04:37.460 --> 00:04:38.800 And I thought the first question I'd ask you, 87 00:04:38.920 --> 00:04:40.260 and whoever wants to jump in first, 88 00:04:40.340 --> 00:04:43.280 is when we say the community, when we talk about the community, 89 00:04:43.660 --> 00:04:44.820 who are we talking about, 90 00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:46.980 and what does it look like when they engage? 91 00:04:47.920 --> 00:04:48.820 Who'd like to go first? 92 00:04:50.300 --> 00:04:51.320 I'll go first. 93 00:04:51.540 --> 00:04:55.500 I think it's a very interesting question, 94 00:04:55.560 --> 00:04:56.620 and one that... 95 00:04:56.740 --> 00:04:59.280 I don't know whether the reluctance of people to answer 96 00:04:59.280 --> 00:05:01.160 is because it's a very difficult question to answer as well. 97 00:05:01.820 --> 00:05:05.020 But I think in the context of policymaking, 98 00:05:05.180 --> 00:05:09.460 the community can be a range of different people. 99 00:05:09.540 --> 00:05:10.780 It can be the whole of Australia. 100 00:05:10.980 --> 00:05:14.060 It can be the people that the policy affects 101 00:05:14.060 --> 00:05:15.780 or the people that the policy doesn't affect. 102 00:05:16.860 --> 00:05:18.660 But in my view, you really... 103 00:05:18.660 --> 00:05:21.180 you cannot define the community as a whole. 104 00:05:23.080 --> 00:05:25.060 I've got some formal ones, if you like. 105 00:05:25.060 --> 00:05:27.920 I think quite often it's used for something 106 00:05:27.920 --> 00:05:31.440 that's seen as quite quaint or warm or fuzzy sort of concept. 107 00:05:31.700 --> 00:05:35.540 But realistically, we all are part of communities. 108 00:05:36.700 --> 00:05:40.040 It can be that community is based on proximity or geography, 109 00:05:40.240 --> 00:05:42.320 like, you know, the Adelaide community, something like that. 110 00:05:42.440 --> 00:05:46.920 It can be that it's based on belief, the Buddhist community. 111 00:05:47.180 --> 00:05:50.120 It can be that it's based on ethnicity, the Romanian community. 112 00:05:50.580 --> 00:05:52.700 On profession, the doctor's community. 113 00:05:53.620 --> 00:05:54.660 And on... 114 00:05:54.660 --> 00:05:56.640 Things like orientation, the gay community. 115 00:05:56.960 --> 00:05:59.720 However, it's not a community unless it acts like a community. 116 00:06:00.120 --> 00:06:03.020 So it's the coming together of people for a reason 117 00:06:03.020 --> 00:06:05.740 and them self-naming their group 118 00:06:05.740 --> 00:06:09.520 and going about something, in my opinion, to make change. 119 00:06:10.060 --> 00:06:13.160 Sometimes that change is actually about keeping something the same 120 00:06:13.160 --> 00:06:14.200 or retrieving something, 121 00:06:14.860 --> 00:06:17.220 but they come together for an action. 122 00:06:17.920 --> 00:06:19.520 So you think that means... 123 00:06:19.520 --> 00:06:21.800 Sorry, does someone else want to have a shot at it? 124 00:06:22.880 --> 00:06:24.080 Well, I think... 125 00:06:24.080 --> 00:06:24.240 I'll... 126 00:06:24.240 --> 00:06:25.260 I'll follow up from that. 127 00:06:25.360 --> 00:06:27.720 I think one, yes, community is plural. 128 00:06:27.840 --> 00:06:28.320 It's communities. 129 00:06:28.860 --> 00:06:30.540 And we all belong to many communities. 130 00:06:30.740 --> 00:06:31.120 We're not... 131 00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:32.480 You know, we don't belong to one community. 132 00:06:32.520 --> 00:06:34.140 I belong to, you know... 133 00:06:34.660 --> 00:06:37.880 My cultural background links me to one community. 134 00:06:38.020 --> 00:06:41.540 My spheres of interest, my cultural interests link me to another. 135 00:06:42.720 --> 00:06:44.800 But the other thing that's really important is that 136 00:06:44.800 --> 00:06:48.320 community and communities are fluid. 137 00:06:48.820 --> 00:06:49.780 They're not static. 138 00:06:50.160 --> 00:06:51.740 And often when we define community, 139 00:06:51.960 --> 00:06:53.660 we kind of put it at a fixed point, 140 00:06:54.240 --> 00:06:56.500 and they become easy targets because of that. 141 00:06:56.640 --> 00:06:59.080 Whereas, in fact, they're complex, they're layered, 142 00:06:59.200 --> 00:07:00.200 and they're constantly moving. 143 00:07:01.120 --> 00:07:02.700 I guess the other thing I'll throw in is 144 00:07:05.260 --> 00:07:06.100 communities are... 145 00:07:06.100 --> 00:07:07.260 It might be easy to sort of... 146 00:07:07.260 --> 00:07:08.660 I agree with the definition I just heard, 147 00:07:08.760 --> 00:07:10.920 but a way of describing it is what they're not, 148 00:07:11.080 --> 00:07:14.540 which is formalised, professionalised systems. 149 00:07:15.320 --> 00:07:17.840 They tend to be the things that sit outside of that 150 00:07:17.840 --> 00:07:18.620 that are more organic, 151 00:07:18.840 --> 00:07:21.800 that do cluster around either particular identity groups 152 00:07:21.800 --> 00:07:22.800 or particular interests. 153 00:07:22.800 --> 00:07:25.600 And I really like this notion of actually coming together 154 00:07:25.600 --> 00:07:27.800 with a shared cause and purpose. 155 00:07:28.460 --> 00:07:32.000 I think thinking about it in that way actually kind of gets, 156 00:07:32.080 --> 00:07:33.440 I think, to the heart of your issue, 157 00:07:33.520 --> 00:07:37.980 which is how do these very organic, very fluid groupings 158 00:07:37.980 --> 00:07:42.720 deal with very rigid, hierarchical, bureaucratic systems 159 00:07:42.720 --> 00:07:44.220 of command and control 160 00:07:44.220 --> 00:07:48.360 when the ethos behind them are so alien to one another? 161 00:07:48.900 --> 00:07:49.900 Which makes sense. 162 00:07:49.960 --> 00:07:51.720 I guess one of the things I think about 163 00:07:51.720 --> 00:07:52.480 when the term... 164 00:07:52.800 --> 00:07:53.080 community engagement, 165 00:07:53.680 --> 00:07:55.760 does it seem like perhaps a tautology, 166 00:07:55.860 --> 00:07:58.040 like a community is always inherently engaged? 167 00:07:59.020 --> 00:08:02.240 And do we differentiate between community and general public 168 00:08:02.240 --> 00:08:04.160 when we're dealing with government? 169 00:08:04.980 --> 00:08:06.760 Well, I think part of the problem is 170 00:08:06.760 --> 00:08:08.600 that the government would love to deal... 171 00:08:08.600 --> 00:08:09.900 When they engage with the community, 172 00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:11.040 they'd like to talk to one person. 173 00:08:11.440 --> 00:08:13.720 So often they think, 174 00:08:13.780 --> 00:08:15.180 well, we'll engage with the community 175 00:08:15.180 --> 00:08:16.460 and they'll run one event 176 00:08:16.460 --> 00:08:19.200 and they'll try and talk about it that way. 177 00:08:19.520 --> 00:08:22.280 I should note, not least because she's my deputy chair, 178 00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:24.000 but she's in the room who was involved 179 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:25.700 with the Community Engagement Board of the Strategic Plan, 180 00:08:25.880 --> 00:08:27.220 took a very different tack on that 181 00:08:27.220 --> 00:08:28.760 and actually tried to find out 182 00:08:28.760 --> 00:08:30.020 a whole range of different communities 183 00:08:30.020 --> 00:08:31.920 and engage with them on their terms, 184 00:08:31.940 --> 00:08:33.300 in their locations, 185 00:08:33.600 --> 00:08:35.120 and talk about the issues that matter to them, 186 00:08:35.240 --> 00:08:36.200 whether they were Sudanese refugees 187 00:08:36.200 --> 00:08:38.040 or, you know, Greek grandfathers. 188 00:08:38.120 --> 00:08:39.480 They actually really tried to reach out 189 00:08:39.480 --> 00:08:41.380 beyond a very sort of simplistic notion. 190 00:08:41.820 --> 00:08:44.000 I think communication's part of it as well. 191 00:08:44.340 --> 00:08:46.360 It's a bit like... 192 00:08:48.620 --> 00:08:49.020 community... 193 00:08:49.920 --> 00:08:50.800 How do I say this? 194 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:52.200 Community is there, 195 00:08:52.800 --> 00:08:53.820 if it's not talking 196 00:08:53.820 --> 00:08:56.060 and if someone decides to talk for it, 197 00:08:56.100 --> 00:08:57.400 it becomes representational. 198 00:08:57.620 --> 00:08:59.200 Government likes representatives. 199 00:08:59.760 --> 00:09:01.940 It likes representatives of what they think 200 00:09:01.940 --> 00:09:03.180 are community groups. 201 00:09:03.720 --> 00:09:06.080 But unless the community has dialogue first, 202 00:09:06.500 --> 00:09:08.020 no one can represent them. 203 00:09:08.140 --> 00:09:09.540 They can only give a personal opinion. 204 00:09:10.160 --> 00:09:11.960 And so it's the amount of dialogue 205 00:09:11.960 --> 00:09:14.660 that needs to occur in any given community 206 00:09:14.660 --> 00:09:15.880 and that's ongoing 207 00:09:15.880 --> 00:09:18.260 because, as Teresa said, 208 00:09:18.520 --> 00:09:19.540 communities change. 209 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:22.040 You know, the view of a community one year, 210 00:09:22.800 --> 00:09:24.440 can have its small influence that occurs 211 00:09:24.440 --> 00:09:25.780 that changes that view. 212 00:09:26.420 --> 00:09:28.300 I think the unspoken thing is, 213 00:09:28.420 --> 00:09:30.020 from government, yes, 214 00:09:30.180 --> 00:09:32.920 it's really convenient to kind of identify someone 215 00:09:32.920 --> 00:09:34.740 as a community in a fixed way 216 00:09:34.740 --> 00:09:36.040 and then refer to that person. 217 00:09:36.240 --> 00:09:37.680 However, the term community 218 00:09:37.680 --> 00:09:39.480 is also hijacked by the community itself. 219 00:09:39.780 --> 00:09:42.440 I mean, I work within a particular cultural community. 220 00:09:42.560 --> 00:09:44.640 There are many representatives of that cultural community, 221 00:09:44.780 --> 00:09:47.240 but half of those representatives do not represent me 222 00:09:47.240 --> 00:09:49.860 and they don't necessarily speak for the community. 223 00:09:50.220 --> 00:09:52.160 So it's a really contested, 224 00:09:52.160 --> 00:09:53.700 kind of thing, 225 00:09:53.880 --> 00:09:56.520 about how you really get to that participatory 226 00:09:56.520 --> 00:09:58.980 kind of dialogue that Lisa's talking about. 227 00:09:59.160 --> 00:09:59.880 And isn't that wonderful? 228 00:10:00.380 --> 00:10:01.240 In one way. 229 00:10:01.320 --> 00:10:01.880 In one way. 230 00:10:01.980 --> 00:10:04.940 You know, if it wasn't, if everyone was the same, 231 00:10:05.080 --> 00:10:07.120 and if a community had a singular voice, 232 00:10:07.380 --> 00:10:11.040 then we wouldn't get to the dynamic kind of situation 233 00:10:11.040 --> 00:10:12.680 of making change. 234 00:10:13.280 --> 00:10:14.120 But it's messy. 235 00:10:14.480 --> 00:10:14.740 Yes. 236 00:10:14.780 --> 00:10:15.860 It is messy. 237 00:10:15.880 --> 00:10:19.760 And I guess I sort of just praised the strategic plan work. 238 00:10:19.900 --> 00:10:21.000 I'll have a crack at it now. 239 00:10:21.120 --> 00:10:21.480 Um, 240 00:10:22.160 --> 00:10:24.200 what I really liked about it was that it got, I think, 241 00:10:24.200 --> 00:10:27.700 about 8,000 people to sort of, you know, 242 00:10:27.700 --> 00:10:30.600 put in their submissions about their vision for the state, 243 00:10:30.680 --> 00:10:31.300 which is fantastic. 244 00:10:32.080 --> 00:10:34.260 And it shows a real, I think, a real energy 245 00:10:34.260 --> 00:10:37.140 and an enthusiasm to want to contribute to that. 246 00:10:37.780 --> 00:10:40.920 But equally, they're asked to contribute about a 20-year vision 247 00:10:40.920 --> 00:10:42.700 to help enable a state strategic plan, 248 00:10:42.760 --> 00:10:44.780 which is a very useful framework for government, 249 00:10:44.940 --> 00:10:47.420 but actually isn't necessarily very good, 250 00:10:47.460 --> 00:10:50.320 very useful, you know, for people on the ground. 251 00:10:50.540 --> 00:10:52.060 A lot of people didn't actually want to talk about it. 252 00:10:52.160 --> 00:10:54.080 They actually wanted to talk about the issues 253 00:10:54.080 --> 00:10:55.000 that were facing them today. 254 00:10:55.400 --> 00:10:57.340 And so, actually, one thing to engage them, 255 00:10:57.440 --> 00:10:59.440 it's another thing to be prepared to actually engage them 256 00:10:59.440 --> 00:11:01.720 on terms that may sort of mean something to them. 257 00:11:01.720 --> 00:11:04.540 Is that the nuance of doing a strategy or a particular approach? 