Civic Participation

2:30pm, Wairau room

Facilitators:

Kamaya Crawford, Department of Internal Affairs
Richard Liddicoat, Tasman District Council

Tags: Government and Citizens, Community

In a noisy world, your attention is in constant demand. Work and family commitments mean you are busy getting by … does anyone have time to be a citizen anymore? Do people want to participate in local and central government decision making?  The processes are long and sometimes complex; consultation is short. How do we move beyond engagement and participation to collaborative decision making? Are we ready for digital democracy?

After an introduction around local civic participation and what engagement means we’ll talk about the bigger questions:

•         How can the citizen be at the centre of decision making processes?

•         How can smaller or rural areas engage digitally when bandwidth is an issue?

•         How can we measure what is effective engagement?

•         How do we best use social media and the internet to increase civic participation?