Labor Wins in West Australia with Deliberative Democracy Platform: Major Conference to be Held in May 2005

The Labor Government of West Australia was re-elected on February 26, 2005 despite media predictions that it would not win. A major bone of contention was Labor’s commitment to a "sustainable environment" and to use much more public deliberation in planning to achieve that goal.

The Minister of Planning and Infrastructure, Allanah MacTiernan, has pioneered innovative ways of engaging citizens in joint planning with
the government. She had used citizens juries, consensus conferences, "deliberative polls," "21st century electronic town meetings" to fulfill Labor’s promise.

Opponents considered this direction to be wrong, a sign of governmental weakness on the environmental issues, and an incorrect delegation of power to the citizenry. This became an issue in the campaign but did not work to Labor’s disadvantage.

Even after Labor’s victory, opponents of its approach predicted that Minister MacTiernan would not retain her position with the Government.
They were wrong.

First on the Minister’s second term agenda is a 21st Century Town Meeting on regional open space. Next, she will try to encourage a broader spectrum of government, business and community to implement best practice community engagement initiatives. The government will host a conference called "Innovation in Community Engagement: Interactive
Learning with World Experts," in Perth, Western Australia, on May 30-31, 2005. The focus will be on learning by doing. Deliberative democracy experts from the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, will take part.

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