Seminars

22 May 2025

Speakers: Dr David Martin Wilson (Clerk of the New Zealand House of Representatives: ‘Clerk of the House’); Stephen Fujiwara (Principal Council Officer, Legislative Council, Parliament of New South Wales) , Jessie Halligan (Principal Council Officer, Legislative Council, Parliament of New South Wales) & Kara McKee (Principal Council Officer Legislative Council, Parliament of New South Wales).

Chair: Dr Sarah Moulds, University of South Australia and Deputy Chair of IPEN

Details: This IPEN seminar will focus on how the Parliament of New Zealand and New South Wales Legislative Council have managed high levels of submissions from the public in connection with public engagement exercises around legislation.

In early 2025, the highly contentious and sensitive issue of changing the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand, raised by ACT Party Leader David Seymour MP, prompted an unprecedented wave of public submissions to its Parliament. This coincided with huge Māori protests in New Zealand opposing the proposed changes. Inside the Parliament, extra staff were employed to vet more than 300,000 responses to the Seymour proposal, leading to questions about how to deal with such large volumes in the future. Clerk of the House Dr David Martin Wilson will speak about how the New Zealand parliament managed this experience, and how it intends to approach ‘managing the submission surge’ in the future.

In the second part of the seminar, Stephen Fujiwara, Jessie Halligan and Kara McKee will discuss their experiences managing parliamentary inquiries with thousands of submissions and substantial public interest in the Parliament of New South Wales. Drawing upon three case studies (relating to inquiries concerning reproductive health care, voluntary assisted dying and birth trauma), the speakers will examine the logistical hurdles associated with receiving, reviewing and considering thousands of submissions, managing heightened public and media expectations, and the strain placed on small secretariat teams with limited resources.

Taken together, these insights will be relevant to parliaments around the world struggling with the challenge of ‘managing the submission surge’ whilst continuing to encourage and value public engagement with parliamentary business and processes.

Images:

1. New Zealand Parliament building. Image by Squirrel_photos from Pixabay.

2. Parliament of NSW, Sydney, Australia. Photo by J Bar at the English-language Wikipedia. License: CC BY-SA 3.0.

13 May

If you have joined the International Parliament Engagement Network in the last six months or so, you should have received an invitation to attend one of our ‘Welcome to IPEN’ sessions on 13 May.

These informal sessions provide members who have recently joined with an opportunity to find out more about IPEN and to meet other new members of the network.

Each welcome session will include introductions, with a chance to ask questions and to share ideas and suggestions. Representatives from IPEN’s Executive Team will also attend to give a quick overview about the network and outline some of the resources and opportunities open to members.

If you have recently joined IPEN and haven’t yet received an invitation, please email us for more details at ipen@leeds.ac.uk.

Find out more about IPEN membership and how to apply.

19 March 2025

Speaker: Karen Aitken, Director of the Parliamentary Education Office, Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Canada

Chair: Sally Coyne, Head of Public Engagement Services Office in the Scottish Parliament and IPEN Executive Team

Details: This IPEN seminar will focus on British Columbia’s parliamentary outreach programming.

As the outward facing office at the Legislative Assembly, the Parliamentary Education Office’s mandate is to provide informative and educational tools to the public to promote a better understanding of the parliamentary system in British Columbia. The intention is to facilitate the public’s understanding of the role of the Legislative Assembly and its Members.

Karen Aitken will share details of Speaker in the Schools, an outreach programme which travels to communities and classrooms with the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. Through fun and engaging sessions, the Speaker shares his first-hand knowledge with students and leads them in a model parliament exercise to explore how a bill becomes a law. Students are provided with costumes and role play the various positions within the House to conduct a bill debate.

Karen will also outline other outreach initiatives, which include a variety of in person and online programs as well as educational resources to meet the various learning needs of our diverse audiences.

This will be followed by a Q&A and further discussion on ideas for further parliamentary engagement ideas or strategies suggested from participants.

Image: Legislative Assembly Speaker in the Schools program image. Courtesy of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Canada.

19 February 2025

Speakers: Darren Lawlor (Principal Clerk [Head of Policy Advisory Coordination and Development], Committees’ Secretariat, Houses of the Oireachtas); Charlotte Cousins (Senior Parliamentary Researcher [Parliamentary Affairs], Oireachtas Library & Research Service, Houses of the Oireachtas); Cathal O’Regan (Principal Officer, Department of the Taoiseach).

