Editorial: The
Rudd Summit ... Is there a Third Way?
The 1,000 brains invited to the
Australia 2020 Summit at Parliament House
on 19 and 20 April by Kevin Rudd will achieve at least one
positive thing.
They will remind us that houses of parliament were once
intended to be
places of discussion amongst the people's representatives. Of
course, the
modern party system prevents parliamentarians from voicing
ideas or
debating them, but Kevin Rudd has been clever enough to
by-pass this little
structural hiccup and import some thinkers from outside. So
far so good.
Summit participants,
we are assured, will be invited in their own right
rather
than as institutional representatives from particular
organisations. This too is
a good thing, the goal being to get individual opinions
rather than official
stances from sectional interests. Of course one could ask why Mr Rudd's
party only permits citizens to become MPs
if they are representatives of
particular unions and factions and agree
to advance these sectional interests
in parliament. But perhaps it would be churlish to dwell on
that. For now let's
rejoice in this temporary suspension of
the closed shop model of
parliamentary representation in the hope of
witnessing a thousand flowers
bloom, if only for two days, before
Canberra's familiar grey routines re-assert
themselves.
Mark Latham left politics in 2005.
He remains the only Canberra politician in
the last two decades who managed to grasp the concept of
civil society. He
readily concedes that he couldn't get any of his colleagues
to pick it up.
Every politician can grasp the concepts of state and market,
they just don't
get the concept of social relationships and how they fit into the
policy
equation.
"On my side of politics", wrote
Latham in 1999, "we draw our talent and
thinking from the old institutions of the Left: trade unions,
political families
and machine politics. There is not a radical among them. The
innovative
ideas of social democracy are emerging in other forums, in
the networks of
creative small business and social entrepreneurs."
"This is why the arteries of policy entrepreneurialism in
Australian politics
have run dry. With its limited interests and intelligence
networks, modern
politics has become insoluble."
Which is why his successor, Mr
Rudd, is holding an Australia 2020 Summit
in April. Mark Latham eventually caved in to his party
bosses, but he
understood
the structure of our political culture all too well:
The Left and Right have been as bad as each other.
The Left has allowed
its distrust of markets and endless faith in government
to obscure the
importance of civil society. The Right has been so
focused on replacing
the state with markets that it has forgotten how to
cultivate a trusting
society.
Each side
blames the other for destroying community bonds when
in truth, both are culpable. This narrow debate points
to the need for a
Third Way - one which produces a stronger economy and
stronger
government through the creation of a stronger, more
trusting society.
States and markets, of course, are here to stay. It is
just that their
effectiveness is interdependent with social
capital. The Third Way is
neither anti-state nor anti-market... It simply seeks
to balance them against
the virtues of mutual trust and shared obligation. It
is, uniquely in the
politics of our time, pro-market, pro-state and
pro-civil society.
The Third Way is not, as its critics sometimes say, a
neat compromise
between Left and Right. It is committed to issues
beyond markets and
states. It introduces a third sector, the social
sector, into public policy. It
addresses the universal concern in society about the
loss of social capital
and social cohesion. Mutualism
- A Third Way for Australia, 1999.
Amongst the 1,000 invitees
to the Rudd Summit, will there be any who
grasp these insights? Will there be any who articulate
them?
Will there be any voices who
say in the Great Hall "What we are missing in
Canberra is not expertise in specialist fields, nor
even longer-term time
frames for thinking about policy. What we are missing
is a recognition of
civil society, an understanding of social capital, and
a means for thinking
about the interaction between state, market and civil
society".
The concept of a Third Way
remains indispensable in getting this debate
going in Australia. Without it, we become tethered to
state and market as
two goals at opposite ends of a netball court. In
truth, the field we are
playing on is a triangle: its three sides are state,
market and civil society.
The domination of our
political culture by the bi-polar advocates of state and
market is so strong, so
nearly-all-pervasive, that every small voice for
recognition of civil society in our country,
against the odds, is a
voice to be celebrated. Each voice is also, knowingly
or not, a voice for a
Third Way.
Contact
us to give us your thoughts.
With this issue we announce
the beginnings of our
Third Way Forum.
It will be an online forum linking and growing a Third
Way community of
doers, thinkers, writers and policy makers.
Sign up to
participate.
