Kate Chaney: Democracy On The Rise

The community in the Australian federal seat of Curtin elected the 7th new independent MP to parliament 2 years ago now, and the first and only (to date) in WA. In those two years, that community independent, Kate Chaney, has continued to drive a level of engagement and outcomes that no one I speak to has any memory of happening before. Perhaps it happened back when the major political parties first got going, when they had some membership to speak of? Today, less than 0.5% of Australians are members of a major party – not even the 1%!

In contrast, democracy is on the rise via this community independents movement. And here in Curtin, it’s resulted in multiple deliberative democratic processes, consistently brilliant outcomes, and some recent ground-breaking developments – from wellbeing economies, to climate, to transparent elections. But Kate’s expressed great fear too, based on what she’s seeing in parliament.

Head here for automatic cues to chapter markers and a transcript, also available on Apple and some other apps. (Note the transcript is AI generated and imperfect, but hopefully serves to provide greater access to these conversations.)

Recorded 19 April 2024.

Title slide: Kate & AJ in conversation (pic: Angie Hewitt).

See more photos on the episode web page, and to see more from behind the scenes, become a member via the Patreon page.

Music:
Green Shoots, by The Nomadics.

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden, from Regenerating Australia.

The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests (thanks to Josie Symons).

Find more:
Curtin’s Pathway to Net Zero: Making our community healthier, fairer and more liveable as we address climate change.

Upcoming events.

Kate’s article on the Fair & Transparent Elections Bill.

My articles:
We Can’t Keep Adding Cars to Our Roads – Is It Time to Say Goodbye?, on the World Economic Forum website

Cutting Back on Electricity is the Cleanest Power Source of All – As Our Household Shows

Enough’s Enough: Buying More Stuff Isn’t Always the Answer to Happiness.

Transcript

Kate: 0:00

One of the real challenges I find in this job is at some point you have to break down the big picture into things that you can actually take on.

AJ: 0:09

Yes.

Kate: 0:10

And so, while I absolutely think that we have a problem with endless growth, you know that it doesn't work. W e have a problem with induced demand. Trying to turn that into realistic actions we can take on the issues that are in front of us today I find quite challenging. B ecause also, it needs to be driven by a change in desires. I don't think it can be externally imposed by government.

AJ: 0:55

G' day, c oming to you from just outside San Francisco, m y name's Anthony James for The RegenNarration. Yes, the regeneration will be podcast, ad-free, freely available and entirely listener-supported. So thanks a lot to two new subscribing members arising from the Bicentennial episode with David Marsh, one of the Marsh sisters, Judith, and 5th gen Boorowa girl, like kin to the Marsh's, Lil Fahey. If you're also finding value in all this, please consider joining Judith and Lil, part of a great community of supporting listeners, for as little as $3 a month or whatever amount you can and want to contribute. Subscribing members, get behind the scenes stuff from me, tips, discounts and great karma. Just head to the website via the show notes regennarration. com/ support and thanks again.

AJ: 2:00

The community in the Australian Federal seat of Curtin elected the seventh new independent MP to Parliament two years ago now and the first and only to date in WA. In those two years that community independent Kate Chaney, has continued to drive a level of engagement and outcomes that no one I speak to has any memory of happening before. Perhaps it happened back when the major political parties first got going back when they had some membership to speak of. Today, less than 0.5% of Australians are members of a major party, not even the 1%. In contrast, democracy is on the rise via this community independents movement and here in Curtin it's resulted in multiple deliberative democratic processes, consistently brilliant outcomes and some recent groundbreaking developments. From wellbeing economies to climate to transparent elections. But Kate's expressed great fear too, based on what she's seeing in Parliament.

AJ: 3:09

I first spoke with Kate for the podcast during the campaign that resulted in her literally incredible election two years ago. From just a few months out with a standing start. W e met under a tree back then near her place. Today we meet under a tree at our place, a part of Curtin a s it happens, she'd never been to before. From the coast of Boorloo / Perth, h ere's Kate. Kate, welcome to this little nook of Curtin. It's great to see you here.

Kate: 3:38

It is very nice to be here, Anthony.

AJ: 3:40

We're upkeeping a fine tradition of, of course, thousands of years meeting on this continent under trees, and also ours, because two years ago, the first one we did prior to your election was in your hood, more or less at Lake Munger Gallop, and I wonder, as you sit here today, how that two year sweep feels to you.

Kate: 4:01

It feels like both a lifetime and no time at all, which is often the way when you've had big change in your own life. I reflect on what we achieved two years ago really having no idea about politics or how to run a campaign or anything, and just the wonderful wave of community energy that made that possible. And then I also think about what I've learnt in the last two years in terms of how change is made and how democracy is messy and imperfect, but still better than the alternatives and and some of the great things that we have seen some progress in the right direction, but also all the work that still needs to be done. So it's so. It's a little bit overwhelming reflecting on the two years, but I also definitely feel like I'm where I should be, you know, doing what I'm meant to be doing at this time. So no regrets, put it that way.

AJ: 4:56

Yeah, that's cool and I'm not surprised to hear about the overwhelming bit. In a way, it's part of the achievement, I think, to stay pretty level through it and we could kick straight on to some of the stuff that really is animating you and some of the stuff that has been incredible really from the last two years. But I want to take an unlikely, perhaps, starting position to ground it a bit, because you said coming into this year that you had a great fear and it did stem from some of the stuff you've seen in Parliament, and I'm talking, of course, about the polarisation and so forth. Can you talk to us a bit about how it has looked to you from the inside and what that fear is?