258 00:11:04.680 --> 00:11:08.320 You're trying to gather opinions from as many representatives 259 00:11:08.320 --> 00:11:09.920 as you can for a long-term goal, 260 00:11:10.420 --> 00:11:12.860 separate from that sense of you're trying to act now? 261 00:11:13.280 --> 00:11:14.860 I think it's very difficult, 262 00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:16.780 and I agree with you very much, Brent, 263 00:11:16.820 --> 00:11:18.060 and it's very difficult to have, 264 00:11:18.460 --> 00:11:22.060 or it's almost pointless to have government engaging 265 00:11:22.060 --> 00:11:22.140 in a way that's not really a government action. 266 00:11:22.140 --> 00:11:22.320 And so, I think it's very difficult to engage 267 00:11:22.320 --> 00:11:24.020 with community unless government 268 00:11:24.540 --> 00:11:27.100 or the leaders within government are willing to take 269 00:11:27.880 --> 00:11:30.720 what the community have to say and then do something with that 270 00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:32.800 and to put a stake in the sand. 271 00:11:33.060 --> 00:11:36.220 And, you know, the community sometimes... 272 00:11:36.780 --> 00:11:38.940 Or the community at the moment are craving vision, 273 00:11:39.460 --> 00:11:42.220 and the government continues to engage on a day-to-day basis 274 00:11:42.220 --> 00:11:44.000 in a whole range of different areas, 275 00:11:44.200 --> 00:11:46.720 but you very rarely see any action out of that, 276 00:11:46.800 --> 00:11:49.700 and you certainly don't see any vision created out of that. 277 00:11:49.700 --> 00:11:53.720 I think it's quite often sloppy engagement as well, 278 00:11:53.780 --> 00:11:58.640 in lots of ways, in that anyone with a bit of an ass knows 279 00:11:58.640 --> 00:12:01.080 if you can't do something about it, you don't ask. 280 00:12:01.920 --> 00:12:05.320 And so, quite often, the way people are engaging 281 00:12:05.320 --> 00:12:10.220 is on things they can't be seen to not be able to do the solution. 282 00:12:10.460 --> 00:12:11.520 So, the 20-year plan. 283 00:12:11.760 --> 00:12:13.300 It's great to have a 20-year plan, 284 00:12:13.520 --> 00:12:15.880 but it's an easy excuse why things don't get done, 285 00:12:16.380 --> 00:12:18.560 because by, you know, five years, 286 00:12:18.560 --> 00:12:20.520 those people aren't there anymore quite often. 287 00:12:20.640 --> 00:12:26.440 And so they can get stuck on the interactions 288 00:12:27.160 --> 00:12:29.680 that are on things that aren't real 289 00:12:29.680 --> 00:12:32.100 for the people they're trying to dialogue with. 290 00:12:32.920 --> 00:12:37.060 I think the word engagement is really problematic for me. 291 00:12:37.140 --> 00:12:39.000 I think it smacks of some sort of, you know, 292 00:12:39.020 --> 00:12:41.560 trying to force something in some way. 293 00:12:41.640 --> 00:12:45.460 I think the capacity to generate engagement 294 00:12:45.460 --> 00:12:47.780 depends on the quality of the invitation 295 00:12:47.780 --> 00:12:48.640 to participate. 296 00:12:49.860 --> 00:12:54.780 So, if that quality isn't one of equal power and reciprocity... 297 00:12:55.400 --> 00:12:56.560 Blah, blah! Yes. 298 00:12:56.860 --> 00:12:58.360 Thank you. 299 00:12:59.980 --> 00:13:01.640 You won't get engagement. 300 00:13:01.760 --> 00:13:03.640 All you get are two people talking, 301 00:13:03.740 --> 00:13:06.940 or two sides talking at each other and missing the mark. 302 00:13:07.100 --> 00:13:09.540 It's about the quality of saying, 303 00:13:09.660 --> 00:13:11.480 come, participate, and I will listen, 304 00:13:11.700 --> 00:13:14.040 and I will engage, and then I will engage. 305 00:13:14.320 --> 00:13:17.760 So, I think participation has to come before that engagement. 306 00:13:17.780 --> 00:13:21.900 I think one of the other things we've found dealing with Format 307 00:13:21.900 --> 00:13:24.140 and doing Renew Adelaide as well 308 00:13:24.140 --> 00:13:27.260 is that when we do successfully engage with individuals in government 309 00:13:27.260 --> 00:13:29.580 on more than just a particular strategy, 310 00:13:29.780 --> 00:13:32.180 when it's an ongoing engagement, it's information sharing, 311 00:13:32.260 --> 00:13:33.600 it's an ongoing kind of back and forth, 312 00:13:34.100 --> 00:13:35.760 they often seem to be... 313 00:13:35.760 --> 00:13:40.040 They can help us despite the fact that they work in government, 314 00:13:40.080 --> 00:13:41.800 not because of the fact they work in government. 315 00:13:42.080 --> 00:13:45.000 So, if we're looking at why is it so hard 316 00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:47.660 for people in government who aren't... 317 00:13:47.660 --> 00:13:49.120 I mean, they are part of the community, 318 00:13:49.240 --> 00:13:50.880 they are human beings working in the institution, 319 00:13:51.420 --> 00:13:54.440 why is it so hard for them to do that ongoing engagement? 320 00:13:55.420 --> 00:13:56.820 I might have a crack at this one, 321 00:13:56.900 --> 00:13:58.260 because I actually think there are... 322 00:13:58.260 --> 00:14:01.660 Having worked at least half of my career inside public services 323 00:14:02.280 --> 00:14:05.420 and the other half working with public services from the outside, 324 00:14:05.660 --> 00:14:07.020 I think there are a huge number of people 325 00:14:07.020 --> 00:14:09.440 who really want to do the right thing 326 00:14:09.440 --> 00:14:11.340 and they really want to see great things happen 327 00:14:11.340 --> 00:14:13.480 and they really want to work with people to make things happen. 328 00:14:14.640 --> 00:14:17.000 You know, we recently, in fact, 329 00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:19.840 through the 5000 plus process, ran a campaign, 330 00:14:20.080 --> 00:14:22.000 which I'm sure some of you are aware of, 331 00:14:22.080 --> 00:14:23.380 called The Computer Says Yes, 332 00:14:23.660 --> 00:14:25.760 and that was designed to actually celebrate these individuals 333 00:14:25.760 --> 00:14:26.660 and I'm pleased to say... 334 00:14:26.660 --> 00:14:27.120 And the winner is over there. 335 00:14:27.180 --> 00:14:29.660 In order to win a Lara Tours in the room, take a bow. 336 00:14:31.080 --> 00:14:32.720 But actually what we wanted to do, 337 00:14:32.840 --> 00:14:34.980 and it was actually quite a deliberate strategy 338 00:14:34.980 --> 00:14:37.300 in coming up with this award, 339 00:14:37.700 --> 00:14:42.420 was to say we ought to recognise, celebrate and incentivise 340 00:14:42.420 --> 00:14:44.940 that kind of behaviour, because the simple fact is, 341 00:14:45.040 --> 00:14:46.980 while there are people who want to do this inside systems, 342 00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:50.400 the systems as a whole do not incentivise that kind of behaviour. 343 00:14:51.720 --> 00:14:52.160 Right? 344 00:14:52.340 --> 00:14:54.240 They basically... 345 00:14:55.240 --> 00:14:56.120 It is... 346 00:14:56.120 --> 00:15:00.720 You know, careers are made and lost on sort of keeping a clean sheet, 347 00:15:00.860 --> 00:15:02.820 not necessarily about sticking your neck out 348 00:15:02.820 --> 00:15:04.980 to help the likes of people in cricket whites 349 00:15:04.980 --> 00:15:08.020 do what it is that they want to do, anarchic or not. 350 00:15:08.560 --> 00:15:10.520 And that, I think, is a challenge. 351 00:15:10.680 --> 00:15:13.040 So I think we need to look at the ways in which systems, 352 00:15:13.740 --> 00:15:14.620 formal systems, 353 00:15:14.620 --> 00:15:20.120 can provide for greater autonomy at the front line, 354 00:15:20.280 --> 00:15:22.960 can allow for greater sort of values-based decision-making 355 00:15:22.960 --> 00:15:25.000 rather than sort of compliance-based decision-making. 356 00:15:26.380 --> 00:15:30.080 And that, I think, allows for a much more authentic conversation 357 00:15:30.080 --> 00:15:32.880 between people inside systems and out on the ground, 358 00:15:32.980 --> 00:15:33.860 because then you can kind of say, 359 00:15:33.960 --> 00:15:35.160 well, look, I hear you. 360 00:15:35.240 --> 00:15:37.400 I'd like to sort of, you know, see you get down this path. 361 00:15:37.580 --> 00:15:39.080 Here are the things I've got to try and get through, 362 00:15:39.120 --> 00:15:41.440 but I think I can find a way through it. 363 00:15:42.700 --> 00:15:44.600 I absolutely fundamentally agree. 364 00:15:44.620 --> 00:15:45.860 I absolutely agree with what you just said. 365 00:15:46.220 --> 00:15:49.580 I think, you know, one of the biggest problems 366 00:15:49.580 --> 00:15:51.720 that this country faces 367 00:15:52.660 --> 00:15:57.920 is the continual risk aversion that takes place in government, 368 00:15:57.980 --> 00:16:02.060 and whether that's fixed through a rebuilding of systems 369 00:16:02.060 --> 00:16:06.000 and, as you say, creating more values-based decision-making processes, 370 00:16:07.560 --> 00:16:11.280 or in, you know, the way that I think it needs to be resolved 371 00:16:11.280 --> 00:16:12.480 through greater leadership 372 00:16:12.480 --> 00:16:16.260 and through people willing to put their neck out a little bit more 373 00:16:16.260 --> 00:16:21.860 and understand that an electorate might have respect 374 00:16:21.860 --> 00:16:22.880 for an elected individual 375 00:16:23.560 --> 00:16:25.600 when they stand up for what they believe in 376 00:16:25.600 --> 00:16:28.580 rather than what the focus group says they should do. 377 00:16:29.940 --> 00:16:31.700 There's a writer called Margaret Wheatley, 378 00:16:31.800 --> 00:16:34.620 and Margaret Wheatley writes around the fact 379 00:16:34.620 --> 00:16:36.980 that the organisational systems, the structures, 380 00:16:37.100 --> 00:16:38.460 the decision-making for anything 381 00:16:38.460 --> 00:16:40.680 should be based on the science of the day. 382 00:16:41.320 --> 00:16:42.460 And she writes, 383 00:16:42.480 --> 00:16:46.480 she works in organisational theory, et cetera. 384 00:16:47.280 --> 00:16:48.860 I look at that and I go, 385 00:16:48.980 --> 00:16:52.080 well, our organisational structures are still based 386 00:16:52.080 --> 00:16:55.220 on sort of the Industrial Revolution cause and effect. 387 00:16:55.580 --> 00:16:56.100 They're binary. 388 00:16:56.160 --> 00:16:59.080 They go, this makes this happen, makes this happen. 389 00:16:59.260 --> 00:17:00.860 And quantum's different than that. 390 00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:02.360 Chaos theory is different than that. 391 00:17:02.380 --> 00:17:04.920 Our science has actually moved on, 392 00:17:05.040 --> 00:17:06.540 and our organisational structures 393 00:17:06.540 --> 00:17:08.380 and our decision-making structures haven't. 394 00:17:08.560 --> 00:17:10.160 Now, how do we make that jump? 395 00:17:10.940 --> 00:17:11.900 I'm not positive. 396 00:17:11.960 --> 00:17:14.800 I think we do it by attacking it 397 00:17:14.800 --> 00:17:16.120 from a whole lot of different areas. 398 00:17:16.820 --> 00:17:18.740 I think that people get it. 399 00:17:19.520 --> 00:17:22.160 I think that kids get it really easily. 400 00:17:22.460 --> 00:17:25.560 And so we've got to not squish them into the structures 401 00:17:25.560 --> 00:17:28.240 that have been there for a long time. 402 00:17:28.320 --> 00:17:30.700 We've actually got to let them be involved 403 00:17:30.700 --> 00:17:32.960 in the broadening out the decision-making. 404 00:17:33.220 --> 00:17:35.460 You know, this can occur over here 405 00:17:35.460 --> 00:17:36.800 and this can occur over here, 406 00:17:36.840 --> 00:17:38.700 and it has no correlation to this, 407 00:17:38.700 --> 00:17:39.940 but it has the effect. 408 00:17:40.160 --> 00:17:41.120 That's quantum. 409 00:17:41.240 --> 00:17:42.060 That's chaos. 410 00:17:42.740 --> 00:17:43.840 When we're busy going, 411 00:17:43.940 --> 00:17:46.740 boom, boom, boom, in one sort of direction, 412 00:17:46.940 --> 00:17:47.680 we don't need to. 413 00:17:48.240 --> 00:17:50.260 I think we're already seeing that pressure applied, 414 00:17:50.460 --> 00:17:52.040 or I hope we're already seeing that pressure applied 415 00:17:52.040 --> 00:17:53.880 with how the systems are struggling at the moment. 