Thursday, August 19, 2010

Labor in Australia proposes a Citizens Assembly on Climate Change

Australian PM Julia Gillard is proposing a Citizens Assembly to tackle the issue of climate change.  This came about almost a month ago in Australia during their election campaign, I was unaware of this promise until today.

I am very happy to see a politician suggesting using a Citizens Assembly to deal with an issue, though I am not certain climate change is that work well.  The response has not been good, the majority of the public is opposed.    The non profit sector seems to think the process is a way for the government to avoid the issue.

I will be interested to see to if Labor will go forward this if they win the election, as of this week the PM is still saying she will go ahead with the idea.   In the election at this point it looks like Labor will just manage to win the election.

1 comment:

Ron Lubensky said...

For those of us in Australia who believe in deliberative public participation, we will certainly push for the CA to occur if Labor is re-elected. But of course, the government has to promote trust in the assembly better than occurred in BC. Also the main barrier here is that few understand what a CA is and what it can achieve, basing their caustic critique on false premises.