Kate: 5:37

Yeah, I mean, over summer I was reflecting and looking forward and polarisation was that great fear and I look at the quality of our debate on issues and it just seems to be heading in the wrong direction. We're so tribal we see it in politics, we see it on social media, everywhere really that there is this. I think we're finding it more and more difficult to have nuanced conversations about issues and be open-minded to the idea that someone else might actually have a point and we need to be curious and willing to hear and to change. So that was a concern for me at the beginning of the year. It's still a concern and I haven't seen any great strides against it, against that trend this year.

Kate: 6:32

There's still the huge polarisation and, being in Parliament, I think one of the really important roles that the crossbench can play is to try to hold some of the complexity. So, on issues like Gaza and I get a lot of correspondence from people who want to see a simple solution one way or the other and I've realised that it's my role to hold that complexity and you know I'm not going to come up with the perfect solution to peace in the Middle East and we need to understand that things are complex and difficult, which is not to say we throw our hands in the air and say we can't do anything about it. But we've got to resist the desire to oversimplify things.

AJ: 7:20

Yeah, a previous guest on this podcast, nora Bateson, steeped in the systems thinking legacy, said the world is complex, like everything is complex, and complexity needs to be met by complexity, and I noticed that one of the endorsements for her recent book came from one of the founders of Greenpeace who said there's clearly, after 50 years of the environmental movement, even there's clearly something wrong with the way we're going about finding solutions the way we're going about it. So, yes, it says a lot for that process and that the point of emphasis that you bring to the table and what you said the crossbench is holding like arguably that's the key task to at least give us a chance at what could actually be solutions, lest we just go around in circles or or worse, things escalate which we can't take for granted yeah, and I think it's very hard to hold that, because the reality is outrage and simplicity gets an audience.

Kate: 8:15

It, it motivates people gets an algorithm, it motivates people. People then either identify as part of that tribe or not, and I find that pull and that challenge really challenging. You know day to day, to resist the fact that if you just come out with a simple answer on this, people will like it and instead recognising that things are more complex than that and we need to find paths to continuously improve outcomes and solutions, but also recognise their imperfection.

AJ: 8:52

It says something about. Then the people will like it point being clear about whether your objective is to make things better or get a cheer squad. Maybe they coincide.

Kate: 9:05

Well, they're not always, and I think that's a constant tension, and one of the things I found really interesting about the job is how much there is this pressure to for performative work yes versus actual impact work and in every other area.

Kate: 9:21

I've worked in every other sector and you don't get the best outcomes from backing people into the corner and shouting at them. You meet with people, you talk, you know, you present evidence to them. You allow them to own solutions and be part of that. You're also open and curious and allow them to influence your position as well, and together you come to better outcomes. Here in politics so often you have a position and if you move from that position, you're seen as a flip-flopper and you shouted at someone and then either you bend them to your will or you don't, and then you jump up and down and say I did that all by myself.

Kate: 10:05

Well, that's not how democracy works. It's not how humans work Well this is the thing.

AJ: 10:10

My 10-year-old just left the scene after taking a photo of us. That's what you're supposed to learn when you're that age, and to see it play out, I mean. But this is, of course, then, part of what is changing with the crossbench to the extent that it's this size already in the parliament and and, of course, some of what you have gone about then. I do want to say, though, that you also have continued to put the word out to constituents and say open to ideas like how do we bring this, this sort of polity back? But you've already done a lot of work on that front in these two years, and the flip side of where we've started something is exciting, you more than most other things at the moment, and you've got it in your hand. You want to talk to that for us. What is so animating about this?

Kate: 10:55

so I'm holding curtains pathway to net zero, making our community healthier, fairer and more livable as we address climate change and this. This is a 70-something page report that we've developed over the last year with 50 volunteers from my community in five working groups to set a really positive vision for what decarbonisation would mean for us in our community. So it's not solving all the problems of the world, but it's saying let's look at what our emissions are and what are the big themes. We need to see change over the coming years and decades and what can individuals do? What do we need to see from local government, state government and federal government?

Kate: 11:45

And I love it for a few reasons. Firstly, I love its optimism and I think so often when we talk about climate change, you end up just feeling really depressed and helpless. And I love the fact that my community has produced this piece of work which says it is possible. And look at all the wonderful co-benefits we get when we go on this journey. The other reason I love it is because anyone can read it and it gives you things that you can do in your life, but also things that you can ask your representatives about, whether that's local, state or federal, and specific things. So often we think stuff must be done, but you don't know where to start, and we've had 50 people sit around and bring their expertise. They were ex-public servants, architects, engineers, all sorts of people talking about what are the biggest priorities, and so it's a great list of asks for our representatives as well, to move things in the right direction, so I'm very excited about it.

AJ: 12:53

It really is. So much of it blew me away, to tell you the truth, and it's as much because it's all those things, but even the conceptual layout of those things is so. It's so comprehensive, I mean, it's so accessible too, but it really does make more sense of the issues, but also the electorate you learn about your place. Of course, it's got children's art as well, and their little passages as well, which is really beautiful and, yes, it's very targeted to action. That is also, you know, the horse you can jump on and actually join in those 50 people and make stuff happen. And on that, note that there's four community projects already come out of it and that this is an ongoing thing and more volunteers are invited. You don't need to have any expertise. So there's all that. I feel like in a way and I think you did too that there's an anchor point or a touchstone. They would call it Taylor's touchstone, her particular artwork.

Kate: 13:54

Yes, and I still can't actually talk about this without tearing up, but in the report we've got artwork from a competition that we had for our last sustainability fair from kids in primary schools across the electorate and we picked some pieces that went with the content of the report.

