Abstract

Australia is not a leader in the field of deliberative democracy or innovative community engagement, especially the type of innovative community engagement that is the subject of this paper. Innovative community engagement encompasses deliberative democratic processes such as citizens' juries, consensus conferences and planning cells. However, although not a leader, Australia has had pockets of success. For example, one Minister for Planning and Infrastructure in the Western Australian Government (a state government) has convened more deliberative democratic processes than any other ministry or state. Her initiatives provide a model that other Australian states and other countries could emulate should they have an interest in drawing their citizenry into meaningful political decision making.