Update: Click
here to read about the 'People's Agenda' meetings with MPs and discussion in Parliament.
Wow! With 32,517 votes cast, this is the biggest membership-wide vote in GetUp's history - and the most people-powered agenda for Parliament in Australia's! Here is some more detail about how we arrived at the agenda and what it means.
Q: What is this 'People's Agenda' thing all about, anyway?
Australia's progressive movement has been in opposition for almost 11 years. Now, with a new Government and a new Parliament, it's time to show that we stand FOR something, not against something. We have a duty not just to oppose, but to aspire - a duty to dream of what Australia can and should be.
The People's Agenda process, starting with the Vision GetTogethers in December, was designed to give Australia's progressive movement space to aspire and dream - and to create a positive, progressive agenda with a mandate from the community.
Q: How did you come up with these issues in the first place?
A: After 3,000 of you participated in our Vision GetTogethers in December, we read and processed all your input over the summer holidays. You can see the report from most of the GetTogethers here (some people sent their responses in by email instead of via our online survey tool, and while they aren't included in that file, rest assured that we read and took into account your feedback as well.)
We then extracted the 14 commonly recurring themes from the GetTogethers. This was necessarily a somewhat subjective process, one very similar to focus group research. We consulted with public opinion research experts to ensure that our methodology was sound. There were many excellent ideas and important campaign suggestions that didn't make the list, and we wish we and Parliament could take them all on, but we had to keep the voting process to a manageable length we did our best to winnow the field as fairly as possible.
Q: What were the actual results of the survey?
A: Here are the 15 goals we ended up with, and the results of the survey
(the first 4 columns are percentages; the 5th is on a scale of 1-4):
| # | Goal | top 3 | very imp. | imp. | not imp. | mean |
| 1 | Becoming environmentally sustainable (e.g. climate change, water, forests, marine habitats) | 71.1 | 25.1 | 3.4 | 0.3 | 3.67 |
| 2 | Making high-quality primary, secondary, and tertiary public education accessible to all Australians | 41.5 | 49.6 | 8.5 | 0.4 | 3.32 |
| 3 | Respecting the rights and improving the living standards of Indigenous Australians | 35.0 | 50.0 | 13.4 | 1.6 | 3.18 |
| 4 | Making high-quality, prevention-focused health care accessible to all | 33.0 | 55.7 | 11.0 | 0.4 | 3.21 |
| 5 | Combating entrenched poverty and narrowing the divide between the rich and the poor | 24.1 | 55.2 | 18.4 | 1.3 | 3.03 |
| 6 | Withdrawing troops from Iraq and urging the USA to change its approach to the ‘war on terror’ | 22.8 | 55.1 | 19.3 | 2.8 | 2.98 |
| 7 | Protecting our human rights and civil liberties (e.g. Bill of Rights, anti-terror laws, same-sex rights) | 22.6 | 53.1 | 21.8 | 2.5 | 2.96 |
| 8 | Improving community infrastructure and planning (e.g. public transport) | 17.7 | 57.1 | 24.1 | 1.1 | 2.92 |
| 9 | Protecting workers' rights (e.g. WorkChoices) | 17.1 | 57.8 | 23.4 | 1.7 | 2.9 |
| 10 | Strengthening our democracy (e.g. government accountability, democratic participation) | 16.9 | 53.7 | 27.5 | 1.8 | 2.86 |
| 11 | Reforming refugee policy (e.g., ending mandatory detention) | 15.8 | 57.1 | 22.4 | 4.8 | 2.84 |
| 12 | Supporting and empowering the elderly, the mentally ill, people with disabilities, and their carers | 11.5 | 56.6 | 30.6 | 1.3 | 2.78 |
| 13 | Becoming a good global citizen (e.g. overseas aid, UN, global poverty) | 11.5 | 54.4 | 31.3 | 2.8 | 2.75 |
| 14 | Remaining nuclear-free and stopping uranium exports | 19.7 | 44.9 | 23.1 | 12.3 | 2.72 |
| 15 | Ensuring Australians' access to diverse information and media (e.g. affordable broadband, ABC/SBS) | 7.8 | 46.9 | 41.3 | 4.0 | 2.59 |
We selected the top three goals based on the % of voters who listed that issue in their top three. We selected the remainder of the top ten based on the mean importance score, which was calculated as follows:
mean = 4 * (% of voters who rank the issue in their top three) + 3 * (% of voters who rank the issue as very important) + 2 * (% of voters who rank the issue as important) + 1 * (% of voters who rank the issue as not important)
Q: What are you going to do with these results?
We plan to partner with the Centre for Policy Development to write up a comprehensive, detailed version of the People's Agenda. When this is complete (in a few weeks) we will post it online. We have also commissioned an economist to convert it into a budget submission.
Meanwhile, a small delegation of GetUp members - largely GetTogether hosts and attendees in every electorate in the country - is asking for a meeting with every MP in the country to deliver it. We will also be delivering the Agenda to all MPs electronically. Finally, we have released the Agenda to the media.
Q: And how will these results affect GetUp's own campaign plans for the year?
As a member-driven organisation, GetUp will set its agenda in large part based on this member-driven process. Of course, the question of what
Parliament should focus on - which is what this process was designed to ascertain - is somewhat different from what
GetUp should focus on. Just as an example of what we mean by this, there are very well-developed progressive campaigning organisations in some of the policy areas in question and bigger holes in other areas, so we might concentrate our efforts in areas where we can make a bigger marginal difference. Moreover, we will also be responding to issues as they arise throughout the course of the year.
Finally, clearly the vast majority of our members think that all of these issues are vital to our nation. All of them were raised repeatedly by GetTogether groups, and even the bottom-ranked issues had clear majorities of participants rating them as either in the top three or very important. So just because something didn't make the top ten doesn't mean that we won't be campaigning on it!
Q: What can I do now to help make the People's Agenda a reality?
A: We're glad you asked! Now that we know your priorities for the new Parliament, we are planning our campaigns for the year. We need to know not just how big you're thinking (very big!) but also how big you're willing to act - so
please donate now to provide the financial resources we need to follow through on the People's Agenda!
January 22nd, 2008
I was unable to attend the gatherings earlier but I think its great what you are doing and I am sorry that funding the Arts better didn't make it into the top 15, though I agree with all the urgent and important things that did make it in.
As a performer I feel arts funding in Australia is obsenely paltry and I would particularly like to see much more funding available for community arts and to be much broader than mostly avante garde original works- for some traditional and folk arts like storytelling; and for people OVER 26 and people who have begun but need support building a sustainable living in the arts. I feel many of the probelms of depression and lack of social cohesion can be helped by the arts- especially community arts.