Policy over politics

Volume 9 Number 7 July 8 - August 11 2013

Image: Jane Fennessy/Blue Vapours
Image: Jane Fennessy/Blue Vapours

As Australians count down to Election 2013 the University of Melbourne has launched a new School of Government and informative websites to engage a politics-fatigued electorate in actual policy debate. By Ryan Sheales.

When the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Advancing Journalism commissioned a national poll of voter engagement in May, the results were troubling. More than a third of respondents indicated they had little interest in the 2013 federal election, and most said the quality of political leadership and political debate in Australia was at an all-time low.

 

But how can this be?

At a time when voters have an unparalleled ability to engage with politics and policy through the Internet, and politicians have never had greater direct access to citizens, why isn’t engagement at record levels?

Speaking recently at the launch of the University’s Melbourne School of Government, former Victorian Governor Alex Chernov suggested increasing policy complexity might be a factor.

“The challenges facing us today are so multi-dimensional and complex they tend to inhibit rather than encourage public discussion and the development of policies in relation to them,” he told the gathering.

It’s become almost cliché to remark on how the world is changing so dramatically. Children born today will never know a world without personal computers, jumbo jets or 24-hour news. But for every advance we make across the tapestry of human endeavour, we leave the next generation with a more complicated world to navigate. 

Currently, they stand to inherit challenges like climate change, resource security, economic instability, runaway population growth and mass migration.

The Melbourne School of Government’s Director, Professor Helen Sullivan, says the new school will seek to assist policy-makers as they grapple with these big challenges.

“We want to help generate workable solutions to contemporary policy and governance challenges,” she says. “To train future leaders to make wiser decisions and build strong public institutions, and to foster and support a culture of informed public debate.”

The University’s Vice-Chancellor, Glyn Davis, sums up the new school’s role rather succinctly.

“The School’s purpose is to speak not just truth to empower, but ideas also. Which are often more important,” Professor Davis says.

The School, an initiative of the faculties of Arts, Business and Economics and Law, has an ambitious agenda.

It will undertake comprehensive research projects, deliver world-best teaching programs, build frank partnerships with public institutions and host forums, public lectures, seminars and other citizen outreach activities.

The former head of Victoria’s public service, Helen Silver, last month warned that the business of policy-making is becoming increasingly difficult.

“We [once] had big budgets to respond to these issues,” she says. 

“These demands are not going to stop, but we don’t have the budgets to meet them.

“The fiscal environment is extraordinarily challenging and the Australian economy will need to adapt and diversify in order to grow.

“A new generation of public policy leaders will need to adapt to a new and evolving operational environment.”

Professor Sullivan believes one of the school’s main tasks will be to help create these “21st Century public servants”. That is, public officials who can think laterally, innovatively and creatively about problems, who can ask the right questions (the so-called ‘next questions’) and who possess the ability to implement and communicate complex policy responses.

Communication will be crucial.

In a speech last year, the then Chairman of the COAG Reform Council, Paul McClintock, said: “Reform is for the people and therefore needs to take the people along with it.”

Informed and engaged citizens elect better parliamentarians and – as Mr McClintock suggests – are more willing to excuse short-term pain for a longer term gain.

Fittingly, therefore, one of the first major projects to which the Melbourne School of Government will contribute in 2013, Election Watch, is aimed squarely at engaging voters as they prepare to cast their ballots.

Making use of the University of Melbourne’s world-class academics, highly engaged student body and thriving alumni community, the site will provide a platform for serious political debate and the comprehensive policy analysis that’s often missing from the mainstream coverage of politics.

It will also feature an expansive repository of policy documents and campaign materials, including party advertising, making it an invaluable tool for journalists and politicians alike.

If former Governor Chernov is correct and the overwhelming burden of growing policy complexity is stymieing political discourse, then Election Watch might just be part of the solution.

Watch a short video about the launch of the Australian School of Government:

www.visions.unimelb.edu.au

www.2013electionwatch.com.au

www.government.unimelb.edu.au

www.caj.unimelb.edu.au