Kate: 14:16

One of those was from a year four called Taylor, and she says my sustainable idea is to hold the world together and she has this beautiful picture of a planet being held by two hands and and I love this because I think the challenge we have is as simple and as complex as that. It's a simple idea, it makes sense, but it's really really hard and I just I love having I think having kids art in the report is just a great reminder of why this matters and also a real challenge. There are some wonderfully creative ideas in here about technologies and ways that we can be thinking differently, and I think it's a great challenge from future generations to say you can do this, we can actually take this on, we can solve this problem if we're willing to have a bit of imagination and a bit of hope.

AJ: 15:09

Yeah, well said, and that they're part of it. Now they're very welcome and central, arguably to it. And when you think about those lineages that were the seven generations ahead and back and we've alluded to the Indigenous folks here similar mindset that we'd at least go one generation.

Kate: 15:27

Exactly, not a big ask.

AJ: 15:29

And then on that I mean, how much of what you just said circles back to where we started to hey, for all the complexity, the simplicity of holding each other, it's actually not that hard. So let's rise to that occasion. And then, in a way, the very subtitle I feel like it's almost title really Making community healthier, fairer and more liveable as we address climate change, because you do talk about the huge opportunities in this and Claire, your staffer, who held this process, in her presentation about it at the launch recently, she said the refrain that I've heard a lot, certainly in my circles even. It's like, even if it were not for climate change, you would want to do these things because it just makes things better across these ways.

Kate: 16:15

Absolutely.

AJ: 16:16

And that makes me think of then and I guess, in the name of looking for solutions in different ways, it makes me think of nominally a different domain, but of course not at all when you think about it is the work you've also done with community on the wellbeing economics front. You had deliberative workshop processes there. A submission was made to the Treasurer's process. That's been a while. I wonder what's happening there. Do you know?

Kate: 16:42

Yeah, look, it's been a. It's a bit disappointing, so, and I think the Treasurer has probably been distracted by other things. But early on, jim Chalmers said that he wanted to develop a wellbeing part of the budget report that actually assessed our performance on a range of metrics rather than just economic metrics, and I had some conversations with him about that. I was very enthusiastic about it because I think it is part of rethinking what success looks like, and I was encouraging him. You know, we really need to do this based on community consultation, and we need to take people on this journey to understand why we should measure different things and what that actually means. The first step of that, then, was coming up with what are the things that we think we should measure, and we had a couple of workshops one with constituents, one particularly with my youth advisory group and we then said what does a good life look like? What should government actually be aiming to support? And we put all that content together, prioritised. It got people 60 people in the room to actually do that work themselves, and then we provided feedback to the government on the draft that they'd given. They wanted us to. They gave us a draft. These are the five domains and these are the measures. Comment on it. But I wanted to build it up from scratch and then compare the outcome, which is what we did.

Kate: 18:23

We then gave some feedback and actually the government then changed how it categorised those five main areas, which was very much in line with our feedback, which I thought was quite a nice win.

Kate: 18:38

It's sort of an esoteric win. It's in the wellbeing framework, but I think you know the Curtin community has had an impact on how we are thinking about the broad success of government's efforts and whether we're a flourishing country. So that was meaningful. But then they published in the last year's budget the first version of metrics against these measures and the reality is we don't have good data for a lot of these and that's because it hasn't been considered important before. So the Treasurer would now say his focus is on improving the quality of the data against those metrics so that we can actually baseline properly and to make it meaningful. I think there's work to be done in having a broad national conversation about why those things are important and what it actually means for government departments to be re-pitching how they think about success to feed into that overall framework. But I haven't seen any progress on that recently.

AJ: 19:48

And isn't this just the problem that, when it comes to the crunch, it's money and productivity, and, of course, gdp as a representation of that, that counts?

Kate: 19:58

And I think probably when people are struggling so much with cost of living, the economic factors are top of mind and it is probably harder in that context to be saying let's have a broader conversation, because the easy attack on that is you're just saying that because the economic stuff's bad.

AJ: 20:21

Yeah.

Kate: 20:22

So that's an unfortunate reality, I think, of the cost of living precious people are under at the moment.

AJ: 20:27

This is where it gets really interesting to me, for a couple of reasons. I mean one mainly because of where we want to come back to, like this report on making everything better while addressing climate change that it's the spiralling problems that are underpinning cost of living, be it the housing system or climate itself, and disrupting supply chains, or pandemic from environmental disruption and etc. It's so much to do with that. If you want to address that, you've got to come to this report essentially.

AJ: 21:00

But also, I just had a guest on who's a professor in deliberative processes and global governance, n Nicole Curato in Canberra. So I met her in Canberra and she's Filipino and she started with this incredible story of Filipinos after being hit by a hurricane and she's saying these are people with very little who after the hurricane, had nothing Yet they engaged in these sorts of processes and out of those sorts of processes, ended up with housing that was climate resilient and they even had the street names that they wanted and etc. Etc, etc. And of course, the community bonding and the political trust and all that sort of capital around it. And I said to her at the time I said, wow, this flies in the face of so much you hear is that poor people can't possibly have the time to do democracy. So let's you know implication, let's just do it for them.

Kate: 21:56

So the idea that our cost of living crisis, which stems from these other crises anyway, makes it too much for us to do this work that would actually work it's yeah, it is difficult and and it comes back to another problem we have, which is short-term versus long-term thinking, and you know we need to do this long-term thinking and there is always the short-term pressures, and I mean, I think people, people experience this in their everyday life all the time.