Chair: Chris Shaw (Clerk of the Home Affairs Committee, UK House of Commons, and IPEN Executive Team)

This IPEN seminar will focus on processes for citizens’ assemblies in Ireland through the lenses of the Houses of the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) and the Department of the Taoiseach (Prime Minister).

Darren Lawlor and Charlotte Cousins will give the perspective from the Houses of the Oireachtas, detailing the role of the Oireachtas in establishing the Citizens’ Assemblies. They will share how the recommendations were considered and reported on through Committees, and will provide insights on the engagement of parliamentarians and administration of these Committees.

Cathal O’Regan will provide a view from the Taoiseach’s department. He will cover the benefits the Government sees in citizens’ assemblies, including how views have evolved with experience and with different administrations. The choice of subject will be considered: how the decision is made and agreed with Parliament. Cathal will also cover the impact of different citizens’ assemblies on policy, and the wider impact that the use of these participatory methods have had on public engagement and Irish politics.

This will be followed by a Q&A and further discussion on the extent to which these processes are now permanently embedded in Irish politics.

Image: Meeting of the Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss which took place in St. Patrick’s Hall in Dublin Castle in 2022.

22 January 2025

The use of AI by parliaments has become a key focus of recent months. In this  Public Engagement Hub seminar we will undertake an open exploration of what AI may mean for public engagement with parliaments. 

The first part of the seminar will be structured around an ‘In Conversation’ format which will discuss and reflect on why it is important to consider AI from a public engagement perspective. The panel will consider the role that AI may potentially play in enhancing public engagement with parliaments. We will identify opportunities arising from this, as well as risks and how these can be mitigated.

The panel will seek to highlight examples of parliaments using AI for outreach and public engagement and discuss what we can learn from these. The panel will aim to discuss the role of AI as a summative tool (translating, transcribing, summarising volumes of data/evidence), but also as an inductive tool to stimulate ideas and enable deeper forms of engagement. 

The second part of the seminar will open up for Q&A and the sharing of experiences and queries on the topic.

Panelists include: Franklin De Vrieze (Head of Practice Accountability, Westminster Foundation for Democracy). Other panelists to be announced.

Chair: Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira, University of Leeds and Chair of IPEN

This event will take place on Zoom and is open to anyone with an interest in public engagement with parliaments.

The seminar will be presented in English. Translation will be available from/to French.

Find out more and register here.

About the Public Engagement Hub seminar series

This seminar is jointly organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the International Parliament Engagement Network (IPEN). The event is part of a series of webinars hosted by the Public Engagement Hub.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

20 November 2024

Jointly organised by IPEN and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), this Public Engagement Hub seminar will explore how the Mexican Parliament engages with citizens.

Speaker: Dr Khemvirg Puente (Politics Professor, National Autonomous University of Mexico and Former Chairperson of the Advisory Council of the Mexican Congressional TV Network)

Chair: Dr Elise Uberoi (Head of Social Policy Section, House of Commons Library, UK Parliament and Deputy Chair of IPEN)

Dr Khemvirg Puente will outline a range of public engagement initiatives, including the Legislative Museum of the Chamber of Deputies (Museo Legislativo), the Parliamentary TV and Radio Channel (Canal del Congreso), the Citizen website (Portal Ciudadano), the Open Parliament Agenda, the Children’s Parliament, the Youth Parliament and the Women’s Parliament.

The speaker will also reflect on the effectiveness of these tools in engaging citizens and enhancing trust.

This event will take place on Zoom and is open to anyone with an interest in public engagement with parliaments.

The seminar will be presented in English. Translation will be available from/to Spanish (tbc) and French.

Find out more and register here.

About the Public Engagement Hub seminar series

This seminar is jointly organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the International Parliament Engagement Network (IPEN). The event is part of a series of webinars hosted by the Public Engagement Hub.

Image: The Children’s Parliament, Mexico. Photo © Cámara de Diputados, Coordinación de Comunicación Social.

13 November 2024

Taking place at two different times across different time zones, we are excited to announce the first in a new series of IPEN ‘critical conversations’ on the theme of petitions.

