Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This week, members of the House and Senate crossbenches called for a citizens' assembly into housing affordability, to help deal with this wicked problem. This afternoon, I want to explain what an assembly is, how it would work and why we believe it's a useful tool for improving our democracy.

The idea is based in deliberative democracy, where we take a representative group of Australians and immerse them in a challenging policy topic. They invest a huge amount of time in learning about an issue, talking to experts and to people with lived experience, and then they work through the issues and come to a consensus on what we should do. It's a patient, thoughtful alternative to politics as normal, and it has proven to be a valuable way of solving highly politicised issues and coming to consensus views on such topics as abortion and marriage equality in Ireland and climate action in France. Assemblies can be a tool for breaking through political deadlock and finding resolutions to the biggest challenges we face. They're effective partly because the participants are not politicians, so they're not hemmed in by ideology or pressured to act or think in a certain way; partly because participants are open to new ideas and new information, so they can explore options that might otherwise be seen as controversial or risky; and partly because people are, by nature, problem-solving creatures. We want to work together. We want to sort things out, especially when they're challenges that our family or friends have to face.

Of course, assemblies need to be done well to be effective. For that, the group needs to be representative. They need to have access to experts, information and a range of perspectives, and they need to have the time to properly work through the issues. It can be done. It's an idea that is well suited to a challenge like housing affordability.

Our housing markets are among the least affordable in the world. Too many of our young people have been priced out of communities where they grew up, and too many have been priced out of the market altogether. We can do better, but getting there requires a change, and it doesn't seem like any of our politicians are making enough of an effort to advocate for policies that will make enough of a difference. Maybe it's expensive. Maybe it's hard. Maybe it takes courage. Maybe there are complicated trade-offs across our community that we have to deal with. Whatever the reason, a citizens' assembly is a way that everyday Australians can come together, understand the issues and come up with a consensus for change. That's what we need right now.

The case for change is incredibly strong. That's why the proposal is supported by so many parliamentarians from right across our country: Dai Le, Andrew Gee, Andrew Wilkie, Kate Chaney, Helen Haines, Zali Steggall, Dr Monique Ryan, Kylea Tink, Dr Sophie Scamps and Zoe Daniel, as well as Senator Jacqui Lambie and Senator Thorpe. I thank them all for coming to yesterday's announcement and for backing this idea.

The other piece of support we need for this to work is that of the government. Three weeks ago, the House crossbench shared our proposal with the government. Our main ask was that the government commit to listening to the findings of the assembly and providing a formal response to their findings. We'd like to know what parts of the consensus the government supports, what it will consider adopting and what parts it won't support. This isn't a big ask, and we weren't pushing for a quick response. After all, the point of this process is to be deliberative. But the government has already ruled it out. They have refused to provide us with a formal response and said they'd only consider the proposals in the same way they'd consider other proposals.

I have to say it is incredibly disappointing that a community could come together to try and find a resolution to one of the biggest challenges facing our country, and their own government rules out even the possibility of responding to their ideas in a formal, constructive way. It's disappointing and it's arrogant. It's arrogant to think that the only policy ideas worth pursuing are those which originate in the ministerial wing of Parliament House. The Prime Minister said today that he thought this was the citizens' assembly. I say to this citizens' assembly that it has been singularly useless at trying to find a solution to housing affordability over the many decades that we have all been in this House. I think this House, this citizens' assembly, has let the community down, and I think it's time to change that.

The community voted for change at the last election, and this is not the spirit of change the community voted for. The case for a citizens' assembly into housing affordability is a strong one. We won't be deterred by the Prime Minister's opposition, but we'll work with our communities and do what we need to to make it happen. Housing affordability is too important an issue to be put off, and the community's views are too important to ignore.