Re-engaging with citizens: taking an issue to the people on the street

Most of us feel incapable of influencing the national political agenda. The action, or inaction, of the Federal government is not something we feel we can do much about. Involvement in such big-picture stuff is too daunting. And it feels too removed from our everyday concerns. It doesn't do much good to exhort people to show greater interest in current affairs or the political process - if someone is feeling powerless and alienated then being told that they should be tackling the government on a matter of national policy doesn't help.

But there is a way to reach them. The way to change their mindset is to bring the issues closer to home. If citizens can be involved at an individual, local, grassroots level then there is a good chance that this will lead ultimately to their engagement with the wider political debate. It may be that the issue itself is local. Or perhaps a big-picture issue can be acted on locally. This is what we did with Rural Australians for Refugees, by encouraging country people to start meeting, talking and agitating in their local community. If a disengaged person is approached by someone they know, about an issue they care about, and asked - say - to help draft a letter to the local paper, then that will engage their interest. It's manageable, not scary. And when they start getting feedback about the letter it is empowering.

But do such small activities really achieve anything? I believe they do. In fact I've seen in the rural refugee support movement the steady multiplier effect of such activities. The first thing is the growing sense in the individual that they are acting as a citizen, that they are not remaining anonymous and powerless but are having their say. I've also witnessed the radicalising effect this can have on people. Once they start speaking out there is no stopping them! They'll tackle their local Member of Parliament; they'll march in the streets. These are examples of everyday democracy. And national democracy is not possible without it.

Apathy is a reaction to powerlessness. In order to engage one has to believe at some fundamental level that the world we inhabit is of our own making. But I fear that the majority of citizenry no longer believes that. They feel it is all beyond their control. This syndrome is at its most poignant in the young, who one would love to see tilting at windmills. Young people sometimes seem so resistant to discussing current affairs that it's almost pathological. Not so much "can't be bothered" as don't want to be bothered. It's as if the world they are entering is not the wide and wonderful and exciting place of my youth but a difficult, dangerous monster that they are only prepared to glance at sideways.

There are times when we all feel powerless, particularly about effecting big-picture change. But change can happen at a local level and that is the place to start. I recently travelled through regional districts of NSW, Victoria, South Australia and southern Queensland. For every town that is "dying" there is one that is fighting back. Most of the ones in decline are doing so through no fault of their own - they are too close to another, larger centre, or the industry that provided jobs has gone. But the ones that are fighting back are a revelation. Sometimes the only difference between a town that is thriving and one that is dying is its citizens. That's a harsh statement but I believe it to be true.

Take Donald, in western Victoria. A few years ago its abattoir closed with the loss of 200 jobs, and this in a town of not more than 1500. It could have been the end of it. But a group of citizens decided otherwise. And they decided that Donald would never again be at the mercy of a single employer. They formed the Donald 2000 Committee and with the help of the local Council started actively lobbying for businesses and light industry to relocate to the town. It worked. The light industrial area now stretches for nearly a mile. There's no big industry, no one employing 200 people, but there are a dozen or so smaller businesses employing a dozen or so people - Kookas Cookies, Aussie Shirts, Donald Steel ... the list goes on.

Donald had going for it a handful of passionate people prepared to be involved, prepared to show faith in their community. And it had its own Shire Council. If there is one argument against amalgamations, this is it. A community needs to feel it has control over its own infrastructure and services. It's that grassroots thing again. Where there is a local Council, citizens will feel they have the potential to participate, to influence decisions. They are more likely to be interested in being involved. And the people of that community will feel that the Council is working for them.

The old "they oughta" syndrome is alive and well in Australia. But acting local reveals to people that it is up to them to "do something", that the responsibility for developing an effective community and getting things done can't be left solely to some higher authority.

As a body politic we are too accustomed to having decisions made for us. Because most of those decisions, even when we feel they are the wrong ones, don't impinge too negatively on our lives, we've been happy for that to be the case. We go along to the polling booths every few years and think we've done our democratic duty. Perhaps we've been too comfortable, too accustomed to mild swings in government policy that are no risk to the bedrock of our democracy. Maybe we've become so complacent that we don't even notice when that democracy is being eroded. Maybe when an entire country is so complacent things have to get really, really bad before the majority of people are moved to protest.

