A new community of practice for practitioners and academics working directly with public engagement with parliaments in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands has been established by International Parliament Engagement Network (IPEN) members.
Initiated in early 2024, the group has grown to over 30 members and includes parliamentary staff, academics and third sector practitioners as its members.
The community of practice was set up by IPEN Executive Team members Sarah Moulds (Associate Professor in Law, University of South Australia) and Caroline Wallis (the former Education Lead in the Parliamentary Engagement Team, New Zealand Parliament). It formally launched at an online gathering in April 2024.
The overarching aim for the group is to build a thriving, supportive community of Australian-New Zealand and Pacific colleagues who can identify examples of best practice in facilitating, designing or evaluating engagement, education or outreach activities. Key to this is working in close collaboration with IPEN.
The community of practice met for a second time on 26 July 2024, to dig deeper into engagement research and discuss how these important factors can work in practice.
Thirty-five people attended from a range of jurisdictions across Australia and New Zealand, with new members having joined since the first session earlier in the year.
The session began with a discussion on research undertaken by Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira (University of Leeds and Chair of IPEN) around public engagement with parliaments.
Dr Sarah Moulds then shared a new toolkit she has developed, aimed at those involved in designing, implementing or evaluating youth engagement strategies within parliamentary settings.
Informed by the insights and experiences gained from Sarah’s Churchill Fellowship, IPEN’s Public Engagement Toolkit and the significant contribution to scholarship in this space made by Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira, this new toolkit highlights ten key factors which can influence effective public engagement initiatives.
‘Is this research workable?’
A provocation put out to the group – ‘Is this research workable?’ – was addressed by Sasha Greig (Manager, Visitor Experience at the New Zealand Parliament) who has a great deal of experience in working with how to engage staff to then engage with the public in a parliamentary setting.
Key takeaways from Sasha were that:
- It’s amazing to have a framework against which to assess ideas, especially in terms of business planning or any sort of future prioritisation.
- Working with staff working at the coalface often highlights disconnects between the theory and the reality. One that resonated in the Visitor Experience context is the factor which talks of ‘listening not broadcasting’. This can be a difficult line to walk when encouraging meaningful discussions whilst also reminding people of rules and things that can’t happen because of the parliamentary space (for example, security requirements).
- A number of other aspects of this work discussed concerned feasibility. For example, there can be influence on initiatives dependent on funding (such as translation services, audio and visual elements), and funding allocation made by senior executive leaders who may not have the expertise in what makes good engagement or information on what good engagement practice is.
Ending on a positive note, Sasha shared that parliamentary engagement is not a thing to be achieved, it is a consideration and a process that we need to bring into everything we do.
Iain Walker from newDemocracy Foundation shared resources and his thoughts on citizens assemblies, including innovations in the Brussels Parliament and deliberative committees.
The provocation and talks generated a great deal of further thought and discussion within the group. Some of the key things covered were around the use of a recess for front loading (for example, delving into research) for when back in parliamentary sessions and the need to include differing perspectives when looking at engagement initiatives. It was also acknowledged that members of the public and staff are all at different levels of the engagement journey at any one time.
Community of practice co-chair Caroline Wallis said:
“It has been rewarding to see the uptake across many parliamentary jurisdictions in Australasia. I hope we can continue to use this forum for rich discussions that result in meaningful work and outcomes. We also welcome any new members who wish to join us!”
The community of practice met again in early December when the Parliament of New South Wales spoke about their work throughout the year and the wider group discussed ideas for other sessions for this fledgling community of practice in 2025. Watch this space for more details!
More information
If you would like more information about the Australian/New Zealand/Pacific parliamentary engagement community of practice, please get in touch with Sarah Moulds, Sasha Greig or Caroline Wallis.
IPEN members can find out more in MS Teams.
Images
1: Map showing Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islands. Source: Google Maps.
2: Introduction slide from July community of practice session.
3: Slide showing overview of research based 10 factors of effective public engagement, from July community of practice session.
4: Citizens Assembly graphic. Source: RNZ (Radio New Zealand).
5: Examples of youth engagement with parliamentary processes: protests and submitting to a committee. Source New Zealand Parliament.
Article published: 20.12.24