Governing, elections and things to know about how representative democracy works
Finding out about how government works
General information designed for schools which is a neat summary; from the NSW Parliament. Applies generically for all Australian parliaments.
Have a look at the Animal Kingdom videos.
Museum of Australian Democracy : in Old Parliament House. How our democracy is and how it could be.
Finding out about Elections
Australia
The Australian Electoral Commission website has lots of information. The section Learn About elections contains sections on Delivering an Election, Voting and the Government, and For educators.
Of particular interest there are pages for:
- The three levels of government in Australia and how voting happens for each
- When federal elections are held
- How a federal government is formed
- About Australia’s preferential voting systems (among the best in the world) Also see how Australia has lead the world in democracy development
- About referendums
Their Information Centre also has lots of useful details.
Australian Capital Territory
The Elections ACT is the body who runs elections in the ACT.
Their Education Section has a wide set of resources.
More specifically they produce Factsheets on various aspects of how the electoral system works in the ACT.
Of particular interest they explain the ACT’s Hare-Clark voting system.
About how the ACT Legislative Assembly works.
The Legislative Assembly website has a set of Resources in the Visit and Learn section.
Labor-Greens Parliamentary Agreement 2016
Australia leads the world in elections
Salter 2020 Australian democratic reforms that led the world.
Participatory Processes
- Citizens Assembly Information Kit: Citizen Assembly as best practice consultation
- Martin Calisto Friant, Deliberating for Sustainability
- Bringing citizens into governance; parties no longer doing it, so what alternatives? Marija Taflaga (29/8/20) Lecturer, School of Political Science and International Relations, Australian National University
- ACT Well-being Indicators – Beth Slatyer on how citizens can participate
- ACT Well-being Indicators – Peter Tait Report Feedback on Governance Session
Stories of Participation
Participedia: Strengthening democracy through shared knowledge: a list of hundreds of participatory experiments and experiences across the world.
Living Room Conversations: Open your ears. Open your mind. Open your home.
Representation
- Representation: consent, legitimacy and accountability, by Peter Tait
- An Ecology of Representation, Peter W Tait, 2020, Some background theory for explaining CAPaD’s objective in focusing on representation in participatory democratic theory.
Selection by Sortition
- David van Reybrouck, Against Elections, using sortition to deal with ballot box fatigue, by Peter Tait, 2016
- Terrill G. Bouricius, Democracy through Multi-Body Sortition : Athenian Lessons for the Modern Day, New Democracy Institute, 2013
Some general interest reading lists
Resource books: These are actual books that we have in our collection. Current at October 2020.
General governance and democracy reading list of interesting background articles.