Campbelltown poised to bring back real grassroots democracy

Campbelltown is about to embark on an ambitious journey to rekindle the flame of grassroots democracy.

An initiative of the mayor, George Greiss, it will seek to involve as many Campbelltown citizens as possible in council decision making.

A public forum of community leaders and progressive thinkers in Campbelltown’s community on March 14 will be the first foray in a long campaign to achieve genuine engagement with the community.

It is the first time in decades that any local government area in the Sydney metropolitan area has sought to inject real democracy in council decision making.

In Campbelltown, democracy went backwards over a five year period before this mayor won office.

It was a term characterised by lack of accountability and transparency.

Now Mayor Greiss wants to go the opposite way, starting with the first forum.

“The needs and aspirations of our community underpin everything that we do as a council,’’ he says.

“Every strategy, project or event that we deliver aims to realise the ambitions of our residents and ultimately enhance the lives of the Campbelltown community.

“Effective community engagement both informs residents and gives them an opportunity to input their feedback and ideas into our processes and decision-making,’’ he says.

“Community engagement complements the use of data and evidence to inform decisions and an opportunity for the community to understand the rationale behind Council decisions.’’

Cr Greiss says that in many respects the March 14 forum will show the way forward.

“It’s about really listening.  We need to hear what people are thinking and feeling about the future of Campbelltown,’’ he said.

“At this first forum, we’ll talk about Campbelltown with key stakeholders to develop a shared understanding of our future. 

“At the end of last year, we presented a report that was a snapshot of Campbelltown from a data perspective, and it is very useful to support evidence based decision making,’’ Cr Greiss said.

“But we need more than data to succeed, we need to hear people’s thoughts and ideas, we need to hear their vision for the future and how we can make those visions a reality for our community.”

At the first council meeting of the year last Tuesday, Cr Greiss quickly corrected a councillor who referred to him as a “Liberal Mayor’’.

“I am the mayor of Campbelltown, not the Liberal mayor,’’ he said.

And he not only wants to be the mayor for all of Campbelltown, he also wants to be the mayor that gives power to the people.

“I am committed to authentic community engagement and evidence-based decision-making,’’ he says.

The South West Voice in Macarthur asked Cr Greiss how far he wants to take community engagement or grassroots democracy.

“Through the development of our community engagement strategy, which was endorsed at the last meeting of the council in December last year, we sought to understand how the community would like to engage with council,’’ he said.

“We recognise that the use of a spectrum of engagement activities from informing our residents about issues to empowering them to participate in the actual decision is critical for a genuine engagement. 

 “The activity we used will be matched to the depth appropriate to the decisions required, and they will include newsletters, website, social media, town hall meetings, surveys, submissions, polls, pop-in and pop-up sessions, workshops focus groups, working groups, deliberative panels and citizens juries

“Residents can also participate in council meetings, as indicated in our Code of Meeting practice, through the public address process, and this is regularly taken up.’’

The March 14 forum will be followed with town hall style meetings during the year, and if successful they could become part of the new democracy architecture at Campbelltown.

There are risks involved, and the mayor acknowledges that.

“We are here to listen.  Some voices are always louder than others, so we want to make sure we gather a well-rounded perspective from across the whole community,’’ he says.

“This means being creative with how we encourage conversation, and sometimes it means we need targeted ways to reach those less forward members of the community.

“We know that there are a number of things that we will hear need attention and we may not be able to deliver a solution.

“Part of the engagement process is working out what we can positively deliver directly, what we need to advocate for, and whom we need to partner with to get the best for our city.’’