Kate: 22:27

You know you really need to, you know get the plumber in, but you don't focus on that until it's actually an emergency because you're busy going to work or, you know, making the kids' lunches or whatever. The short-term issues override the long-term. And we have similar pressures in government decision-making, especially with a three-year election cycle. And it's interesting seeing that now, as a newcomer, we're two years in, with one year to go before the election, and already all the focus has started to be on the next election and campaigning, which I find extraordinary that you spend only two-thirds of your time in each term actually doing the doing and the rest is focused on campaigning.

AJ: 23:14

It seems completely crazy. It does, doesn't it? Some of the structures that we could change. Yet and from Nicole I hear this we don't. Long-term thinking doesn't have to be and you've shown this doesn't have to be dependent on purely in terms of the electoral cycle and democracy happening at the ballot. It can happen the whole time in a whole bunch of other ways. And to think that in Curtin those experiments are relatively new, like we've never had anything of the sort. It's been wonderful, and I like the thought, then, that we don't wait till we're in a situation like the Philippine people, where they've got nothing and they just have to. I'd like the thought that we could be more proactive.

Kate: 23:56

There's a wonderful Milton Friedman quote where he says something like change happens at times of crisis, and the change that happens depends on the ideas that are lying around at the time. So I think there is serious work to be done to generate the ideas and, even if they don't get taken up immediately, when the time for change happens, then you look at the ideas that are around. So I think it's our job to make sure that there are ideas there.

AJ: 24:28

Couldn't agree more Beautifully said. So just to cover off on the things that the community processes came out with unsurprisingly then, they were, as they very often are everywhere around the world, themes of housing, education, environment, time for community. Your youth groups' priorities were interesting too. Safety was a strong one, you might remember, and trust in government and nature again. So no surprises there, but beautiful processes that affirmed. I mean people aren't saying money at the first port of call there was plenty around that wasn't there about having security that would incorporate how the economy works.

Kate: 25:08

Absolutely, and economic factors are definitely part of it, but they're part of it, not the whole of it Means to an end and not the end. Yeah, and I was interested to see safety come up for younger people. I think that did mean different things to different people.

Kate: 25:23

Some it was physical safety, Some interpreted it as online safety, but I guess that is a very fundamental human need to feel safe, and I think it's difficult to consider broader issues if that is under threat. So it's good to just remember that that is still something that is really important to people.

AJ: 25:48

It comes back to the holding each other as the. Yeah, there was also a word used in the workshop I was in prosperity, which reminded me of Tim Jackson's book Prosperity Without Growth and just distinguishing between well, distinguishing even monetary wealth, financial wealth, from prosperity. As a broader sort of topic, I've come out with a sequel since just recently, which is great work. It also reminds me of Sophie Howe's just been in Perth, the Future Generations work they did in Wales and now myriad other places, and it's stirring here too, which is the same sort of basis. Actually, don't even do it for communities. Get everyone involved and determine what we value most. Even do it for communities.

Kate: 26:29

Get everyone involved and determine what we value most. And when you look at I mean, wales is a great example there are a few jurisdictions around the world that have really taken on this wellbeing economy concept and inevitably that's involved broad community conversations about what is it that we actually value and then determining measures. Then the much harder piece of work which is embedding that framework in the way governments deliver services. And New Zealand has done it, wales has done it, france has done a bit of it in other jurisdictions, but Wales the creation of the Future Generations Commissioner role is a really good example of how they've taken that concept and then created it in their institutions, so by actually having someone whose job it is to look at legislation and say, does this make sense for future generations? And Sophie Howe has some great examples of having actually looked at infrastructure projects, for example and said, putting a massive six-lane highway through there is not good for future generations.

Kate: 27:38

And, to their credit, the Welsh Government went back to the drawing board and came up with a different approach to it, and that kind of thinking is where we should be heading.

AJ: 27:49

Yeah, and you're right to their credit, to everyone's credit in that sense, and that sounds like governance, doesn't it to aspire to? You said half the OECD countries now have well-being economy frameworks, so that was that was interesting to hear too. Coming back then to how the net zero pathway relates to all this, so this report was structured around decarbonising five key areas most relevant to Curtin and by 2035, I might add, which are electricity, buildings, transport, urban greening and waste. Yes, I'm not relying on you to remember.

Kate: 28:24

I'm not going to get you on the what's the interest rate question? It's not quite decarbonising, because greening is not about reducing.

AJ: 28:31

Exactly.

Kate: 28:32

But it's turning it into a carbon sink. So we called them five key themes of action rather than didn't quite fit into the nice neat. Here are our five sources and here's a plan for each, because electricity is about half of our emissions, but a lot of that is is in buildings. Um, so we really, you know, broke that down in different ways. There's a lot of discussion about about how to, how to structure that where the boundaries are around these things exactly and there aren't boundaries.

Kate: 29:01

Things are all interconnected and and that's okay, but we we ended up with five working groups and each of those were looking at specific things that could be done. So electricity generation is a big part of it and basically shifting everything to electric is part of the solution, as long as we're also switching to renewables. On buildings, we need to both use our buildings better but also build them in a more sustainable way, or retrofit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Transport the big thing is, uh, using less, using cars less, but also then the cars that we do use need to be evs there was a strong one in transport actually, because he said straight up, the induced traffic phenomenon induced demand.

AJ: 29:48

There was actually an extremely funny show of Utopia on this. Did you see it by any chance?

Kate: 29:53

I may have seen it. It's a little close to the bone.