So far people appear not to have noticed the erosion of our democracy - the disappearance of ministerial responsibility, of public service independence, of equal treatment before the law. Indeed, the whole notion that government institutions are meant to be a public service has gone in this era in which we are all "customers". Most Australians appear not to care that our government has repeatedly flouted international law in its treatment of asylum seekers, for example. This government could literally get away with murder and most Australians wouldn't care. And in part they wouldn't care because they wouldn't believe it. We have an exaggerated idea of our own niceness. Nice ordinary Australia. How could anything fascist happen here?

The surface niceness of Australia was on display in 2000 when tens of thousands people volunteered during the Olympics. Australians love to volunteer, as long as it is not political.

What is at the heart of this reluctance to engage in public affairs?

Anyone who has been involved in political activity - out on the streets trying to talk to people or hand out information - will have experienced the withdrawal, the fear in the eyes of people who don't want you to bother them. It is a turning away that says, to me, "I have made a decision to turn my eyes away from what is happening in the world - don't make me look." Being irritated is fine; being uninterested, too. But why fearful?

What do they fear is going to happen to them if they are drawn into a discussion or into active involvement? Disagreements perhaps? Conflict? Could it be that citizens stay out of the public discourse simply because they don't like conflict? And is this a particularly Australian thing? Political debate makes Australians uncomfortable, which is certainly not the case in Europe where there is a healthy tradition of it. We seem unskilled in the discipline or argument, just as we are insufficiently exposed to the responsibilities of citizenship. The two are entwined.

The reality of social and political engagement is that one is quickly surrounded by people of like mind. If there is something you are fighting for then there will be an enemy, but most of the time you will have the support of your gang. This is particularly true in grassroots organisations. If you are working towards something you believe in, and you have the friendship and support of your comrades, it is a heady feeling. This is why I don't understand the reluctance of people to engage. The rewards, in terms of personal fulfilment, friendship and empowerment are substantial. The costs? Well, I know people often come a cropper when the internal politics of the group become bloodier than the external battle. Maybe that's why people won't engage: fear of conflict again.

For an ordinary citizen to have any impact on public policy on a national level usually requires them to be part of some kind of lobby or advocacy group. A lot of people may be reluctant to get involved for the reasons just mentioned. But I wonder also if there is some sort of culture of effacement at work. Perhaps many of us don't like to be seen to be putting ourselves forward; maybe we feel that there is someone else who is better qualified to take on that role. Or perhaps we simply expect someone else to do it.

Volunteerism has always been on the nose with the traditional Left because it is seen as getting people to do something (for nothing) that the government ought to be doing. And they've got a point. There is an enormous burden falling on voluntary and not-for-profit organisations that are literally holding together our social welfare tradition while the Howard government walks away from it. There are services that should be provided by government and which taxpayers have a right to expect government will continue to support.

But it is also true, I think, that an expectation that government will, should or even can "take care of things" is one of the causes of the disengagement of our citizenry. There is a sense, so widespread as to be almost universal in this country, that it is "someone else's job to fix it". For a country that came to democracy pretty early, we have been, as individuals, remarkably reluctant to take an active part in democratic life. Few of us belong to political parties or activist groups, or even residents' groups. This is what needs to be tackled.

How do people gain the skills that make them effective citizens? If they have never participated, why should they even think it is important? One can't have an effective community without effective citizens, but how can people be convinced of the importance of being engaged, and then persuaded to act on it?

First, give them time to do it. How can we have an effective democracy when most people have too little time to even effectively sustain their family relationships, let alone get involved in their community?

Second, show them that coming together with people of like mind and having their say can be fun! All those volunteers during the Sydney Olympics discovered something: getting involved was a buzz. If only all that energy could be harnessed for something more useful than marshalling queues!

Finally, tap into their passions at a local level. When an issue is brought close to home, people do see the necessity for getting involved, so act local. And watch that flow through to a broader engagement in public issues.