416 00:17:55.460 --> 00:17:56.580 I was just going to say, 417 00:17:57.280 --> 00:18:00.660 hands up who was in Sydney Decker's talk yesterday morning? 418 00:18:00.960 --> 00:18:02.060 A couple of people? Right. 419 00:18:02.840 --> 00:18:04.700 I mean, I think he had a really interesting point 420 00:18:04.700 --> 00:18:05.740 exactly along this line, 421 00:18:05.800 --> 00:18:08.180 which is, you know, thinking about complex systems 422 00:18:08.180 --> 00:18:09.980 in sort of reductionist mechanistic ways, 423 00:18:10.100 --> 00:18:13.020 you know, is actually not helpful. 424 00:18:13.880 --> 00:18:14.760 And detrimental. 425 00:18:15.400 --> 00:18:17.260 And I think one of the challenges we have 426 00:18:17.260 --> 00:18:20.060 whenever we see some of the sort of more traditional approaches 427 00:18:20.060 --> 00:18:22.080 around, say, risk management and stuff like that, 428 00:18:22.220 --> 00:18:24.760 this is an attempt of this mechanistic way 429 00:18:24.760 --> 00:18:27.060 to try and avoid mistakes happening, 430 00:18:27.260 --> 00:18:29.300 whereas actually if you take a more organic approach 431 00:18:29.300 --> 00:18:32.480 to things happening and allow people to make judgments 432 00:18:32.480 --> 00:18:35.600 based on what they believe is the right thing to do, 433 00:18:35.660 --> 00:18:37.580 and again, having linked that back 434 00:18:37.580 --> 00:18:38.160 to sort of some of the things 435 00:18:38.180 --> 00:18:38.260 that we've discussed in the past, 436 00:18:38.260 --> 00:18:38.860 and having linked that back to some core values, 437 00:18:39.620 --> 00:18:44.700 you can enable a far more organic process to occur 438 00:18:44.700 --> 00:18:46.520 where things happen inside and outside of systems. 439 00:18:47.700 --> 00:18:49.320 Totally. I back that up. 440 00:18:49.400 --> 00:18:51.500 And I think that that's the challenge of our government, 441 00:18:51.620 --> 00:18:52.760 and certainly in local government, 442 00:18:52.820 --> 00:18:54.840 where I've got my most direct experience right now, 443 00:18:54.900 --> 00:18:56.760 is how do you turn these structures, 444 00:18:56.840 --> 00:19:00.820 which mirror governance even at the state and the federal level, 445 00:19:00.900 --> 00:19:03.620 and have formed such a rigid approach 446 00:19:03.620 --> 00:19:05.380 and actually belong to another era, 447 00:19:05.560 --> 00:19:07.500 how do you turn them around 448 00:19:07.500 --> 00:19:11.100 to be agile, to be responsive, to be flexible? 449 00:19:11.740 --> 00:19:15.260 And it basically means an entire overhaul 450 00:19:15.260 --> 00:19:18.860 of their leadership and how they run their management. 451 00:19:19.700 --> 00:19:22.320 And it's that people talk a lot about 452 00:19:22.320 --> 00:19:24.140 there's a historical context, 453 00:19:24.180 --> 00:19:25.700 a sense of the current system of governance 454 00:19:25.700 --> 00:19:27.520 comes from a sort of industrial era, 455 00:19:27.580 --> 00:19:28.580 industrial revolution era, 456 00:19:28.720 --> 00:19:31.240 and we seem to be shifting to another era, 457 00:19:31.280 --> 00:19:33.100 and you talk about we're at this sort of breaking point. 458 00:19:33.520 --> 00:19:35.660 What is it that defines that new era 459 00:19:35.660 --> 00:19:39.920 and how do you think a new form of governance 460 00:19:39.920 --> 00:19:40.780 might come out of it? 461 00:19:41.840 --> 00:19:43.640 I think there's a couple of things. 462 00:19:43.740 --> 00:19:47.220 One is it's a more distributed decision-making. 463 00:19:47.340 --> 00:19:48.100 It is flatter. 464 00:19:48.220 --> 00:19:51.580 It isn't the hierarchy that we've been used to, 465 00:19:51.680 --> 00:19:53.680 and a lot of people fear that 466 00:19:53.680 --> 00:19:55.200 and say, how are we ever going to get to a decision? 467 00:19:55.640 --> 00:19:58.820 Then that breeds a level of messiness 468 00:19:58.820 --> 00:20:01.220 because things have to collide and intersect 469 00:20:01.220 --> 00:20:03.120 and you can't keep things in compartments 470 00:20:03.120 --> 00:20:05.540 and you have to kind of form a more integrated view. 471 00:20:05.660 --> 00:20:07.620 It takes longer, but in the end, 472 00:20:07.680 --> 00:20:11.840 I think you get a more real decision. 473 00:20:11.940 --> 00:20:15.780 You get a decision that has more voices present in it. 474 00:20:16.580 --> 00:20:19.620 And people are starting to have these exact conversations 475 00:20:19.620 --> 00:20:20.880 all around the country. 476 00:20:21.160 --> 00:20:23.800 Everywhere I go, people are talking about very similar things. 477 00:20:24.260 --> 00:20:28.780 I don't think it will be a breaking point necessarily. 478 00:20:28.880 --> 00:20:29.780 Maybe it will be. 479 00:20:29.860 --> 00:20:31.740 It might be a bit scary if it is. 480 00:20:32.320 --> 00:20:34.880 I think what will happen 481 00:20:34.880 --> 00:20:35.480 and, you know, 482 00:20:35.660 --> 00:20:37.800 what should happen is that someone will get up 483 00:20:37.800 --> 00:20:39.120 and put forward a vision 484 00:20:39.660 --> 00:20:42.200 and something exciting and inspire people 485 00:20:42.200 --> 00:20:44.600 rather than, you know, 486 00:20:44.600 --> 00:20:47.180 the normal political rhetoric that we see every day. 487 00:20:47.920 --> 00:20:48.720 Two points. 488 00:20:49.500 --> 00:20:51.020 One, we shouldn't beat ourselves up 489 00:20:51.020 --> 00:20:52.100 that this is an Australian phenomenon. 490 00:20:52.660 --> 00:20:56.780 I gave a keynote talk last month in Denmark 491 00:20:56.780 --> 00:20:57.840 to the Ministry of Employment. 492 00:20:57.980 --> 00:20:59.120 The second question was, 493 00:20:59.160 --> 00:21:00.760 how do we get risk aversion out of our systems? 494 00:21:01.220 --> 00:21:02.900 And this is Denmark who, you know, 495 00:21:02.940 --> 00:21:04.200 in the public policy world, 496 00:21:04.240 --> 00:21:05.320 is pretty high up there 497 00:21:05.320 --> 00:21:07.680 in terms of the metal tally. 498 00:21:09.420 --> 00:21:12.420 I think we are going to see 499 00:21:12.420 --> 00:21:14.140 a more networked form of governance 500 00:21:14.140 --> 00:21:16.740 where responsibility and decision-making 501 00:21:16.740 --> 00:21:17.400 is more distributed. 502 00:21:17.880 --> 00:21:18.920 Leadership is shared. 503 00:21:19.120 --> 00:21:21.500 So distributed outside of the governance sector? 504 00:21:21.920 --> 00:21:22.460 Yes. 505 00:21:22.480 --> 00:21:23.020 Yeah. 506 00:21:23.440 --> 00:21:24.340 And in fact, 507 00:21:24.400 --> 00:21:26.960 one example which I am quite a fan of 508 00:21:26.960 --> 00:21:28.740 and if you haven't been engaged in this yet, 509 00:21:28.820 --> 00:21:29.920 I'd encourage you to do so, 510 00:21:29.980 --> 00:21:32.200 is the 5000 plus process, 511 00:21:32.320 --> 00:21:34.720 which is basically the integrated design strategy work 512 00:21:34.720 --> 00:21:36.840 that the integrated design commission is doing 513 00:21:36.840 --> 00:21:37.720 with Adelaide City Council, 514 00:21:37.900 --> 00:21:39.360 state government, federal government, 515 00:21:39.500 --> 00:21:40.720 the surrounding councils. 516 00:21:41.300 --> 00:21:43.480 They've embarked on a large number of forums 517 00:21:43.480 --> 00:21:45.400 to actually attack these problems 518 00:21:45.400 --> 00:21:47.680 from different directions with different focuses 519 00:21:48.140 --> 00:21:49.340 and an emergent process. 520 00:21:49.540 --> 00:21:50.560 They haven't gone in there to say, 521 00:21:50.700 --> 00:21:51.360 you know, 522 00:21:51.380 --> 00:21:53.500 we want to engage with you 523 00:21:53.500 --> 00:21:55.360 on these five things that we want to achieve. 524 00:21:55.480 --> 00:21:55.900 They've said, 525 00:21:56.000 --> 00:21:57.340 well, let's have a conversation 526 00:21:57.340 --> 00:21:59.000 about the kind of city that we want to have 527 00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:00.280 and let's have a conversation 528 00:22:00.280 --> 00:22:01.920 about the kind of processes we need 529 00:22:01.920 --> 00:22:03.620 to enable us to get there. 530 00:22:03.620 --> 00:22:05.280 And it's a very porous process. 531 00:22:05.460 --> 00:22:06.840 There's a website you can jump on, 532 00:22:06.940 --> 00:22:08.180 you can put your ideas in there, 533 00:22:08.340 --> 00:22:08.960 you can actually, 534 00:22:09.020 --> 00:22:10.460 I think you can comment on other people's 535 00:22:10.460 --> 00:22:11.080 and say that's great, 536 00:22:11.140 --> 00:22:12.120 that's crap and so on. 537 00:22:12.600 --> 00:22:15.660 I think embracing that kind of networked approach 538 00:22:15.660 --> 00:22:18.760 where we each have the ability to contribute, 539 00:22:19.400 --> 00:22:20.700 both in terms of giving ideas 540 00:22:20.700 --> 00:22:22.600 but then also to contribute 541 00:22:22.600 --> 00:22:23.760 on other people's contributions 542 00:22:23.760 --> 00:22:26.040 so we can actually talk about what we think 543 00:22:26.040 --> 00:22:27.840 and over time start to build up 544 00:22:27.840 --> 00:22:31.800 a sort of a collective sense of ideas 545 00:22:31.800 --> 00:22:32.700 that are worth pursuing. 546 00:22:32.900 --> 00:22:33.600 And that way, 547 00:22:33.620 --> 00:22:34.660 engagement actually comes, 548 00:22:34.900 --> 00:22:36.780 you start to put a little bit of bottom up 549 00:22:36.780 --> 00:22:37.840 into the system. 550 00:22:38.020 --> 00:22:39.140 It's not always top down, 551 00:22:39.320 --> 00:22:40.440 we've got a 30 year plan, 552 00:22:41.360 --> 00:22:42.860 tell us what you think of that. 553 00:22:43.580 --> 00:22:45.660 We seem to be hearing a bit of noise over here 554 00:22:45.660 --> 00:22:48.000 that we should have the number of car parks in Adelaide. 555 00:22:48.080 --> 00:22:49.240 Maybe we should think about that. 556 00:22:49.660 --> 00:22:51.420 I kind of like the idea of, 557 00:22:51.540 --> 00:22:55.440 it comes out of the international feminist kind of stuff, 558 00:22:55.460 --> 00:22:57.300 of a mesh work rather than a network. 559 00:22:57.560 --> 00:22:59.760 And a mesh work is a self-generating network. 560 00:23:00.120 --> 00:23:01.600 It's one that actually starts 561 00:23:01.600 --> 00:23:03.600 and parts of it die all the time. 562 00:23:03.620 --> 00:23:05.180 It doesn't need the maintenance 563 00:23:05.180 --> 00:23:07.620 that quite often networks that are placed from above do 564 00:23:08.220 --> 00:23:09.200 because it's generating. 565 00:23:09.580 --> 00:23:11.260 And that kind of leads me to the point that 566 00:23:11.260 --> 00:23:13.040 I think we need active citizenship. 567 00:23:13.420 --> 00:23:15.240 Now many Australians, 568 00:23:16.560 --> 00:23:18.040 there's a saying that says, 569 00:23:18.120 --> 00:23:20.980 a society gets the politicians they deserve. 570 00:23:21.520 --> 00:23:25.540 Most Australians don't think they deserve either mob. 571 00:23:26.700 --> 00:23:29.960 So it's time that people therefore got active 572 00:23:30.620 --> 00:23:33.180 and started to make change in ways 573 00:23:33.620 --> 00:23:37.860 that is about changing it from the bottom up. 574 00:23:38.260 --> 00:23:39.840 And I often wonder if the... 575 00:23:40.640 --> 00:23:42.180 Of course we're preaching the converted 576 00:23:42.180 --> 00:23:44.700 because your active citizenship here at a festival idea 577 00:23:44.700 --> 00:23:46.380 is talking about government engagement on a Sunday. 578 00:23:47.060 --> 00:23:47.580 True. 579 00:23:48.020 --> 00:23:50.180 I often wonder if those people 580 00:23:50.740 --> 00:23:53.380 are already building the new system alongside 581 00:23:53.380 --> 00:23:55.240 the old system that we have 582 00:23:55.240 --> 00:23:57.120 and eventually will overtake 583 00:23:57.120 --> 00:23:59.420 the formal system that we have. 584 00:23:59.460 --> 00:24:00.900 My next question, it seems like 585 00:24:01.620 --> 00:24:03.420 when I was at the 5,000 plus thing the other day, 586 00:24:04.280 --> 00:24:06.340 Sharon, the people moderating the panel said 587 00:24:06.340 --> 00:24:07.140 that one of the things they'd noticed 588 00:24:07.140 --> 00:24:08.720 out of doing that forum was that there's this 589 00:24:10.080 --> 00:24:12.600 limited communication between the top level of governance 590 00:24:12.600 --> 00:24:14.300 and people down here. 591 00:24:14.380 --> 00:24:16.560 And having worked down here a lot, 592 00:24:16.640 --> 00:24:18.180 I kind of find the people up here are actually 593 00:24:18.180 --> 00:24:19.600 easier to deal with than the people in the middle. 