AJ: 29:57

I know, I know I've heard some of your debriefs and thought it really is, but for international listeners this is political satire. It's best in this country, and yes, so they had the politicians in the room with the planners and and they had a multimedia display up, and when they expanded the highways, the red turned to green in the flows of traffic for about five minutes. You know everyone's going, ah well, and then it comes red again. What so? Yeah, I guess we need to build another one because more people use the road.

AJ: 30:28

This is the thing and we have known it for 30 years, and this report states it straight up and actually says outright, as I recall stop it Like don't don't expand the roads anymore. It doesn't achieve that goal.

Kate: 30:40

And one of the really tricky things is if you, if the message is we're going to take your car away, people don't want to hear that because it's very hard to imagine not needing it. So you have to actually make other things more attractive. So by having higher density living, that then justifies or makes it economic to have better public transport networks. Once those public transport networks work effectively, then you start thinking well, maybe I don't need to take the car, maybe I can just jump on the bus at any time, or the you know train or whatever. And so it's. Reducing demand for cars is different to saying we're going to take your car away.

AJ: 31:22

Yes, that's right.

Kate: 31:23

Or also, actually it's quite pleasant to walk or ride instead of driving, because I get some exercise and there's that wonderful cycle path that I can go on all the way to where I'm going. Then it's a different equation. Instead of people just thinking if I couldn't use my car today, what a nightmare it would be to try to get to where I need to go.

AJ: 31:44

Yeah, and my personal experience, even riding we didn't have a vehicle till we started to go around the country with the podcast was that once you got your routes and your systems of carriage and so forth sorted out, it was a lot easier than you might think. But you also make me think about this brilliant strategy. Port Phillip had council on the bayside in Melbourne. This goes back when I used to write about this stuff, five, seven years, so I don't know how it's gone, but their strategy was to reduce car ownership rates by half.

AJ: 32:17

Yeah, so how do you do that without telling people not to have cars?

AJ: 32:20

They just stopped expanding roads and car parks and so the population was expected to double in the I don't know 15 years or whatever, which you know is all the density and stuff you're talking about, and whether that's a good thing or not it's another conversation.

AJ: 32:36

But so that's the projection, right? We're experiencing the same projections here. If you capped there in that period of time, you halve the rate of car ownership because you also then, as that happens, slot in your better public transport, your bike parts and also the car sharing was really coming on there and the scooters and so forth, and every car share took 10 off the road, so every 10 car spots they'd put a car share in there and they started to institute those sorts of changes and it seemed to me a really good way to do it to let a natural, know, natural, quite unquote process play out and then have that phase period. We talked a bit before off air about shifting norms and shifting baselines. Have that become your new norm in a way that you barely notice? In fact, ideally you notice back to the subtitle how life's become healthier and fairer and whatever.

Kate: 33:28

Yeah, and I certainly. I discovered earlier in my career that, riding to the city, I could ride my bike to the city, and I'm no cyclist, but I could ride my bike in my work clothes, not going too fast, just at a leisurely pace, and there was this wonderful bike path there and it was like this huge discovery about a way to improve the quality of my life and it made me feel like a teenager again, getting on a bike and having the wind in my hair and with a helmet on, of course, but creating those opportunities that make people happier, rather than framing it as something that's being taken away, and so often I think when we talk about climate change, people focus on the costs and why it will be bad for me if we actually respond.

Kate: 34:21

But there are so many wonderful co-benefits and opportunities that framing it like that, I think, is a big part of shifting attitudes to it yeah, I think so too.

AJ: 34:33

And similarly, where you talked about it not being decarbonization, and so I couldn't agree more, in fact, in some ways. I mean, I just showed you the little draft transcript of paul hawkins next book carbon, the book Life, his next effort after regeneration, which was about ending the climate crisis in a generation quote unquote and it's essentially shifting the frame on carbon as the basis of all life. So to decarbonise in that context or in that frame sounds ridiculous. We're thinking about it, of course, in industrial economies, and fair enough, but that there is a bigger frame and a more enticing one, arguably, that certainly does apply to greening and certainly applies to other areas that I'm told are coming down the line. I've talked with you and Claire about food, for example. So while we're not farming on massing curtain, of course we're bringing it in, and, to the report's credit, again, it's explicit about where boundaries were drawn and that that sort of almost equivalent to scope three stuff was left for now, even in terms of where renewables you know, solar panels come from and so forth. But yeah, that'll be a really interesting thing to go to, I think, because of, again, the re-carbonisation, in a way getting carbon back in soils and what that means, not just for climate in terms of carbon, but water.

AJ: 35:57

We were lamenting that this is the driest six months in history in this region and looking over these dunes here and seeing them in a similar shape to the forest down south, which you know, you said was almost too much to contemplate In a way. I mean, we know too that water vapor is the most potent greenhouse gas and we know that carbon in soil means when it does rain, water holds in soil more. We don't need actual dams. We've got sort of metaphoric, figurative dams and can get us through times like this more, et cetera, et cetera. So in a way, there's almost a recarbonisation frame. I've thought maybe, alongside the decarbonise the industrial process, recarbonise life, and perhaps that's an enticing way to look at it.

Kate: 36:39

And I think so. Yeah, that is really interesting and I think so often reframing helps change the conversation and you know there's a lot of lamenting about why have we not come further after the decades of telling?

Kate: 36:57

this story and I think that it's definitely about finding the different languages that are compelling to different parts of the population, and that's why I spend more time in Curtin. Where I think the gap is is talking about WA's future prosperity as part of a decarbonised world, in terms of our export potential. You know, and this is where the smart money is we want to have the industries in 20 or 30 years' time that can support the economic prosperity that we've enjoyed in the last, you know, 100 years, and that language is compelling for a different group of people to the language of you know we need to do this to save our forests.