The Forum will commence on 1 March with a discussion
of Mark Latham's
Mutualism
- A Third Way for Australia.
We will follow up
with additional texts and papers, and
then on 1 April we will consider the 10
themes up for
discussion at the
Australia 2020 Summit, which
are:
- Future directions for the Australian economy
– including education, skills, training, science
and innovation as part of the nation's
productivity agenda
- Economic infrastructure, the digital economy
and the future of our cities
- Population, sustainability, climate change
and water
- Future directions for rural industries and
rural communities
- A long-term national health strategy –
including the challenges of preventative health,
workforce planning and the ageing population
- Strengthening communities, supporting
families and social inclusion
- Options for the future of Indigenous
Australia
- Towards a creative Australia – the future of
the arts, film and design
- The future of Australian governance –
renewed democracy, a more open government
(including the role of the media), the structure
of the Federation and the rights and
responsibilities of citizens
- Australia's future security and prosperity
in a rapidly changing region and world.
On Friday 18 April, prior to
the Australia 2020 bash on the following two
days, we will release our Third Way perspectives on these 10
themes. This
will take the form of succinct directional statements about
how we should
proceed in these areas if we actually take civil society,
social
relationships and social capital formation seriously.
These perspectives will
be released in Canberra on 18 April at a special
event preceding the Rudd Summit.
There is no cost to
participate in the Forum. It will be a moderated
discussion forum and information sharing tool which we hope will
have an
ongoing life in shaping public debate.
Click here
for further details.
Click here to sign up.
A Union for
Volunteers
"I feel very passionate about the lack of
unified support and disjointed
representation and easily assessable info and support
for volunteers in our
City of Melbourne and State of Victoria.
Specific specialty groups i.e. volunteers in
palliative care and aged care
within their own niche do have volunteers training,
support seminars etc, but
the need for one
“Volunteer Supporting” organization that can
deal with the
issues and needs that volunteers are confronted with as
volunteers and as
people volunteering their time and energy into very
complex areas and with
difficult clients …does not exist.
V.V. and V.A. have evolved
into professional organizations as have
Volunteer Resource Centres. But are they “volunteer
user friendly”? Are
volunteer support organizations there for the benefit
and support of
organizations that utilize volunteers or are they there
for the support of the
volunteers themselves? ", 'Lucy', Manager Volunteer
Services, Hospital and
Aged Care provider, Melbourne.
Volunteers are the glue that holds our community
together - in schools,
sporting clubs, neighbourhood groups, service clubs,
environmental and arts
groups, and in a myriad of community organisations.
Yet there is no national association or union of
volunteers in Australia. There
are plenty of funded councils on volunteering, but
these represent
organisations who use volunteers, not volunteers
themselves.
Call for Expressions of Interest
Expressions of interest are invited from
Australians from all walks of life who see the
need for an association or union of
volunteers. Its role would be to enable
volunteers to speak for themselves about
their contributions to society, their
information and support needs, and their
hopes for making as big an impact as
possible with their available time.
Membership would be free and open to
voluntary contributors to society in all fields of
activity.
Click here
to express your interest. Tell us what you think.
Offer your
suggestions on priorities, activities and roles of a
volunteers union in
Australia.
National
Conference of Parents, Families and Carers:
Program now
available
The program for the
inaugural National Conference of
Parents, Families and
Carers has been released. This is the first time
parents, families and carers
will gather together from a broad range of sectors to
develop a common
agenda for being heard by policy makers.
Registrations for this event
are being now being taken.
Click here to
register.
The gathering is the first
event of the newly formed National Federation of
Parents, Families and Carers.
Click here
to join the Federation (there is no cost).
Click
here for further information.
Social
Entrepreneurs and the Sub-prime Crisis
“Fixing the sub-prime crisis
requires social enterprises,” says Carlos Gasca
Yanez. Why a business model instead of community action
in response to
the tragedy of home loss through bank foreclosures?
"The solution
I'm working on in Scotland and Norway - part funded by
the
Norwegian Government - involves a variation on the US
Community Land
Trust which we call a "Community Land Partnership",
says Chris Cook.
"The outcome is that property can be financed - or in
the case of
foreclosures, refinanced - at a fraction of the cost of
conventional
mechanisms.
The deal is
this. The Banks doing the foreclosing do not sell the
properties
but transfer them into the hands of a "Custodian" eg a
"Not for Profit".