594 00:24:20.600 --> 00:24:22.580 And that maybe the problem is kind of the system. 595 00:24:23.500 --> 00:24:24.700 So how do you... 596 00:24:24.700 --> 00:24:26.040 We can get good leaders, 597 00:24:26.160 --> 00:24:27.780 there are people out there who will do that kind of activity, 598 00:24:27.960 --> 00:24:29.220 but you still seem to have a system 599 00:24:29.220 --> 00:24:31.800 that doesn't really know how to work down here. 600 00:24:32.620 --> 00:24:35.340 And by putting the emphasis on changing that system 601 00:24:35.340 --> 00:24:37.080 to the leaders, it's a bit of a case of like 602 00:24:37.080 --> 00:24:39.720 the master's tools will not dismantle the master's house, 603 00:24:39.880 --> 00:24:42.200 but we maybe need to be looking, as you're saying, 604 00:24:42.340 --> 00:24:45.020 for an alternative system that starts pushing through. 605 00:24:45.840 --> 00:24:48.160 Would people agree or have comments on that? 606 00:24:48.980 --> 00:24:51.020 Good bit of activism is always good, isn't it? 607 00:24:51.660 --> 00:24:53.240 I think it's already started 608 00:24:53.240 --> 00:24:56.560 and, you know, it's what will emerge eventually. 609 00:24:57.020 --> 00:24:59.480 Are there other examples of people that you can think of 610 00:24:59.480 --> 00:25:00.980 as indications of having started? 611 00:25:01.460 --> 00:25:03.540 The people at this festival 612 00:25:03.540 --> 00:25:06.400 and all of the speakers at this festival, starters. 613 00:25:07.580 --> 00:25:09.640 You know, organisations like 614 00:25:09.640 --> 00:25:11.380 the School for Social Entrepreneurs in Sydney 615 00:25:11.380 --> 00:25:13.360 who do amazing work. 616 00:25:13.620 --> 00:25:15.480 And, you know, I'd like to think my organisation 617 00:25:15.480 --> 00:25:18.320 and a huge range of different organisations 618 00:25:18.320 --> 00:25:19.900 around the country and around the world. 619 00:25:22.260 --> 00:25:25.000 We had Charles Ledbeater out a couple of months ago 620 00:25:25.520 --> 00:25:27.860 as part of an event we run 621 00:25:27.860 --> 00:25:29.400 called the Social Innovative Dialogues. 622 00:25:29.480 --> 00:25:30.820 And he actually talked about 623 00:25:30.820 --> 00:25:32.960 the fact that there is, you know, 624 00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:34.360 the sort of world of the system 625 00:25:34.360 --> 00:25:36.940 and then there's the world of what he calls the life world, 626 00:25:37.020 --> 00:25:38.900 which is all this organic kind of stuff, 627 00:25:39.060 --> 00:25:41.000 the mesh that goes on, self-forming 628 00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:43.440 and coming together around causes. 629 00:25:43.680 --> 00:25:46.740 And we actually need to find better ways of... 630 00:25:47.380 --> 00:25:51.340 better mechanisms for getting ideas between those two. 631 00:25:52.380 --> 00:25:55.640 And he posited about half a dozen different mechanisms, 632 00:25:55.900 --> 00:25:57.900 you know, including the life world, 633 00:25:57.960 --> 00:25:59.180 sort of, you know, guerrilla tactics, 634 00:25:59.420 --> 00:26:00.800 getting in there and sort of, you know, 635 00:26:00.820 --> 00:26:03.140 doing a bit of hacking work on the system 636 00:26:03.820 --> 00:26:05.660 through to the system recognising 637 00:26:05.660 --> 00:26:07.280 that there are things that they're not that good at 638 00:26:07.280 --> 00:26:09.760 and kind of outsourcing it to the community. 639 00:26:10.280 --> 00:26:13.360 So I think exploring and developing those mechanisms, 640 00:26:13.360 --> 00:26:15.060 I think, would be a really strong way forward. 641 00:26:15.340 --> 00:26:16.940 I totally agree with that. 642 00:26:17.040 --> 00:26:21.160 And I think there's one earlier thing that we need to do, 643 00:26:21.220 --> 00:26:24.340 and that's to reintroduce the idea of transparency in systems. 644 00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.200 In our governance and decisions get... 645 00:26:29.200 --> 00:26:30.800 You might have some consultations 646 00:26:30.820 --> 00:26:31.000 that are done by the government, 647 00:26:31.000 --> 00:26:31.420 and then you have a consultation down here, 648 00:26:31.560 --> 00:26:34.160 and then the difference between that consultation 649 00:26:34.160 --> 00:26:36.760 and what comes out as a kind of a plan 650 00:26:36.760 --> 00:26:38.620 or a policy in some instances 651 00:26:38.620 --> 00:26:41.420 or how the consultation is reported, 652 00:26:42.980 --> 00:26:45.380 there's almost a lack of transparency. 653 00:26:45.400 --> 00:26:49.580 It just sort of gets taken into this world 654 00:26:49.580 --> 00:26:52.000 and sort of churned out 655 00:26:52.000 --> 00:26:54.520 and described in totally different language. 656 00:26:54.740 --> 00:26:56.680 And I think that... 657 00:26:57.320 --> 00:27:00.240 Just that sheer administrative transparency 658 00:27:00.240 --> 00:27:03.940 of how things are moved through a system 659 00:27:03.940 --> 00:27:06.300 and why things are moved through a system, 660 00:27:06.360 --> 00:27:09.040 I think, can also contribute to better understanding. 661 00:27:09.360 --> 00:27:11.220 And I think that layer that you're talking about 662 00:27:11.220 --> 00:27:13.700 is where all the risk aversion techniques are put in. 663 00:27:13.940 --> 00:27:16.140 You know, the ideas at the bottom might be groundbreaking 664 00:27:16.140 --> 00:27:17.460 and exciting and innovative, 665 00:27:17.740 --> 00:27:20.120 but they have to go through the departments 666 00:27:20.120 --> 00:27:22.640 and, you know, all of the other systems. 667 00:27:22.640 --> 00:27:23.920 Because the risk aversion things, 668 00:27:24.680 --> 00:27:26.660 when we've worked productively with people in government, 669 00:27:26.680 --> 00:27:28.840 that's something that they're always dealing with 670 00:27:28.840 --> 00:27:30.440 and they are always under threat from it 671 00:27:30.440 --> 00:27:32.060 and they're always very nervous about it. 672 00:27:33.640 --> 00:27:35.720 How... If you're coming from a perspective 673 00:27:35.720 --> 00:27:36.540 of working in the community, 674 00:27:36.640 --> 00:27:39.720 how do you help those people get through those systems? 675 00:27:39.960 --> 00:27:42.480 Is there a way that you can enable the government sector 676 00:27:42.480 --> 00:27:44.220 to work differently? 677 00:27:46.520 --> 00:27:49.660 You can start by pointing out, as I have on a couple of occasions, 678 00:27:49.860 --> 00:27:51.920 that I've struggled to find examples 679 00:27:51.920 --> 00:27:53.420 where middle managers have actually been sacked 680 00:27:53.420 --> 00:27:55.180 because they've tried something a bit innovative 681 00:27:55.180 --> 00:27:56.080 and it hasn't worked. 682 00:27:56.680 --> 00:27:58.280 They've been sacked because of incompetence 683 00:27:58.280 --> 00:28:01.200 or because they've misspent money. 684 00:28:02.420 --> 00:28:06.380 But if they've taken a chance on particular organisations 685 00:28:06.380 --> 00:28:09.280 or they've wanted to try something a little bit differently, 686 00:28:09.420 --> 00:28:12.400 to my knowledge, I mean, I've actually challenged audiences to say, 687 00:28:12.500 --> 00:28:14.140 well, give me an example where this has happened. 688 00:28:14.500 --> 00:28:15.820 Because I actually think sometimes 689 00:28:16.780 --> 00:28:19.880 we create these sort of, you know, mental prisons for ourselves 690 00:28:19.880 --> 00:28:24.160 where we believe the system won't allow us to do certain things. 691 00:28:24.380 --> 00:28:25.540 There's a great example in the UK 692 00:28:25.540 --> 00:28:28.440 when they did some education reforms a decade ago, 693 00:28:28.520 --> 00:28:29.700 they introduced a piece of... 694 00:28:29.700 --> 00:28:31.860 In the legislation, when they revised it, 695 00:28:31.960 --> 00:28:34.860 they introduced a clause called the power to innovate. 696 00:28:35.680 --> 00:28:38.420 And basically what it allowed local authorities to do, 697 00:28:38.480 --> 00:28:40.120 because a lot of education is done at that level, 698 00:28:40.240 --> 00:28:42.460 was they could write to the national minister 699 00:28:42.460 --> 00:28:45.500 and ask to have a particular clause of the legislation waived 700 00:28:45.500 --> 00:28:47.240 because they wanted to try something new. 701 00:28:49.080 --> 00:28:51.920 And so for the purposes of that experiment, 702 00:28:52.060 --> 00:28:53.260 they could have that waived. 703 00:28:53.680 --> 00:28:54.120 Now... 704 00:28:54.120 --> 00:28:55.700 And the minister had to report yearly 705 00:28:55.700 --> 00:28:57.140 on how many times he'd waived it. 706 00:28:57.380 --> 00:28:59.060 And I read one of these reports 707 00:28:59.060 --> 00:29:02.900 and something like 75% of the requests had been denied. 708 00:29:03.420 --> 00:29:06.020 But they hadn't been denied because the minister was risk averse. 709 00:29:06.060 --> 00:29:08.880 They'd been denied because when they actually went 710 00:29:08.880 --> 00:29:10.760 and looked at what they were asking to do, 711 00:29:10.920 --> 00:29:14.200 the legislation didn't prevent a barrier to them doing it. 712 00:29:14.380 --> 00:29:16.060 So they could actually write back and say, you know what? 713 00:29:16.180 --> 00:29:17.260 We don't need to waive it 714 00:29:17.260 --> 00:29:19.380 because you can actually do exactly what it is you want to do. 715 00:29:19.900 --> 00:29:21.620 And I think sometimes internally, 716 00:29:21.820 --> 00:29:23.900 we need to give people courage inside systems, 717 00:29:24.120 --> 00:29:27.760 to actually sort of really test whether things can't be done 718 00:29:27.760 --> 00:29:28.720 because they can't be done 719 00:29:28.720 --> 00:29:30.520 or they can't be done because you think they can't be done. 720 00:29:30.640 --> 00:29:30.680 Yeah. 721 00:29:30.740 --> 00:29:33.420 I was going to say, I think it's about community empowerment. 722 00:29:33.840 --> 00:29:36.660 I think there's a whole lot of self-censoring that goes on 723 00:29:36.660 --> 00:29:38.220 that doesn't need to go on. 724 00:29:38.320 --> 00:29:42.880 And we tend to sort of squeeze the critical debate out of our kids 725 00:29:42.880 --> 00:29:46.520 and we tend to disempower people from having a voice. 726 00:29:46.560 --> 00:29:49.120 We tend to use the media, or we, 727 00:29:49.200 --> 00:29:52.980 people have tended to use the media as a way of stopping good thinking. 728 00:29:52.980 --> 00:29:57.320 They tell them to have, you know, to think big 729 00:29:57.980 --> 00:30:00.280 and they forget to tell them to have big thoughts. 730 00:30:00.660 --> 00:30:02.580 And it's two totally different things. 731 00:30:02.920 --> 00:30:05.020 And if people are having big thoughts, 732 00:30:05.140 --> 00:30:07.860 things happen because there's actions that come out of it. 733 00:30:08.060 --> 00:30:10.620 When you're told to think big, it's so linear, 734 00:30:10.720 --> 00:30:12.280 it only gives you one way to go. 735 00:30:12.480 --> 00:30:16.340 Someone puts something in that way, then people stop. 736 00:30:16.700 --> 00:30:19.880 If you have big thoughts and you go, oh, can't go there, 737 00:30:20.020 --> 00:30:21.680 oh, can go there, you know, 738 00:30:21.680 --> 00:30:23.060 there's always another way. 739 00:30:23.440 --> 00:30:25.500 There's never one way of anything. 740 00:30:25.660 --> 00:30:26.720 There's always another way. 741 00:30:27.640 --> 00:30:30.800 I think the whole rules and regulations is a really interesting thing 742 00:30:30.800 --> 00:30:32.620 and how we as individuals respond to them. 743 00:30:32.660 --> 00:30:35.120 I'll tell you, I had this extraordinary experience last week. 744 00:30:35.140 --> 00:30:39.200 I was on a bus and that was a pretty extraordinary experience too. 745 00:30:39.640 --> 00:30:44.180 But anyway, I was on this bus and a woman wanted to get off. 746 00:30:44.760 --> 00:30:47.600 It was the first time on her bus she missed the stop. 747 00:30:47.720 --> 00:30:51.040 She was travelling and she had three or four bags with her. 748 00:30:51.680 --> 00:30:53.420 She realised that she'd missed the stop. 749 00:30:53.780 --> 00:30:56.600 She asked the bus driver, could he please let her off. 750 00:30:56.840 --> 00:31:02.220 The bus driver adhering rigidly to regulations could not. 751 00:31:02.280 --> 00:31:04.940 No, madam, we only stop on North Terrace. 