Kate: 37:49

Know we need to do this to save our forests, or we need to do this to save our reefs, or um, you know different. And being flexible about framing so that you're actually speaking a language that is meaningful to your audience is so important when we're, when we're trying to create societal shift it's still just about the most powerful thing I witnessed in your campaign for election.

AJ: 38:10

Actually To see a I mean, it almost sounds. Why should this be extraordinary? But to see a would-be politician, a representative, go to different communities and say tell me about you, to learn what that is, what is it? How do they? What do they value most? How do they speak? How would they like to be heard and responded to. So I couldn't agree more. And then with that, have you heard of the mob little organisation called Common Cause?

Kate: 38:38

Yes, yes, and their wonderful mapping of values. How?

AJ: 38:43

interesting is it that they find almost universally that if you talk intrinsic values, as they'll say, rather than extrinsic money and exports or whatever that can actually even reach, you know the audience we might wonder if it would like the ones you're describing, or financiers, you know others have had experience in that. But when they bring that intrinsic aspect to it, the stuff that means things internally and amongst community, that it even works in surprising places.

Kate: 39:17

Yeah, the thing and I saw their work some years ago and have used it in different jobs as well as this the thing I love about it too and have taken from it is appealing to the best in people, or the worst.

AJ: 39:31

Yes, yes.

Kate: 39:32

And that sense of creating that opportunity for people to identify. Yes, that is how I want to see myself and see others. And you know, people always think that they care about others, but others care about others less than they do. Yes, that's right, but actually everyone thinks that. So naming it and appealing to that sense of solidarity and care and kindness allows us to be the best versions of ourselves, rather than assuming that everyone is only out, you know, looking out for number one.

AJ: 40:08

Yes, the same thing turned up with the universal basic income research about the place.

AJ: 40:13

Most people thought, oh yeah, I'd use it.

AJ: 40:15

Well, but everyone else would bludge, which, by the way, was proven wrong time and again, actually including very recently in another pilot.

AJ: 40:23

So, taking our leave then into that domain of energy when we talked about induced demand, noticing that the same thing happens there in a respect where the more efficient we've gotten over the decades, the more we've used and the more that it becomes a norm to fly everywhere, almost like a neighbourhood bus route used to be to have two fridges, not even just one, you know, even have supermarkets full of them, that sort of thing and, of course, as grids have increased capacity, that we've filled it, and now we're talking about increasing again in orders of magnitude with the renewables transition.

AJ: 41:03

So the induced demand frame seems to be a really valuable one in energy too, and not only because of that phenomenon of build it and we will use it, but also for the research that's gone on over the decades showing that if we look at wellbeing, broadly speaking human development, a lot of this was metric against the human development index that came out of the UN 30 years ago that, if we mapped energy use against that, it's been found that the optimum level of energy use, after which it was diminishing returns and, at a certain point, just costs, was about a third of what we use today, and that's about the amount of emissions reduction we're looking for in the next sort of five, ten years. So, weaving these things together, you can see a similar pattern across from transport to energy and opportunity in that sense, because if it means that we don't have to replace to the scale we've got today, much less what we might think we need in another 15, whatever years, 100 years, much less what we might think we need in another 15, whatever years, 100 years.

Kate: 42:15

That, surely, is an easier pitch. It is, I mean, and it's very attractive. You know what you're talking about and it is this huge societal shift in what people want and what people see as being a flourishing and happy life.

Kate: 42:34

One of the real challenges I find in this job is, at some point you have to break down the big picture into things that you can actually take on. And so, while I absolutely think that we have a problem with endless growth, you know that it doesn't work. We have a problem with induced demand. Trying to turn that into realistic actions we can take on the issues that are in front of us today I find quite challenging, you know, because it also needs to be driven by a change in desires. I don't think it can be externally imposed by government. So we do need systems that incentivise the behaviours that are good for us as a whole. But I think there's a real danger in that being too heavy-handed, because you lose the mandate pretty quickly if if it's too authoritarian yeah, couldn't agree more.

AJ: 43:40

I mean it comes back to reaching people where they're at and and vice versa, hoping the same from others to us. I guess it also emphasises to me the value of having the question asked how much do we need and what does work if it's not endless growth? And to have more forums where that is talked about and seeded at least seeded. So it was curious even in the report that that sort of induced demand understanding was so strong in transport but not in energy. In energy it seemed more assumed that it was a just get renewables and electrification.

Kate: 44:18

Yeah no, that's an interesting comment, and I mean each of the work was done by different yes groups and they. It was entirely driven by the people in that group. I think the energy group had more engineers in it yes.

Kate: 44:33

And some of that gets reflected in those different chapters, and I'm fine with that too Me too, I think that if that's what this volunteer group is putting up as being what the priorities are, I'm happy to be guided by that, because that was based on fortnightly conversations over the course of a year, with people bringing their different perspectives to the table and having respectful and civil debates about technologies and priorities and the order of things, and it's a messy process and it's a messy and imperfect process and the reality is we need to do all of the things at the same time, but we wanted to try to reduce it to some specific, actionable things that people can take on as advocacy priorities or personal actions to make it seem less insurmountable. And I think if you say we need everyone to want less or be happy with a less energy intensive life, that just seems so insurmountable and so difficult an difficult an object, um that I think you end up, uh, feeling hopeless yeah, I think it's more the way you were talking about before.