The Custodian
is a member of a limited liability company the other
members of which are:
(a) a "Club"
of "Occupiers" (formerly owners);
(b) a
"Manager";
(c) an
"Investor" ie initially, the consortium or club of
participating Banks.
An affordable
Rental is set in respect of each property and this is
linked to
an agreed measure of inflation. Part of this Rental
goes to the Manager and
a proportion is set to one side as a provision and held
by the Custodian as a
Maintenance Pool/ Sinking Fund.The balance goes to the
Investor as a
return on Capital."
Click
here to read more and join the discussion
on these possibilities.
Click
here if you're interested in options such
as these as a response to
the crisis in housing affordability in Australia.
Call for Papers: Funding
Communities: New Vision, New Agenda
Proposals for
papers and presentations are invited for the
Community
Building National Network conference on a new
vision for funding
communities. The conference will run over two days in
Melbourne on 26/27
March 2008 and will
develop an agenda for reform of the way governments
allocate resources for
building and strengthening communities.
Proposals are
invited on the following themes:
- case studies of innovative new funding models for
communities;
- current or proposed forms of pooled funds from
various programs and
jurisdictions;
- current or proposed forms of public, private, mutual
and/or philanthropic
funding mixes;
- evaluation of current methods, practices and
paradigms, and their social
outcomes;
- proposals for system re-design, and new funding
models;
- institutional impediments to reform, political
processes and strategies for
change;
- comparative examination of indigenous and
non-indigenous approaches in
funding communities.
Abstracts of papers and proposals
should be forwarded by Friday 14
March 2008 by email or hard copy (not exceeding 300
words) to:
Vern Hughes
Conference Convenor
vern@civilsociety.org.au
Tel: 0425 722 890
Click
here for further information.
Click here
to participate in the Community Building National
Network.
There is no cost.
Consumer control through direct funding
New South Wales remains
behind most other states in moving towards
consumer empowerment through direct funding models. But
even here, the
trend is unmistakeable. The Attendant Care Direct
Funding Pilot, the only
one undertaken by the NSW Government in the past two
years, has now
been evaluated, and as expected, the response from
participants has been
overwhelmingly positive.
Click here to see the Evaluation Report
on the Project.
Now available: Building Stronger Communities
Former Deputy Prime Minister Brian Howe
launched
Building Stronger Communities,
published by the University of NSW
Press,
at the Community Building National
Symposium on Tuesday 19 June. Philip
Hughes and Alan Black authored this
primer for communities on
strategies for
building stronger community relationships.
To purchase a copy of the book contact
Audra Kunciunas tel 03 9878 3477, fax 03
9878 2677, email
admin@cra.org.au
Barry Pond: Reclaiming Control of our Credit
Unions
Barry Pond is a Telstra
systems planner. In the 1970s many workplaces
with strong worker organisation established credit
unions to pool the savings
of members and provide cheap loans to each other.
Barry's was called the
Telecom Credit Union.
That spirit of self-help and mutual endeavour has almost been
extinguished
in Australia's credit unions, once a strong social movement
across the
country. Almost extinguished, but not quite.
Barry is leading a fight back in the credit unions, the last
significant group of
mutual institutions in Australia. He wants to hear from
credit union members
around the country willing to contest the next round of
credit union board
elections in a concerted way. Managements usually prevail in board
elections, having the
benefits of incumbency, access to member databases,
and insider
networks. Outsiders have a tough job getting up, but it can be
done. Barry was successfully elected to the board of
Telecom Credit Union's
successor
Australian National Credit Union.
The Centre for Civil Society will conduct a
forum on reclaiming control
of our credit unions on Saturday 12 April at 2pm in Melbourne. It will be for
those
who want to draw a line in the sand and put themselves forward to turn
the tide.
Express your interest by
contacting Barry.
The core unit of our work in advancing a
wide-ranging empowerment agenda
is the
Federal
Electorate Assembly (FEA). In each
federal electorate (150
around Australia) we will appoint a Convenor to
bring together people to take
local initiatives to influence policy and
opinion.
This may take the form of local forums
on important issues ignored by the
Establishment parties and commentators, or
campaigns on particular
themes, or promotions to assert the voices of
hidden, invisible groups of
Australians.
Click here
to register in your electorate (there is no cost).