752 00:31:05.120 --> 00:31:06.380 But I need to get off here. 753 00:31:06.440 --> 00:31:06.880 I've got to go. 754 00:31:06.940 --> 00:31:09.120 No, madam, we can only stop on North Terrace. 755 00:31:09.200 --> 00:31:10.260 And just proceeded to go. 756 00:31:10.780 --> 00:31:13.220 This poor woman was then let off at North Terrace 757 00:31:13.220 --> 00:31:15.800 and had something like half a mile to travel with this, you know, 758 00:31:15.800 --> 00:31:16.840 all these bags. 759 00:31:17.220 --> 00:31:21.180 And it was about this strict adherence for no real... 760 00:31:21.180 --> 00:31:24.260 There was no sense in the adherence to this regulation, really. 761 00:31:24.500 --> 00:31:27.660 But obviously they'd been given this regulation and they had to carry it out. 762 00:31:27.840 --> 00:31:30.440 And this is the difference between a rules-based and a values-based process. 763 00:31:30.700 --> 00:31:34.360 Ken Livingstone in London actually instructed his bus drivers 764 00:31:34.360 --> 00:31:35.760 to use their common sense. 765 00:31:36.160 --> 00:31:39.660 And actually I was living in London at the time this edict came out 766 00:31:39.660 --> 00:31:41.980 and bus drivers got nicer overnight. 767 00:31:42.160 --> 00:31:42.780 And you know what? 768 00:31:42.840 --> 00:31:45.420 The whole public transport experience got nicer. 769 00:31:45.420 --> 00:31:45.960 And you know what? 770 00:31:46.040 --> 00:31:47.520 Public transport usage went up. 771 00:31:47.660 --> 00:31:48.800 Isn't that a great thing? 772 00:31:49.160 --> 00:31:49.600 Totally. 773 00:31:49.600 --> 00:31:50.920 Why is that? 774 00:31:51.960 --> 00:31:53.200 I'm interested in why... 775 00:31:53.200 --> 00:31:55.780 And we all seem to agree on basic tenets. 776 00:31:55.800 --> 00:31:57.580 Why is that so unusual? 777 00:31:57.880 --> 00:32:00.920 Why has it reached a point where it's unusual for a bus driver to be, 778 00:32:01.040 --> 00:32:03.060 OK, I can stop here, it's common sense for me to stop here? 779 00:32:03.120 --> 00:32:06.500 How did we reach that point where the risk aversity was so entrenched? 780 00:32:07.880 --> 00:32:12.600 From my view, it stems from the very top. 781 00:32:13.360 --> 00:32:16.100 The number one thing that any department wants to avoid 782 00:32:16.100 --> 00:32:17.680 is embarrassing their minister, 783 00:32:18.740 --> 00:32:19.580 almost beyond that. 784 00:32:19.600 --> 00:32:21.660 It tends to go beyond their service delivery capabilities 785 00:32:21.660 --> 00:32:23.120 or their service delivery requirements. 786 00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:26.840 And when that culture is so strong at the top, 787 00:32:27.520 --> 00:32:29.880 It permeates and filters all the way down. 788 00:32:30.380 --> 00:32:33.700 I think it comes back to the stuff Sidney Dencer talked about yesterday. 789 00:32:34.080 --> 00:32:36.360 It's if you apply Mechanistic Reductionist Thinking, 790 00:32:36.580 --> 00:32:37.720 of course they can't stop. 791 00:32:37.900 --> 00:32:39.640 Because actually we want a system that runs on time 792 00:32:39.640 --> 00:32:43.620 because that's what makes sure people get to work on time. 793 00:32:43.800 --> 00:32:46.080 And then that's the decision-making process they use 794 00:32:46.080 --> 00:32:47.160 to write transport. 795 00:32:47.540 --> 00:32:49.280 It's actually where you adopt the Complexity Model 796 00:32:49.600 --> 00:32:53.060 say well it's about relationships and values and actually the fact that people 797 00:32:53.060 --> 00:32:57.400 can behave as human beings use their common sense that you actually get 798 00:32:57.400 --> 00:33:02.680 different outcomes I wrote something a fairly long time ago around decision 799 00:33:02.680 --> 00:33:06.420 making and it was in the art sector but what I came down to on this piece of 800 00:33:06.420 --> 00:33:10.920 research was that the criteria for the decision making needs to be based on the 801 00:33:10.920 --> 00:33:16.900 reason the decisions being made now that sounds incredibly simple however most of 802 00:33:16.900 --> 00:33:21.840 our decisions the criteria based are set by somebody else and are based on 803 00:33:21.840 --> 00:33:28.300 their agendas so if you take the bus example and you go the reason for for 804 00:33:28.300 --> 00:33:33.720 for making decisions around buses is to get people from a to be in the nicest 805 00:33:33.720 --> 00:33:38.500 possible way then the criteria is different than if it is to keep a 806 00:33:38.500 --> 00:33:46.800 minister from transport in power or to to make profits for for a corporation 807 00:33:46.800 --> 00:33:52.220 or a bus company kind of stuff that's when the criteria have been set so it's 808 00:33:52.220 --> 00:33:55.640 the argument that as long as power is located in one person the top of a chain 809 00:33:55.640 --> 00:33:58.720 you'll always have a system that protects that one person well I think 810 00:33:58.720 --> 00:34:02.020 it's actually that people don't realize about decision-making I think that 811 00:34:02.020 --> 00:34:06.140 people don't realize that they've got to stop and think okay why is this decision 812 00:34:06.140 --> 00:34:11.600 being made this decision can I set my criteria to be based on the reason the 813 00:34:11.600 --> 00:34:16.040 decisions being made not with fear because of something else that will 814 00:34:16.040 --> 00:34:16.420 happen 815 00:34:16.420 --> 00:34:20.220 could you could you produce a system that allowed that sort of decision-making 816 00:34:20.220 --> 00:34:24.940 based on the system we currently have I think it happens naturally because we're 817 00:34:24.940 --> 00:34:29.700 human beings and we care I think then the systems start to eke it out of us 818 00:34:29.700 --> 00:34:33.720 and if there isn't education and if there isn't empowerment of people we 819 00:34:33.720 --> 00:34:36.900 don't do those II things you know education empowerment that sort of stuff 820 00:34:36.900 --> 00:34:40.640 to get to the see things which are kind of cooperation collaboration creativity 821 00:34:40.640 --> 00:34:45.840 then we don't allow it to go further and be nice to each other 822 00:34:46.420 --> 00:34:50.600 be caring about the environment could be caring that we were living in been 823 00:34:50.600 --> 00:34:56.280 caring about the the people around us and if we stop and think if someone 824 00:34:56.280 --> 00:35:00.740 falls over we tend to stop and pick them up unless there's a whole lot of fear 825 00:35:00.740 --> 00:35:07.020 going on that stops us making that decision but the criteria when someone 826 00:35:07.020 --> 00:35:11.760 falls in front of us is a human one you know is a response is a human one of the 827 00:35:11.760 --> 00:35:16.100 Christy were usually set for ourselves is am i strong enough to help them up you 828 00:35:16.100 --> 00:35:19.780 you know, can I do something to help kind of stuff, 829 00:35:19.920 --> 00:35:22.380 rather than will it get me into trouble, 830 00:35:22.480 --> 00:35:25.660 is this person going to kill me, you know, what's going on here. 831 00:35:25.780 --> 00:35:29.740 We've got to get round to thinking about decision-making in a positive way. 832 00:35:33.320 --> 00:35:36.300 I mean, I agree with that. 833 00:35:36.360 --> 00:35:38.440 I mean, I guess one of the things I've been toying with, 834 00:35:38.580 --> 00:35:41.880 and I don't have the right way of expressing this yet, 835 00:35:41.920 --> 00:35:45.780 but I hope to in time for TEDx, Kristen, in case you're wondering, 836 00:35:46.700 --> 00:35:50.480 is this notion of, you know, how do we have, you know, 837 00:35:50.480 --> 00:35:54.260 very emotionally intelligent individuals put inside systems 838 00:35:54.260 --> 00:35:57.620 and collectively making very emotionally stupid decisions. 839 00:35:58.180 --> 00:36:01.520 And how can we actually breed more emotionally intelligent systems? 840 00:36:02.440 --> 00:36:06.120 If you actually took bureaucracies as a whole 841 00:36:06.120 --> 00:36:08.660 and you put them through sort of personality questionnaires, 842 00:36:08.700 --> 00:36:13.040 as a whole they come out well along the sort of autism spectrum, right? 843 00:36:13.140 --> 00:36:15.500 They don't recognise or valorise emotion. 844 00:36:16.100 --> 00:36:17.220 They misread. 845 00:36:17.460 --> 00:36:21.400 They don't read sort of, you know, communication cues and so on. 846 00:36:22.500 --> 00:36:26.880 And so somehow we've got to find this way of actually sort of taking something 847 00:36:26.880 --> 00:36:28.600 which is inherent in us individually 848 00:36:28.600 --> 00:36:31.540 and being able to sort of reflect that at an organisational level. 849 00:36:31.720 --> 00:36:34.040 So if we go back to what I was just talking about before, 850 00:36:34.120 --> 00:36:35.820 why does that system exist? 851 00:36:36.200 --> 00:36:38.280 Why does that person have that job? 852 00:36:38.740 --> 00:36:41.740 You know, that's setting the gender for, you know, 853 00:36:41.760 --> 00:36:44.960 why are there public servants, you know? 854 00:36:44.960 --> 00:36:47.420 And within the current hierarchy, 855 00:36:47.780 --> 00:36:50.180 it's like they believe they're there to serve who's above. 856 00:36:50.520 --> 00:36:54.460 In my head, they're there to serve us, you know? 857 00:36:54.480 --> 00:36:56.720 And so there's something, a mismatch going on already. 858 00:36:56.960 --> 00:36:58.600 I'll do one more thing before we go to questions. 859 00:36:59.380 --> 00:37:01.200 If we're looking at changing those systems, 860 00:37:01.260 --> 00:37:03.160 and those systems do come from us collectively, 861 00:37:03.340 --> 00:37:05.720 we pay for it, we vote for it, we work in that system, 862 00:37:05.880 --> 00:37:07.860 and you're looking at, say, a five-, ten-year plan 863 00:37:07.860 --> 00:37:10.840 to produce this alternative way of governing, 864 00:37:11.320 --> 00:37:13.460 what would be the steps to seeing that happen? 865 00:37:14.200 --> 00:37:16.300 You're in social innovation. This is your field. 866 00:37:17.080 --> 00:37:22.740 Well, I think trying to find catalysts, 867 00:37:23.460 --> 00:37:26.720 real or, you know, the computer says yes award, 868 00:37:26.960 --> 00:37:29.660 or a common-sense ombudsman, which basically says, 869 00:37:29.800 --> 00:37:32.260 you know, if someone uses common sense and they get fired, 870 00:37:32.520 --> 00:37:34.160 they go to this ombudsman and say, look, seriously? 871 00:37:34.580 --> 00:37:36.660 You know, I may not have followed the strict rules, 872 00:37:36.780 --> 00:37:39.260 but here's the value set I brought to that decision. 873 00:37:39.500 --> 00:37:40.740 Can I have my job back, please? 874 00:37:40.980 --> 00:37:42.740 You know, like finding, like, some small things 875 00:37:42.740 --> 00:37:43.440 which actually... 876 00:37:43.440 --> 00:37:49.020 enable the kinds of behaviours that we want to see grow. 877 00:37:50.100 --> 00:37:52.340 So, I mean, those are two ideas. 878 00:37:52.480 --> 00:37:54.800 I'm sure we could brainstorm a few more, you know, 879 00:37:54.800 --> 00:37:55.820 when I'm playing darts at the pub. 880 00:37:56.080 --> 00:37:58.180 I think that's a fantastic idea. 881 00:37:58.880 --> 00:38:02.820 I think it comes from government stepping out of the way 882 00:38:02.820 --> 00:38:05.340 in a lot of places and allowing the support 883 00:38:05.340 --> 00:38:08.900 of other organisations and entities 884 00:38:08.900 --> 00:38:12.020 that are trying to take over their role. 885 00:38:12.140 --> 00:38:13.420 The world has become so far... 886 00:38:13.440 --> 00:38:15.780 so much faster, as we've been saying, 887 00:38:15.940 --> 00:38:18.840 and so much more complex than what the system was built for. 888 00:38:19.120 --> 00:38:22.680 And very slowly, that just has to sort of dismantle itself. 889 00:38:24.940 --> 00:38:26.940 I think you have to have smaller units, 890 00:38:28.800 --> 00:38:30.380 smaller local units. 