AJ: 45:54

Hey, like that's. That's indeed not what you'd say it'd be. How can we be healthier, fairer, more livable? What might it look like if dot, dot, dot on a range of different fronts and have those conversations?

Kate: 46:07

yeah, or with the well-being economy, work we did. You know what is it that's important?

AJ: 46:11

to you, what matters to you?

Kate: 46:13

and then how do we pursue those things? And I had a really interesting conversation with ken henry a couple of weeks ago about the work he did in treasury in the early 2000s, with identifying alternatives to gdp and putting a framework in place and even going back to the work of economist and philosopher Amartya Sen looking at the capacity approach and he said that very much drove his thinking in Treasury.

AJ: 46:43

And he carried the freedom frame in his work around international development too. It was freedom from and freedom to and freedom to exactly.

Kate: 46:51

All very positively oriented People having the capacity to do different things and having the freedom to act within their capacities. And I often am in danger of getting too esoteric and I still have to focus on the bit of legislation that I've got to vote on in two weeks' time. But I do think it is really useful to be having those conversations about what is it that we value, and how does what we're making decisions on now fit in with the things that we actually value as individuals and as as a community?

AJ: 47:23

yes, and you know, again, kudos to the 50 people overall who, just they were the ones that turned up and put in the work and others could. And you know I was bummed because I was, you know, in different parts of the country doing this, but I guess that's my grounding.

AJ: 47:37

Part of the motivation was get on the ground with people and listen to them and share it and reflect it. But of course, what I did do because'm just so interested in in the all-in, how it all stitches together. So I ended up in every group, but of course not on the, not actually on the night, but just reading all the material and getting across the dialogue so I could see the representation and, you know, I could make sense of what's come out. But it does make me think. Then I wonder if there's a place for the meta group next time, the group of people who might be reflecting back what's coming from other groups in real time sort of thing and see what particular groups make of that. Or even almost deliberative process style I'm flying off the top of my head at this point. But deliberative process style get random representation, so energy would get engineers and it'll get Taylor in there as well, or whatever that. Really have that the person who would say but what about this?

Kate: 48:34

from a total other angle, and we had a wonderful person, claire, who really held Claire Gardner, who held this project together and was the glue between the five groups and oversaw the developing of the report and the referencing. It's got 12 pages of references so you can look up anything that you read and see if you believe the source. And I think she did some of that, taking insights from one group to the other and using them as provocations for the different groups as well. So I mean, I'm really interested in deliberative processes and have been experimenting with various versions of them. I love the idea of citizens assemblies but, they're very expensive models to roll out

Kate: 49:27

or online or in person, different lengths, workshop style and different ways of having an informed group of people who don't necessarily have expertise but do get that information, contributing to outcomes that reflect the trade-offs in a way that our parliament now doesn't, because it's got a red team and a blue team and it at its at its fundamental level. It should be a representative democracy where you see some of those trade-offs happening and we recognize the complexity of most issues, but now we just get either the red team version or the blue team version, which is poorer because it doesn't reflect the complexity of our communities there's's so much to be said about that.

AJ: 50:20

In fact, you made a speech Declining Faith in Democracy or something, didn't you, in which you said something like I even noted it somewhere there's constant pressure to take a side, and that made me think a lot about some of the great deliberative processes I've learned about and put through the podcast. Uh, and one of the people who you've met, I think Amanda Carl I don't know if you ended up meeting, but you've spoken with with the next economy that she said if there is a secret source to it, she was asked in those terms it's to not set the conditions in which people have to pick a side. So, yeah, it says a lot. I think about again how you've come to be in Parliament and how we might build on that. And, in that sense, before we wind up, let's go to the foundations of it all and the bill that the independents have sort of gathered around at the moment Fair and Transparent.

Kate: 51:15

Elections Bill. Yeah, so this um and I mean I nothing shows the pressure to take a side as much as the act of walking into parliament and physically being required to walk to one side or the other. Yes, when the bells are ringing and there is a complex question that you have to give a yes-no answer to. And for me that is very symbolic every day of how we end up in this polarised position and our institutions are shaped around that binary approach to governing.

AJ: 51:50

I think Hugh McKay actually said even with things as they are, mix them up.

Kate: 51:54

Yeah, that's right, exactly. So in that context, something I'm very interested in is the rules of our democracy and how we make sure that people understand what we've got and who's representing us and how they got there, who they might owe favours to, and make sure that we can actually continue to evolve. So the Fair and Transparent Elections Bill was a version of a bill that I introduced last year, a Restoring Trust Bill, with a number of reforms to our electoral system in it, and I negotiated that with the crossbench in both houses to present to government to say we know you're planning some electoral reform. We think you might do a deal with the Liberal Party that embeds the two major parties. Here is an alternative that you could do with the support of the crossbench in both houses.

Kate: 52:53

So this is the baseline of the reforms that should be acceptable to the community, and they are things like real-time transparency of political donations, making sure that we don't get political donations from social harm industries or government contractors, so that people can really believe that leaders are acting in the interests of the community as a whole and not vested interests. And levelling the playing field so that we do allow our political system to continue to evolve and we don't end up with just a choice between the two major parties. 99.6% of the Australian population is not a member of a major political party, yet we're expected to, you know, draw our, our leaders from the 0.4 percent who are it's fair to say, the football leagues would not work on that basis, that's right.

Kate: 53:46

so, and you know, while we don't let coals and woolies make the laws about supermarket competition, we have a situation where the two major parties can effectively make the laws about how elections work. So it's really important that there is community awareness of the risks there and how important it is that our system is allowed to keep evolving and refreshing so it can reflect what people actually want to see in their leaders so it can reflect what people actually want to see in their leaders.

