1. Nichola Cooper Research Lead, Centre for the Future
Promoting public deliberation in low trust environments; Australian use cases.
Nichola Cooper Research Lead, Centre for the Future

2. ‘Trust is in crisis.’
Of the five fears driving populism: corruption, eroding social values, globalization, immigration & concern regarding the pace of change—Australians identify eroding social values, immigration and globalization as key drivers for their lack of trust (Edelman, 2016)

3. The business case
The system is failing; delegitimisation of governments
Satisfaction with Australian democracy now at it’s lowest since 1996
Trust in government and politicians at lowest since 1993 – fewer than half of Australians confident government can deliver on issues
The majority of Australians believe politicians are corrupt and interests are aligned with big business
Government ministers the most distrusted of professions. Findings indicate support for participatory politics to reinforcing the function of representative democracy & develop an inclusive and responsive democratic system may garner greater engagement Sources: Edelman, 2016; Australian Electoral Study, 2016; Evans, Halupka, Stoker, 2016

4. Trends in democracy
‘…cyber democracy will be comprised of: cyber administration, cyber voting, cyber participation, cyber agenda-setting and cyber infrastructure.’ (Bezold, 1978)
The internet, native applications, open-source, secure
Collaborative, crowdsourced, democratic process redesign, policy creation, participatory budgeting – digital democracy (D-Cent, LabHacker, Your Priorities etc)
Liquid democracy models (Pirate Parties, Partido de Internet)
Direct democracy (Online Direct Democracy, Podemos, Direktdemokraterna)
Issues Based and Destinational (Flux party and MiVote) – blockchain based

5. Blockchain enabled direct democracy; Australian use cases
Flux
For-profit enterprise funding political party (Exo One)
6420 members, operated by volunteers
Issues-based democracy model (based on Deutschian fallibalism)
Aims to create the best policy possible by facilitating trading of votes to experts
(Private) Blockchain platform
Has run state candidates (unsuccessfully)
MiVote
Not-for-profit community movement
2856 members, operated by volunteers
Destinational democracy model
Aims to increase number of informed voters with researched information offered before voting.
Blockchain platform: vote.mivote.org.au
Will run candidates in next federal election

6. Looking to the future of Australian democracy
The future of trust
Money
Victorian Parliamentary Electoral Matters Committee (2017); not satisfied technology was foolproof, Census incident
Limitations of blockchain; speed, scale, digital divide, novelty
Increasing numbers of minor parties and independents?

7. “..We need to, quite literally, go to the people with a question that is almost never asked of them: What kind of a world do you want ten, twenty or thirty years from now?...We need to initiate, in short, a continuing plebiscite on the future...backed with technical staff to provide data on the social and economic costs of goals, the trade-offs so that participants may make reasonably informed choices among alternative futures...not merely expressed as vaguely expressed, disjointed hopes, but coherent statements of priorities for tomorrow’
(Toffler, 1970)

8. Questions & Answers
@TweetNichola