891 00:38:30.980 --> 00:38:34.500 There's something inherent in the very nature of size 892 00:38:34.500 --> 00:38:38.060 that makes it really difficult to become responsive 893 00:38:38.060 --> 00:38:39.240 in the way that you want to. 894 00:38:39.500 --> 00:38:42.360 So, if somehow in that local community, 895 00:38:43.500 --> 00:38:46.360 I think we can start fostering the values 896 00:38:46.360 --> 00:38:49.000 at that local level first in a slightly different way. 897 00:38:49.420 --> 00:38:50.480 Do we have a Jim Dears? 898 00:38:51.100 --> 00:38:53.620 So, Jim Dears was here recently. 899 00:38:53.640 --> 00:38:55.180 I don't know if you've heard of him. 900 00:38:55.220 --> 00:38:56.640 I hadn't, to my shame. 901 00:38:56.880 --> 00:39:00.760 He is kind of one of the pin-up people 902 00:39:00.760 --> 00:39:03.220 of the asset-based community development approach. 903 00:39:03.640 --> 00:39:05.980 He's been active in Seattle over the last 30 years. 904 00:39:06.220 --> 00:39:08.380 He was kind of the most active of the activists. 905 00:39:08.480 --> 00:39:10.000 I'm sure if they had cricket whites in Seattle, 906 00:39:10.080 --> 00:39:10.720 he would have warned them. 907 00:39:12.040 --> 00:39:13.280 And the administration... 908 00:39:13.440 --> 00:39:17.160 They knew a good thing when they saw him, 909 00:39:17.200 --> 00:39:18.780 and they appointed him as the first director 910 00:39:18.780 --> 00:39:21.640 of the Department of Neighborhoods when they established it. 911 00:39:21.820 --> 00:39:23.180 And the first thing that he did 912 00:39:23.180 --> 00:39:25.060 was they actually established these neighborhood offices. 913 00:39:26.520 --> 00:39:29.400 And their role was to respond to issues 914 00:39:29.400 --> 00:39:30.820 that people sort of presented to them, 915 00:39:30.860 --> 00:39:35.160 irrespective of what tier of government it actually affected. 916 00:39:36.060 --> 00:39:37.780 So, they basically sort of said, 917 00:39:37.880 --> 00:39:39.860 OK, let's talk about what you're trying to do, 918 00:39:39.960 --> 00:39:43.280 and together we'll work out how we can actually get this... 919 00:39:43.440 --> 00:39:45.200 So, is that an attempt to kind of restructure 920 00:39:45.200 --> 00:39:47.320 those sort of localized networks that, I guess, 921 00:39:47.340 --> 00:39:48.520 people like Robert Putnam talk about, 922 00:39:48.560 --> 00:39:50.420 we've lost that small scale? 923 00:39:50.780 --> 00:39:54.540 Is there an attempt to try and govern in such a way 924 00:39:54.540 --> 00:39:56.340 that you reform something we've lost, 925 00:39:56.460 --> 00:39:58.080 or is it producing something new? 926 00:39:58.380 --> 00:39:59.680 Well, I think it is a bit of that. 927 00:39:59.780 --> 00:40:01.920 I mean, I think that getting that small and that local 928 00:40:01.920 --> 00:40:04.280 means you've actually got far greater tacit knowledge 929 00:40:04.280 --> 00:40:06.420 about kind of the intersection of lots of issues. 930 00:40:06.600 --> 00:40:09.220 One of the problems with an industrialization model 931 00:40:09.220 --> 00:40:12.040 of public service is we kind of drag it up, 932 00:40:12.060 --> 00:40:13.420 and we only see bits of it. 933 00:40:13.440 --> 00:40:13.860 We only see bits of the problem. 934 00:40:14.040 --> 00:40:16.380 We only see the health bit, or we only see the education bit, 935 00:40:16.500 --> 00:40:17.380 or we only see the justice bit. 936 00:40:17.500 --> 00:40:18.880 Whereas if you're sitting in an enabled office, 937 00:40:19.140 --> 00:40:21.700 you can actually see how they play out in reality. 938 00:40:21.920 --> 00:40:23.300 And when someone brings to you an issue 939 00:40:23.300 --> 00:40:26.060 which actually draws on all of these issues to varying degrees, 940 00:40:26.360 --> 00:40:28.060 you can actually take quite a nuanced view 941 00:40:28.060 --> 00:40:30.500 about who you need to drag in and in what way. 942 00:40:31.220 --> 00:40:33.820 The smart thing there that they did, though, 943 00:40:33.880 --> 00:40:35.380 is they appointed an activist. 944 00:40:35.680 --> 00:40:37.200 They didn't appoint a bureaucrat. 945 00:40:37.440 --> 00:40:37.840 That's right. 946 00:40:38.020 --> 00:40:40.820 And so, for me, part of it is around active citizenship. 947 00:40:41.180 --> 00:40:43.240 To make change, we need to... 948 00:40:43.440 --> 00:40:45.120 To empower community and people. 949 00:40:45.480 --> 00:40:47.860 Which is quite a bit, because you're legitimizing a voice 950 00:40:47.860 --> 00:40:49.280 that's not usually legitimized. 951 00:40:49.360 --> 00:40:49.640 No. 952 00:40:49.840 --> 00:40:52.880 How do you reach that point where you legitimize... 953 00:40:52.880 --> 00:40:54.740 I mean, aside from having a strand of social innovation 954 00:40:54.740 --> 00:40:56.960 or an organization doing something like that, 955 00:40:57.080 --> 00:40:59.440 how do you legitimize a non-legitimate voice? 956 00:40:59.600 --> 00:41:01.260 How do you decide who has the right to represent? 957 00:41:01.520 --> 00:41:05.540 I think the deliberative democracy, participatory democracy, 958 00:41:05.680 --> 00:41:07.620 are all models of starting conversations 959 00:41:07.620 --> 00:41:11.080 so that voices are first articulated, 960 00:41:11.300 --> 00:41:12.840 because a lot of the trouble is, 961 00:41:12.840 --> 00:41:14.880 we don't necessarily have the good language 962 00:41:14.880 --> 00:41:17.440 to be able to say what we need to say 963 00:41:17.440 --> 00:41:21.460 at a level or a place that then gets heard. 964 00:41:21.820 --> 00:41:24.180 I think if we can improve the level of dialogue 965 00:41:24.180 --> 00:41:27.700 that's going on everywhere, then it will filter up. 966 00:41:27.800 --> 00:41:31.720 I'm into the filtering up as much as the changing from the top down. 967 00:41:32.080 --> 00:41:33.480 And I think combined with that, 968 00:41:33.640 --> 00:41:36.960 if sort of taking a leaf out of Mark Moore's writings 969 00:41:36.960 --> 00:41:38.800 on public value, creating public value, 970 00:41:39.860 --> 00:41:42.820 emphasizing within organizations, within formal organizations, 971 00:41:42.840 --> 00:41:43.840 within formal bureaucracies, 972 00:41:43.840 --> 00:41:47.720 the need to be enterprising, to be value-creating and value-seeking, 973 00:41:47.920 --> 00:41:49.940 which actually makes you a better listener 974 00:41:49.940 --> 00:41:52.440 and more responsive to kind of what you are hearing 975 00:41:52.440 --> 00:41:54.160 coming up from the ground. 976 00:41:54.580 --> 00:41:57.840 Can that sense of legitimacy come from outside of government? 977 00:41:57.900 --> 00:41:59.000 If we're talking about community, 978 00:41:59.200 --> 00:42:03.560 how can community legitimize good behavior within government? 979 00:42:03.940 --> 00:42:07.900 Well, we do by how we treat each other as a starting point. 980 00:42:08.060 --> 00:42:10.700 You know, I think... 981 00:42:10.700 --> 00:42:12.580 I think it becomes... 982 00:42:12.580 --> 00:42:15.120 It becomes a swell when the ground is moving. 983 00:42:16.020 --> 00:42:18.640 Let's get some more nominations for Computer Says Yes next year. 984 00:42:18.800 --> 00:42:20.660 And that's how the community can tell government 985 00:42:20.660 --> 00:42:22.040 the kind of behavior we like seeing. 986 00:42:22.620 --> 00:42:24.620 Excellent. Now, we have a microphone up the back. 987 00:42:24.780 --> 00:42:28.060 If there's any questions, we would love to hear them. 988 00:42:28.500 --> 00:42:30.280 Does anyone like to ask a question? 989 00:42:30.560 --> 00:42:32.960 We'll just get you to go and talk to that microphone up the back. 990 00:42:34.620 --> 00:42:38.080 Hello. I came here really hoping that I was going to hear 991 00:42:38.080 --> 00:42:42.120 some more efficient ways of getting my ideas heard 992 00:42:42.120 --> 00:42:42.560 through the media. 993 00:42:42.580 --> 00:42:42.780 But, well, I've been trying to get my ideas heard 994 00:42:42.780 --> 00:42:43.260 by government. 995 00:42:43.600 --> 00:42:46.920 I've been trying probably 10 different ways throughout my life 996 00:42:46.920 --> 00:42:48.780 of getting sensible things to happen, 997 00:42:48.800 --> 00:42:52.660 and it's frustratingly slow or nothing actually gets done. 998 00:42:52.780 --> 00:42:55.640 The only hint of that I've really heard so far in this forum 999 00:42:55.640 --> 00:42:58.240 is Ianto saying, go straight to the top. 1000 00:42:58.440 --> 00:43:00.200 Is that actually the best way to go? 1001 00:43:00.280 --> 00:43:03.340 Forget all of the middlemen and go always straight to the head? 1002 00:43:04.320 --> 00:43:05.600 Depends what your idea is. 1003 00:43:06.460 --> 00:43:07.520 It depends what... 1004 00:43:07.520 --> 00:43:10.020 Well, say, for example, an idea could be, 1005 00:43:10.020 --> 00:43:12.820 North Terrace is a luxuriously wide boulevard. 1006 00:43:12.880 --> 00:43:16.140 Why can't we have legal bicycle riding on the footpath? 1007 00:43:17.520 --> 00:43:21.060 In my view, yes, that is the best way, is to go straight to the top, 1008 00:43:21.080 --> 00:43:24.700 is to go to the minister, write letters, make phone calls. 1009 00:43:25.600 --> 00:43:26.400 Minister and the mayor. 1010 00:43:26.980 --> 00:43:29.620 Is there a way that you could change it so you don't... 1011 00:43:29.620 --> 00:43:31.520 Because you need a fairly high level of social capital 1012 00:43:31.520 --> 00:43:32.460 to be able to get to the top. 1013 00:43:32.640 --> 00:43:36.340 Are there ways that you could work through the system 1014 00:43:36.340 --> 00:43:38.640 that you've identified, or if there's somebody else here 1015 00:43:38.640 --> 00:43:39.720 who's succeeded in doing that, 1016 00:43:39.720 --> 00:43:43.380 is there a way of not having to have the social capital go to the top 1017 00:43:43.380 --> 00:43:45.980 but still advocate for a change? 1018 00:43:47.900 --> 00:43:50.500 I think you have to do both, really. 1019 00:43:50.700 --> 00:43:51.900 And that's not a cop-out. 1020 00:43:51.960 --> 00:43:54.680 I think because of that middle structure, 1021 00:43:54.840 --> 00:43:56.980 which I think is the most risk-averse 1022 00:43:56.980 --> 00:43:59.460 and the one that blocks out of fear and personal 1023 00:43:59.460 --> 00:44:01.200 for a whole series of reasons, 1024 00:44:01.400 --> 00:44:04.780 I think that if you're genuinely trying to crack that open, 1025 00:44:05.840 --> 00:44:07.340 you need to go to the top 1026 00:44:07.340 --> 00:44:09.020 and then you need to inform everybody 1027 00:44:09.020 --> 00:44:10.260 from the bottom up. 1028 00:44:10.540 --> 00:44:12.780 I think we're getting some new platforms around 1029 00:44:12.780 --> 00:44:14.160 that actually enables you to do that. 1030 00:44:14.300 --> 00:44:15.080 Picture Adelaide. 1031 00:44:15.120 --> 00:44:15.980 The Adelaide City Council, 1032 00:44:16.100 --> 00:44:18.640 you can take a photo on your smartphone 1033 00:44:18.640 --> 00:44:19.840 and send it in and say, 1034 00:44:19.920 --> 00:44:20.740 look, I think this is wrong. 1035 00:44:20.920 --> 00:44:21.680 You should fix it. 1036 00:44:22.460 --> 00:44:24.100 The 5,000-plus one I've mentioned, 1037 00:44:24.380 --> 00:44:26.460 it enables you to put your ideas in context 1038 00:44:28.480 --> 00:44:30.360 because for every idea that says 1039 00:44:30.360 --> 00:44:31.920 we should have people riding on the footpath, 1040 00:44:32.160 --> 00:44:34.180 there's maybe another person who says we shouldn't. 1041 00:44:34.300 --> 00:44:36.020 And the people who are at the top 1042 00:44:36.020 --> 00:44:37.520 actually have to try and reconcile this. 1043 00:44:37.720 --> 00:44:39.000 One of the really interesting things, 1044 00:44:39.020 --> 00:44:40.400 I'm seeing with these platforms, 1045 00:44:40.540 --> 00:44:42.700 is you actually have that conversation as a community first. 1046 00:44:42.940 --> 00:44:43.940 Put your idea up. 1047 00:44:43.980 --> 00:44:45.420 If 100 people say, yeah, I like that, 1048 00:44:45.600 --> 00:44:47.900 suddenly Steven Yarwood's got to say, 1049 00:44:48.060 --> 00:44:50.000 well, actually this isn't just one person saying this, 1050 00:44:50.060 --> 00:44:51.560 there's actually 100 people who agree with them. 1051 00:44:51.880 --> 00:44:54.540 I come from community arts networks, 1052 00:44:54.680 --> 00:44:58.040 so I think often you have to do it creatively. 1053 00:44:58.340 --> 00:45:01.120 You've actually got to look at where the art fits into 1054 00:45:01.120 --> 00:45:03.460 telling the stories that then get heard 1055 00:45:03.460 --> 00:45:08.760 because quite often when a story's told in only one way, 1056 00:45:09.020 --> 00:45:12.640 which is often a complaint, then things don't happen. 