AJ: 54:19

Yes, and I love the way that you crossbenchers have come together to bring all those things which do they say the same thing it's how do we get the system working in a democratic way at its foundations? It's terrific, Stark, that over the last 20 years, only 20% of the major parties' private funding has been through disclosed donations. That's right.

Kate: 54:35

Just on that front it's and some of it is disclosed as other receipts on top of that, but you don't know quite what that was, if it was a ticket to an event or if they rented a you know an office in a building that's owned by that party or it's all sort of lumped in together.

Kate: 54:51

So there are great opportunities for better transparency. The problem is the major parties don't particularly want better transparency. The problem is the major parties don't particularly want better transparency, so we really need to push hard so people can see who's funding their political candidates before they vote, not see a fraction of it a year later.

AJ: 55:09

Yep, and there are other brilliant bills too, coming from independents at the moment too, but on this one, you do have an event coming up I do want to mention on the 7th of May as well, for locals, obviously here in Curtin, and I guess there'll be others elsewhere, because it's a real moment in time, isn't it? If they decide to go on a bipartisan ticket the major parties and close out the prospect even of not just transparency but more independence coming in, versus if they actually do uphold democratic tenets and do this together with you guys.

Kate: 55:39

And one of the real dangers is caps on donations and spending, and I love the idea of it because I see there's too much money in politics and that's not good. Unfortunately, when you scratch the surface, you realise that the alternative is public funding and public funding and public funding has to be based on how you did last time, so it ends up embedding the status quo and making it even harder for challenges to come up. So it's really hard to come up with a spending and donation cap that doesn't have the effect of reducing competition in politics.

AJ: 56:18

And that's where something could be pitched that sounds good on paper but actually, you know, kills any future competition yeah, which is why it was so important, the amount of thought that went into the bill that you guys have put up. Now, to close, you are standing again, which I'm really glad to hear. May even sing you another song at some point, who knows, but last time, well, the first time we met under that tree in Leederville, you said you had sort of a campaign theme of sorts, and it was stuck in the middle with you, which was terrific. You even sang a refrain. Is there one in anticipation of the next election? And now standing, have you come up with one?

Kate: 56:59

So, firstly, I find it really weird that in a three-year term you spend two years doing the job and then in the last year everyone wants to talk about the campaign. So I'm mentally not in campaign mode yet. I'm saving that for later. I'm just doing the job now. So I certainly haven't been thinking about campaign songs. I would have to say it still feels like it's stuck in the middle with you.

AJ: 57:23

Yes, I thought so.

Kate: 57:24

Because I'm still there between the two parties and when I say with you, it very much feels like I'm still there with my community. So, I'm sticking with the current song for now and next year, when I'm ready to turn my mind to the next election, w e'll talk about it again then.

AJ: 57:44

I'm very glad you are here with us. Thanks, Kate.

Kate: 57:46

Thanks very much, Anthony.

AJ: 57:48

That was Kate Chaney MP. For more on Kate, the upcoming event on May 7, and so many others, h er article on the Fair and Transparent Elections Bill, including how it can and should be passed before the next election and, of course, to get involved in this community movement wherever you are in Australia or for that matter anywhere,

AJ: 58:08

see the links in the show notes. There are a couple of photos on The RegenNarration website also, and more for subscribers on Patreon. After Kate left, I was reflecting on our conversation and mostly recalling the point Kate made about loving Citizens A ssemblies, but noting they can be costly. I guess we could say the same of energy, agriculture and other transitions too, but of course, what we might have said and maybe maybe did in as many words, is that those costs are often dwarfed when compared with the costs of not doing these things, whether it be so-called natural disasters, chronic illness, housing or intransigent, polarised politics. It's partly why more people are reframing the costs for the good stuff as investments instead. And just a final tidbit when our family looked into getting solar panels, a prominent supplier survey responded that we didn't qualify because we didn't use enough energy. I wrote about this phenomenon a while back, when we did actually put panels on our previous home. I'll link to that in the show notes too, in case you're interested. It in turn has links to some of the stuff Kate and I talked about, including how little energy it seems we need to be healthy, fair and livable, and how some communities are constructing healthy, fair transport systems too. Oh, and in case you're wondering, the Curtin Report also says unambiguously no new gas plants.

AJ: 59:42

Thanks again to you, generous supporting listeners, for making this episode possible. If you've been thinking about becoming a member or other kind of supporter, please consider joining us. Just head to the website or the show notes and follow the prompts. Thank you, and thanks also for sharing the podcast with friends and continuing to rate it on your preferred app. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden, and at the top you heard Green Shoots by the Nomadics. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening. Oh yeah, I hear you're not doing your podcast anymore.

Kate: 1:00:57

No, I was really excited, but the team just gently talked me out of it. AJ: Look at that. KATE: I know they managed me when it came to that and Louise said what a great thing for you to do after politics.

AJ: 1:01:11

Well, that is true too. ANGIE (Kate's staffer with us): You mentioned it the first time that I heard it.

Kate: 1:01:15

It was in a public place and I was like what?

AJ: 1:01:19

Your minders had conniptions.

Kate: 1:01:21

ANGIE: I must have missed the big girl talk about this. KATE: I've been banned from that.

AJ: 1:01:28

Someone's got to do it, though, eh.

Kate: 1:01:30

Yes, AJ: it's a good idea. KATE: If I lose next year, I promise I'll do it.

AJ: 1:01:35

There'll be a plus, there'll be a silver lining. KATE: There we go.