Public engagement with parliament is not always plain sailing and – amidst the great successes it brings with it – can often involve challenges that at times can seem frustrating or difficult to resolve.

This new series of ‘critical conversations’ aims to create a safe space for our IPEN members to come together to critically discuss the issues they face around their practice or research and the methods they use (or have considered using) to engage citizens with parliament.

For our first event, we will be taking petitions and other forms of citizens’ legislative initiatives as a broad theme. If your work or research is relevant to this topic, please join us to share and critically reflect on your experiences and challenges around this form of public engagement.

Following an overview from the facilitators, each conversation will be structured around a series of questions and provocations relevant to the theme, which may also involve small group discussion. In a change to our ‘usual’ seminars, there will be no presentations – IPEN members just need to turn up and join in the conversation.

More information

The sessions will be facilitated by Cristina Leston-Bandeira (Professor of Politics, University of Leeds and Chair of IPEN) and Sarah Moulds (Associate Professor in Law, University of South Australia and Deputy Chair of IPEN)

This online seminar will take place MS Teams space and is open to all members of the International Parliament Engagement Network.

Find out more about the network.

Image by S K from Pixabay.

30 October 2024

Speakers: Juliane Baruck (Project Lead Hallo Bundestag, Germany); Paul Naudascher (Team Member and Head of Science & Evaluation, Hallo Bundestag, Germany)

Chair: Chris Shaw (Clerk of the Home Affairs Committee, UK House of Commons, and IPEN Executive Team)

This IPEN event is a follow up to the seminar we held back in 2023 on the Hallo Bundestag initiative.

Juliane Baruck and Paul Naudascher will report back on the findings from this deliberative democracy methods initiative that was used in Germany in 2023/4 to engage citizens with the policy making process, through a focus on Members of Parliament.

They will talk about their operative learnings from the project and will also dive into the findings from the evaluation report which has just been published.

This online seminar will take place in MS Teams and is open to all members of the International Parliament Engagement Network.

Find out more about the network.

Image: Among other useful gadgets, the Hallo Bundestag team handcrafted a cube for analogue lottery processes during each citizen assembly. Photo © Hallo Bundestag.

27 September 2024

This Public Engagement Hub seminar will focus on citizen-initiated legislation in Thailand.

Thailand has a provision for civil society organisations (CSOs) to submit legislative proposals to the House of Representatives if they gather a minimum of 10,000 signatures from eligible voters. This is this provision that was used to put forward a bill to address air pollution, known as the Clean Air Act, almost unanimously accepted by the House of Representatives in January 2024.

Following this, a 39-member ad hoc committee was set up to review the seven drafts submitted, including the civil society draft, and consolidate them into a single, cohesive bill that will then be presented to Senate early 2025.

Join us for a conversation that explores a very concrete example of public engagement through the citizen initiative mechanism designed to allow public participation in the legislative process.

This event will take place on Zoom and is open to anyone with an interest in public engagement with parliaments.

The seminar will be presented in English. Translation will be available to/from French.

Find out more and register here.

About the Public Engagement Hub seminar series

This seminar is jointly organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the International Parliament Engagement Network (IPEN). The event is part of a series of webinars hosted by the Public Engagement Hub.

Photo by Pixabay. Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license.

17 July 2024

This Public Engagement Hub seminar will focus on Kenya’s bicameral parliament to lead a reflection on how to institutionalise public engagement practices.

Speaker: Dr Brenda Ogembo, Principal Clerk Assistant and the Deputy Head of the Senate Liaison Office at the Parliament of Kenya

Chair: Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira, University of Leeds and Chair of IPEN

Kenya’s constitution sets a number of provisions about public engagement expectations. The seminar – which will primarily focus on the Senate – will share some of its practices in implementing these constitutional provisions while identifying some of the associated challenges.

This event will take place on Zoom and is open to anyone with an interest in public engagement with parliaments.

The seminar will be presented in English. Translation will be available from/to French.

Find out more and register here.

About the Public Engagement Hub seminar series

This seminar is jointly organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the International Parliament Engagement Network (IPEN). The event is part of a series of webinars hosted by the Public Engagement Hub.

Image: Parliament of Kenya, The Senate Public Entrance. Courtesy of the Parliament of Kenya.