1057 00:45:12.700 --> 00:45:15.860 When society's stories get told over and over again 1058 00:45:15.860 --> 00:45:18.420 and in creative, interesting ways, 1059 00:45:18.720 --> 00:45:22.200 then quite often the ears open up in a different way. 1060 00:45:22.360 --> 00:45:25.660 So just that art is something that we often say. 1061 00:45:26.500 --> 00:45:31.280 And chalk it because otherwise you get into trouble. 1062 00:45:31.560 --> 00:45:36.140 Get 1,000 push bikers doing it in slow motion. 1063 00:45:36.300 --> 00:45:38.120 You'll get a great piece of video. 1064 00:45:38.120 --> 00:45:39.720 You whack it on YouTube. 1065 00:45:41.220 --> 00:45:44.460 The creativity quite often will give you a different sort of voice. 1066 00:45:45.460 --> 00:45:47.080 The other side of that is, though, 1067 00:45:47.120 --> 00:45:49.920 I always say I'm working for my great-great-grandchildren 1068 00:45:49.920 --> 00:45:52.500 because sometimes the things that I'm thinking now 1069 00:45:52.500 --> 00:45:53.640 are going to take that long. 1070 00:45:53.800 --> 00:45:56.460 So don't get dispirited. Don't stop. 1071 00:45:56.760 --> 00:45:59.140 The other one that I hear often when this comes up, 1072 00:45:59.220 --> 00:46:01.980 and it seems we've all kind of admitted that trying to get through that system 1073 00:46:01.980 --> 00:46:04.640 is now impossible is that old adage of it being 1074 00:46:05.140 --> 00:46:07.180 better to ask for forgiveness than permission. 1075 00:46:07.180 --> 00:46:09.540 Once it's there, it's kind of hard to stop. 1076 00:46:09.700 --> 00:46:11.140 And I think there's initiatives we've done before 1077 00:46:11.140 --> 00:46:14.320 where it's like once it's set up for a minister to say, 1078 00:46:14.380 --> 00:46:17.780 OK, I'm shutting this down now, can be more of a risk than it's worth. 1079 00:46:18.740 --> 00:46:21.560 We'll set the forgiveness ombudsman up next to the common sense ombudsman. 1080 00:46:23.640 --> 00:46:24.440 Next question. 1081 00:46:25.460 --> 00:46:27.880 Is spin an essential part of government talk 1082 00:46:27.880 --> 00:46:30.260 or can it or should it be avoided? 1083 00:46:31.420 --> 00:46:32.600 Sorry, can you repeat that? 1084 00:46:32.760 --> 00:46:35.840 Is spin an essential part of government talk 1085 00:46:35.840 --> 00:46:38.640 or can it or should it be avoided? 1086 00:46:40.920 --> 00:46:46.160 Spin is, for me, spin is attached to the consumer society we live in. 1087 00:46:46.320 --> 00:46:50.420 It only becomes, only has value when we swallow it. 1088 00:46:51.240 --> 00:46:53.200 OK? We need to call it. 1089 00:46:53.880 --> 00:46:57.440 We need to actually recognise spin and call it for what it is 1090 00:46:57.440 --> 00:47:00.220 so that we can start telling the honest stories. 1091 00:47:01.440 --> 00:47:03.260 I agree as well. 1092 00:47:03.340 --> 00:47:05.820 And I think it's not clear. 1093 00:47:05.840 --> 00:47:07.320 I think it's not called anywhere near enough. 1094 00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:13.780 I often wonder what, you know, certain news reports expect us to believe 1095 00:47:13.780 --> 00:47:16.040 when they show us some of the footage that they show us. 1096 00:47:16.500 --> 00:47:20.140 And when you, you know, do a little bit of research 1097 00:47:20.140 --> 00:47:21.360 or you know a little bit more, 1098 00:47:22.460 --> 00:47:25.000 it's, you know, it's unbelievable some of the things 1099 00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:26.680 that we're expected to believe sometimes. 1100 00:47:27.160 --> 00:47:29.960 I don't want to come over as an apologist to politicians because I'm not. 1101 00:47:31.560 --> 00:47:35.440 Because, you know, I agree we should have less spin and dissembling 1102 00:47:35.440 --> 00:47:36.880 in our public discourse. 1103 00:47:37.140 --> 00:47:40.720 I think the challenge we've got is we've actually come to a place 1104 00:47:40.720 --> 00:47:45.360 where politics, the media, special interests have all kind of collided 1105 00:47:45.360 --> 00:47:50.060 in a space where this appears for politicians to be the best way through it. 1106 00:47:50.100 --> 00:47:50.800 I wish it weren't so. 1107 00:47:50.860 --> 00:47:52.560 I wish we had much more authentic language 1108 00:47:52.560 --> 00:47:54.100 in being able to talk through issues. 1109 00:47:54.200 --> 00:47:56.640 I wish we could actually talk in full sentences. 1110 00:47:57.240 --> 00:47:59.920 You know, sometimes issues take an hour and a half to talk through. 1111 00:47:59.980 --> 00:48:01.780 You can't do that in a five-second news bite. 1112 00:48:01.940 --> 00:48:04.180 But if that's your only opportunity to connect with people 1113 00:48:04.180 --> 00:48:05.420 who are going to sort of give you the job for an hour, 1114 00:48:05.420 --> 00:48:05.980 or maybe another three years, 1115 00:48:06.100 --> 00:48:07.640 you've got to make that five seconds count. 1116 00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:13.060 So I think, you know, if we demand better journalism, better media, 1117 00:48:13.160 --> 00:48:15.160 if we buy it, we're prepared to pay for it, 1118 00:48:15.220 --> 00:48:17.960 then we might actually start getting deeper, more meaningful conversations. 1119 00:48:18.400 --> 00:48:20.000 So, yes, I'd like to see spin gone, 1120 00:48:20.220 --> 00:48:23.200 but that means us, you know, sort of buying the alternative. 1121 00:48:23.520 --> 00:48:24.640 Philip... Sorry. 1122 00:48:24.800 --> 00:48:28.500 I think the responsibility is just as much on us in what we consume 1123 00:48:28.500 --> 00:48:30.820 as it is on what people are saying. 1124 00:48:31.140 --> 00:48:35.240 Philip Adams talks about the sort of progression from data 1125 00:48:35.420 --> 00:48:39.380 to information to knowledge to wisdom, OK? 1126 00:48:39.700 --> 00:48:42.240 Spin is down the data end. 1127 00:48:42.380 --> 00:48:46.240 They take a tiny sliver of data and a story is told around that. 1128 00:48:46.460 --> 00:48:51.220 We have to encourage everyone to move from data to information. 1129 00:48:51.480 --> 00:48:53.480 Sometimes our journalism is... 1130 00:48:53.480 --> 00:48:56.940 Well, our media, because there's not a lot of journalism going on at the moment, 1131 00:48:56.980 --> 00:48:59.040 I don't think, and I think there's a lot of media going on. 1132 00:48:59.600 --> 00:49:01.540 It's based on information. 1133 00:49:02.460 --> 00:49:04.980 Rarely is it based on knowledge or wisdom. 1134 00:49:05.420 --> 00:49:07.760 And so we've got to keep engaging with the stories 1135 00:49:07.760 --> 00:49:10.320 so that they can be told so the progression goes ahead 1136 00:49:10.320 --> 00:49:13.100 so that we can get something more than spin. 1137 00:49:13.280 --> 00:49:14.420 I don't mind a bit of spin. 1138 00:49:14.580 --> 00:49:18.200 You know, it can be a laugh, but we've got to see it, that that's what it is. 1139 00:49:18.440 --> 00:49:20.020 Do you think it would require... 1140 00:49:20.820 --> 00:49:24.060 If you've got high levels of education, high levels of social capital, 1141 00:49:24.140 --> 00:49:27.500 multiple ways of getting information, you can pick spin pretty easily. 1142 00:49:27.820 --> 00:49:29.480 Do you think it would require... 1143 00:49:29.480 --> 00:49:34.060 I guess there's a lot of people that don't have access to the resources 1144 00:49:34.060 --> 00:49:36.720 to figure out what the spin is. 1145 00:49:37.360 --> 00:49:39.780 Do you think that's a wider issue of... 1146 00:49:39.780 --> 00:49:43.760 I think that's a grassroots conversation again. 1147 00:49:43.840 --> 00:49:45.580 So people are chatting over the fence, 1148 00:49:45.720 --> 00:49:51.720 so people are talking in ways that allow them to critically pull apart what's going on, 1149 00:49:51.860 --> 00:49:56.920 to have real conversations around what they're hearing, not just to swallow. 1150 00:49:59.420 --> 00:50:01.020 It's getting crowded in that office. 1151 00:50:01.540 --> 00:50:03.180 OK, and next question, thanks. 1152 00:50:03.280 --> 00:50:03.700 Thank you. 1153 00:50:04.060 --> 00:50:04.220 My name's Anna. 1154 00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:06.800 There was lots of things raised in that. 1155 00:50:06.880 --> 00:50:07.160 I loved it. 1156 00:50:07.540 --> 00:50:10.960 My question actually was sort of a statement and a question in one about... 1157 00:50:10.960 --> 00:50:13.200 I wondered about recruitment reform, 1158 00:50:14.160 --> 00:50:18.100 recruitment reform within the risk-aversive government positions, 1159 00:50:18.280 --> 00:50:21.760 because I don't know how many people have actually applied for a government job, 1160 00:50:22.000 --> 00:50:23.500 but the list goes on forever, 1161 00:50:23.620 --> 00:50:26.920 and it takes about four or five days to actually make an application. 1162 00:50:27.320 --> 00:50:29.200 So I'm thinking within... 1163 00:50:29.200 --> 00:50:32.180 You know, in terms of inviting innovation and creativity 1164 00:50:32.180 --> 00:50:34.040 and people that are thinking outside the box, 1165 00:50:34.040 --> 00:50:38.860 the actual recruitment process itself is full of red tape. 1166 00:50:39.380 --> 00:50:41.580 I certainly think it's very exclusionary. 1167 00:50:42.340 --> 00:50:46.980 There is a house style to responding to public sector ads 1168 00:50:46.980 --> 00:50:48.640 in terms of responding to selection criteria, 1169 00:50:49.300 --> 00:50:55.040 and if you respond out of that, it's very easy to sort of be not considered. 1170 00:50:56.180 --> 00:51:00.220 But I guess as a former graduate of public service department, 1171 00:51:01.340 --> 00:51:03.680 I saw some amazing people. 1172 00:51:03.680 --> 00:51:05.440 I saw some amazing people being recruited straight out of uni 1173 00:51:05.440 --> 00:51:07.140 to go into the public service 1174 00:51:07.140 --> 00:51:08.860 because they wanted to make the world a better place. 1175 00:51:10.080 --> 00:51:16.440 What happens is the public service sort of beats that out of you as quickly as they can. 1176 00:51:17.800 --> 00:51:20.360 You know, Sue Varden, who ran Families and Communities, 1177 00:51:20.500 --> 00:51:24.560 used to have a great project where she used to get sort of junior graduates, 1178 00:51:25.420 --> 00:51:28.620 four or five of them wheel them into her office and say, 1179 00:51:28.760 --> 00:51:30.740 this is a real problem I'm facing on my desk. 1180 00:51:30.780 --> 00:51:31.140 Go away. 1181 00:51:31.140 --> 00:51:32.440 And you've got a month. 1182 00:51:32.640 --> 00:51:34.240 You've got a day, a week, or whatever. 1183 00:51:35.260 --> 00:51:36.660 Go and give me some answers. 1184 00:51:36.780 --> 00:51:39.760 Because she realised there was a huge amount of latent creativity there 1185 00:51:39.760 --> 00:51:42.660 in the people that she'd hired that actually, 1186 00:51:42.740 --> 00:51:45.260 give them a few more years, that wouldn't be there. 1187 00:51:45.440 --> 00:51:46.540 I think that's the point I make. 1188 00:51:46.640 --> 00:51:48.580 Yes, it's exclusionary in the first part, 1189 00:51:48.660 --> 00:51:51.820 but then the second part, people having it beaten out of them. 1190 00:51:51.900 --> 00:51:56.500 So the system is bigger than even perhaps a recruitment reform. 1191 00:51:56.780 --> 00:52:00.340 So it sort of seems to raise another issue about recruitment, 1192 00:52:00.340 --> 00:52:02.780 but also integration into the government process. 1193 00:52:03.160 --> 00:52:05.400 So how do you actually, if you've got a risk aversive, 1194 00:52:06.340 --> 00:52:08.920 it's all very well to say, well, let's remove some red tape. 1195 00:52:09.020 --> 00:52:11.860 But within the utterances within the actual government 1196 00:52:11.860 --> 00:52:13.140 that keep the system in place? 1197 00:52:13.960 --> 00:52:15.740 You know, development happens. 1198 00:52:16.160 --> 00:52:19.160 And for the last, I'd say, 15 years, 1199 00:52:19.860 --> 00:52:23.120 many of our decision makers have been squishing, 1200 00:52:23.120 --> 00:52:26.060 using a lot of energy to squish that development 1201 00:52:26.060 --> 00:52:28.060 to try and keep things the same. 1202 00:52:29.120 --> 00:52:29.640 Um... 1203 00:52:30.480 --> 00:52:33.560 Why I'm saying that is because when I say the next thing, 1204 00:52:33.640 --> 00:52:36.620 mostly people say, but we can't afford...we can't afford that. 1205 00:52:36.760 --> 00:52:39.660 But to me, if people actually took the pedal off 1206 00:52:39.660 --> 00:52:40.760 keeping things the same, 1207 00:52:40.900 --> 00:52:42.900 they'd have more money to pay for other things. 