How to tackling some of the most critical and complex problems facing Australia was the theme of the inaugural national community development conference, Wrestling Wicked Problems – A New Approach. Staged in Canberra from 2–4 May, the conference attracted 250 delegates from all States and Territories, with one third from Local Government authorities.
Topics covered included homelessness, healthy communities, managing plae, Indigenous community development, equality and cultural development.
In welcoming delegates to Canberra, Australian Capital Territory Chief Minister, Jon Stanhope, said that in spite of Canberrians having Australia’s largest disposable incomes, the lowest level of unemployment and highest level of education, there are still many struggling families with one in nine children living below the poverty line. The Chief Minister said that his Government’s recently released Canberra Plan has seven key elements including Building a Stronger Community.
“To achieve quality service delivery and a high level of community engagement, we have moved away from a provider model to one of partnership,” the Chief Minister said. “Dealing with complex issues requires long term planning using a cooperative approach involving all stakeholders.”
Keynote speaker, Anne Summers, said that progress over the past 30 years had opened up many opportunities for women of all ages and socioeconomic groups. However, in her latest book, The End of Equality: Work, Babies and Women’s Choices in the 21st Century, she argues things are not as they should be and we are starting to go backwards.
“Working women in full time employment is no higher than it was 30 years ago,” she said. “Women’s average weekly earning are only 65 percent of that of men’s. The lack of childcare means many women can’t enter full time employment. We have a childcare crisis in this country with as many as one million places needed to meet demand.”
Calling for a national scheme of paid maternity leave, she said that 25 percent of young women will not have any children, and the highest proportion of women without children are those aged over 30 with a university degree.
Commissioner of the Productivity Commission, Robert Fitzgerald, in his keynote told delegates that ‘wicked problems’ are the result of the choices we, as a community, have made.
“In the 1970s we began working to ensure older Australians were not living in poverty and this has occurred,” Robert Fitzgerald said. “Today, we have many more unemployed younger people and children living in families without a parent in the workforce.”
Robert Fitzgerald said as a community we need to be working through the following:
- what are the choices we have made to date that have created the wicked problems?
- what is the knowledge we need to make wiser choices?
- how do we create the processes and linkages to make things happen?
- how do we know what we have done is actually working?
He used the example of Port Keats in the Northern Territory. With 800 children eligible for school, only 240 were attending. Through the greater involvement of community Elders in running the school and changing programs, attendance has almost doubled.
“This success is the result of the school becoming the centre of the community,” Robert Fizgerald said. “Similarly, it was community wisdom to swap to AV gas, that resulted in the problem of petrol sniffing disappearing overnight. We need to create community organisations predisposed to thinking and to be having the necessary conversations both internally and externally to find the answers. Social inclusion starts in your community.”
In her address Dr Carmen Lawrence, President of the Australian Labor Party, said that the basis of democracy is the non violent power sharing where we do not have to fear the state.
“Government by fear should not occur,” Dr Lawrence said.
Speaking on the topic Moral Panic and Public Policy she warned that fear built up in the community regarding the war on terror and war in Iraq, and the home grown fear of crime, means people are frightened enough to give up their freedoms.
“This leads to a distortion of public policy where people are willing to do anything to remove their fear,” she said. “Intelligence disappears in the face of fear.”
She said that many people believe we are in the midst of a crime wave largely fuelled by the emotionally charged media coverage of the very worst incidents.
“Yet the reality is that serious offences have not increased in the past 20 years and there has been no increase in the murder rate for the last 100 years,” Dr Lawrence said. “We are far to readily jailing people rather than considering alternatives. There is little debate on the consequences of focusing on punishment rather than looking at crime prevention. Prisons are harsh, damaging environments and we are often jailing the people who most need out help such as those suffering mental illness and drug users.
“Fear costs all of us in the long run.”