1208 00:52:43.140 --> 00:52:45.700 So what people...I'm working backwards, 1209 00:52:45.780 --> 00:52:47.020 if you follow my thinking. 1210 00:52:47.140 --> 00:52:48.820 What people often do... 1211 00:52:48.820 --> 00:52:51.780 I mean, why isn't...why isn't education free? 1212 00:52:52.360 --> 00:52:54.140 Why isn't university free? 1213 00:52:55.300 --> 00:52:57.720 The exclusion that...you know, I went through university 1214 00:52:57.720 --> 00:52:59.500 first in the 70s. It was free. 1215 00:53:01.200 --> 00:53:02.760 It hasn't been since. 1216 00:53:03.500 --> 00:53:06.920 Which means the people that are going for the graduate jobs, 1217 00:53:07.780 --> 00:53:08.920 that end up, 1218 00:53:08.940 --> 00:53:13.180 come from a narrower portion of society 1219 00:53:13.180 --> 00:53:15.800 than it was in my day of going through first. 1220 00:53:16.640 --> 00:53:19.140 So some of those issues that are... 1221 00:53:19.140 --> 00:53:20.600 We talk about the end cause. 1222 00:53:20.740 --> 00:53:23.100 Why is it that it's exclusion...you know, 1223 00:53:23.120 --> 00:53:25.360 there's a certain amount of exclusivity 1224 00:53:25.360 --> 00:53:27.120 in terms of who's ending up in there. 1225 00:53:27.280 --> 00:53:30.320 It's got a lot of bigger social agendas in it. 1226 00:53:30.320 --> 00:53:31.180 It's got a lot of bigger social agendas that are going on. 1227 00:53:32.800 --> 00:53:35.160 When I say...you know, people say, 1228 00:53:35.280 --> 00:53:36.680 well, we don't have the money to do that. 1229 00:53:36.800 --> 00:53:39.280 But to me, we could have the money 1230 00:53:39.280 --> 00:53:40.920 if we took all the money that... 1231 00:53:40.920 --> 00:53:43.040 You know, we're in such a privileged position 1232 00:53:43.040 --> 00:53:44.220 in this country. 1233 00:53:44.600 --> 00:53:47.480 If we took the money and we actually look at a redistribution 1234 00:53:47.480 --> 00:53:48.500 in another way, 1235 00:53:48.720 --> 00:53:51.200 we'd have lots and lots of different possibilities 1236 00:53:51.200 --> 00:53:53.520 for how the best model would look like. 1237 00:53:53.820 --> 00:53:55.000 Anna? Go on. 1238 00:53:55.140 --> 00:53:58.080 I often wonder if the generational shift 1239 00:53:58.080 --> 00:53:59.700 that, you know, is about to occur, 1240 00:54:00.320 --> 00:54:00.880 or is already occurring, 1241 00:54:01.380 --> 00:54:03.220 will have any impact on the public service 1242 00:54:03.220 --> 00:54:07.020 or maybe it will be beaten out of Gen Y as well. 1243 00:54:07.700 --> 00:54:09.140 But I spoke to... 1244 00:54:09.140 --> 00:54:10.740 Which is a pretty difficult thing to do. 1245 00:54:10.960 --> 00:54:13.800 I spoke to a group of public service leaders 1246 00:54:13.800 --> 00:54:15.720 a few months ago when it was myself 1247 00:54:15.720 --> 00:54:18.000 and two other young graduates. 1248 00:54:18.900 --> 00:54:21.160 And the three of us spoke about mentoring 1249 00:54:21.160 --> 00:54:22.840 and how important mentoring is. 1250 00:54:23.080 --> 00:54:25.080 And, you know, we want to learn 1251 00:54:25.080 --> 00:54:26.460 from those that are older than us. 1252 00:54:27.640 --> 00:54:29.120 Not that I'm a public servant. 1253 00:54:29.340 --> 00:54:29.820 But... 1254 00:54:30.320 --> 00:54:31.000 The thing that... 1255 00:54:31.000 --> 00:54:32.520 The response from the audience was, 1256 00:54:32.660 --> 00:54:34.180 well, we weren't mentored. 1257 00:54:34.180 --> 00:54:36.380 Thank you for giving us this insight. 1258 00:54:36.500 --> 00:54:39.720 And now we'll begin to do that with our young people. 1259 00:54:40.200 --> 00:54:43.360 It'll be really interesting to see what happens with Gen Y. 1260 00:54:43.540 --> 00:54:45.120 I'm mindful we've only got a couple of minutes left. 1261 00:54:45.220 --> 00:54:46.160 Do you want to go into... 1262 00:54:46.160 --> 00:54:48.660 We've probably got time for either one more question... 1263 00:54:48.660 --> 00:54:48.900 Thank you. 1264 00:54:48.900 --> 00:54:50.480 ..or two really quick questions. 1265 00:54:51.160 --> 00:54:53.060 OK. I'll make my question quick. 1266 00:54:53.180 --> 00:54:53.720 Hi, I'm Karen. 1267 00:54:54.780 --> 00:54:56.620 I was going to say we talked a lot today 1268 00:54:56.620 --> 00:54:58.260 about how to go through the channels, 1269 00:54:58.260 --> 00:55:00.520 the sort of labyrinthine channels of government 1270 00:55:00.520 --> 00:55:01.340 and engaged government. 1271 00:55:01.580 --> 00:55:04.520 And what I'm wondering about is just ignoring them completely. 1272 00:55:05.200 --> 00:55:08.900 And how can you sort of create spectacles 1273 00:55:08.900 --> 00:55:13.120 or just, you know, bomb the media and bomb government 1274 00:55:14.080 --> 00:55:17.560 in order to make that point really quickly, 1275 00:55:17.660 --> 00:55:19.620 go from data to information really quickly? 1276 00:55:19.840 --> 00:55:21.920 So I'm thinking of just in... 1277 00:55:21.920 --> 00:55:23.620 For example, the woman who spoke earlier 1278 00:55:23.620 --> 00:55:25.820 about being able to ride your bikes on North Terrace. 1279 00:55:26.140 --> 00:55:28.240 Like, if you organise a... 1280 00:55:28.240 --> 00:55:30.380 If you organised a few thousand people to just do that, 1281 00:55:30.880 --> 00:55:32.700 ride their bikes up and down North Terrace, 1282 00:55:33.460 --> 00:55:35.560 that would be a pretty strong statement that it was possible 1283 00:55:35.560 --> 00:55:37.160 and that many people wanted to do it. 1284 00:55:37.300 --> 00:55:40.640 So if we've got these organising tools with social media 1285 00:55:40.640 --> 00:55:42.520 and we've got the will and we keep saying 1286 00:55:42.520 --> 00:55:45.320 we've got all these people who are energised 1287 00:55:45.320 --> 00:55:47.000 by their stymied by these regulations, 1288 00:55:47.260 --> 00:55:50.080 why don't we just do more things outside the channels? 1289 00:55:50.680 --> 00:55:53.720 Get the art in there, though, because it reads well. 1290 00:55:53.860 --> 00:55:55.080 Sure. Yeah, yeah, exactly. 1291 00:55:55.300 --> 00:55:56.760 But, like, you know, creating a spectacle 1292 00:55:56.760 --> 00:55:59.240 and hijacking the media, 1293 00:55:59.380 --> 00:56:00.880 because the media then comes to cover it, 1294 00:56:01.780 --> 00:56:04.540 to me sometimes seems like a good way 1295 00:56:04.540 --> 00:56:06.180 of circumventing all of these rules. 1296 00:56:06.340 --> 00:56:08.880 Well, I think the best example I've seen of that in the last decade 1297 00:56:08.880 --> 00:56:11.180 at a big scale in terms of a national scale is GetUp. 1298 00:56:11.320 --> 00:56:13.500 You know, they hijack the media all the time. 1299 00:56:13.560 --> 00:56:14.760 They do it really, really effectively. 1300 00:56:14.900 --> 00:56:17.340 They leverage lots of small voices in the community 1301 00:56:17.340 --> 00:56:19.440 and they hit us at exactly the right moment 1302 00:56:19.440 --> 00:56:20.540 when we're feeling most outraged 1303 00:56:20.540 --> 00:56:21.960 and they get 20 bucks out of our pocket. 1304 00:56:22.900 --> 00:56:26.260 Now, I think GetUp's great, but I think GetUp's just one example. 1305 00:56:26.260 --> 00:56:29.220 And I think they are probably possibly, you know, 1306 00:56:29.220 --> 00:56:32.280 social media pioneers where a lot more is possible. 1307 00:56:32.480 --> 00:56:34.380 And I think that gets really, really exciting. 1308 00:56:34.720 --> 00:56:35.260 And another... 1309 00:56:36.020 --> 00:56:37.440 So more of that, please, and different. 1310 00:56:37.680 --> 00:56:40.360 Another great example is the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, 1311 00:56:40.500 --> 00:56:43.020 of who one of the co-founders is speaking at this festival. 1312 00:56:43.620 --> 00:56:46.140 And, you know, they tweeted their way to the Prime Minister 1313 00:56:46.140 --> 00:56:47.940 where they tweeted the Prime Minister so much 1314 00:56:47.940 --> 00:56:49.960 she took a meeting, which is just incredible. 1315 00:56:51.040 --> 00:56:55.440 Or to not bother about talking to the... 1316 00:56:55.440 --> 00:56:58.320 ..to the decision-makers, but talking to everyday people. 1317 00:56:58.460 --> 00:57:03.440 There was a flash mob version of some oldies singing a rock classic 1318 00:57:03.440 --> 00:57:08.780 in the Elizabeth Food Court where they'd arranged it all. 1319 00:57:08.940 --> 00:57:11.580 They'd been doing this choir. They did the song. 1320 00:57:11.780 --> 00:57:15.800 Now, that changed everyone in the food court's vision 1321 00:57:15.800 --> 00:57:18.280 of old people in...like that. 1322 00:57:18.500 --> 00:57:22.580 They will never look at their oldies again in the same way 1323 00:57:22.580 --> 00:57:25.420 because suddenly they're thinking one thing, 1324 00:57:25.440 --> 00:57:26.800 and then something's happening with all these old people 1325 00:57:26.800 --> 00:57:29.260 eating in the food court, and they all burst into song. 1326 00:57:29.600 --> 00:57:31.380 And it was a rock classic at that. 1327 00:57:31.780 --> 00:57:32.860 Hilarious, but wonderful. 1328 00:57:33.460 --> 00:57:36.420 And certainly the new tools, the new digital tools, 1329 00:57:36.640 --> 00:57:38.860 I mean, that's the power that they can give us, you know? 1330 00:57:39.360 --> 00:57:41.460 People may argue for and against, 1331 00:57:41.620 --> 00:57:44.020 but they can give us that power to act. 1332 00:57:44.680 --> 00:57:46.440 OK, we've got one last question. 1333 00:57:46.800 --> 00:57:49.880 I think there's a very important place for community engagement, 1334 00:57:50.100 --> 00:57:54.620 but I think if we only listen to what happens as... 1335 00:57:54.620 --> 00:57:57.900 ..or what is interpreted as the public voice of the community 1336 00:57:57.900 --> 00:57:58.980 through the media, 1337 00:57:59.100 --> 00:58:02.620 we sometimes might forget to do the really important things 1338 00:58:03.200 --> 00:58:05.780 or decision-makers don't make the important decisions. 1339 00:58:06.300 --> 00:58:11.300 And I draw people back to the public debate around the trams 1340 00:58:11.300 --> 00:58:13.860 when they were first...or the extension of the tram line 1341 00:58:14.620 --> 00:58:17.080 and how that was avidly opposed, 1342 00:58:17.140 --> 00:58:22.560 but it's now the most used form of public transport in Adelaide, 1343 00:58:22.660 --> 00:58:24.000 which I think is extraordinary. 1344 00:58:24.620 --> 00:58:28.160 There have been similar examples of a new public hospital 1345 00:58:29.200 --> 00:58:32.580 in other sort of countries where they've been opposed 1346 00:58:32.580 --> 00:58:35.220 if they're going to shut down a historic old site 1347 00:58:35.220 --> 00:58:37.500 and move to a new modern facility. 1348 00:58:38.440 --> 00:58:41.480 And the same debates as we've had in Adelaide. 1349 00:58:41.540 --> 00:58:44.300 So we need a balance between leadership 1350 00:58:44.300 --> 00:58:48.240 and community engagement in those sorts of public policies. 1351 00:58:48.680 --> 00:58:52.040 Very quickly, community engagement is not what tabloids say people say. 1352 00:58:52.340 --> 00:58:52.560 No. 1353 00:58:54.620 --> 00:58:57.000 And that would be a trap to believe that that's the case. 1354 00:58:57.240 --> 00:58:59.500 And very quickly as well, I think we're out of time, 1355 00:58:59.560 --> 00:59:02.740 community engagement is just one part of it. 1356 00:59:02.780 --> 00:59:06.840 It takes leadership as well to take that engagement or consultation 1357 00:59:06.840 --> 00:59:08.620 and do something productive with it. 1358 00:59:09.000 --> 00:59:12.220 It can't just be just an engagement alone. 1359 00:59:12.520 --> 00:59:14.480 And leadership's not those at the top. 1360 00:59:15.480 --> 00:59:17.640 Leadership is also us down the bottom. 1361 00:59:19.160 --> 00:59:22.280 And on that note, I'd like to thank you all very much for coming along. 1362 00:59:22.340 --> 00:59:23.720 I'd love to thank our panellists again. 1363 00:59:26.280 --> 00:59:27.820 And the next session...