Community Engagement

The Hon. J.M. GAZZOLA (14:52): My question is to the Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation. Will the minister inform the chamber about ways the state government is involving more members of the community in the decision-making process and how this will improve outcomes.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:53): I thank the honourable member for his excellent question. The Premier recently announced a strategy to encourage more South Australians to play a greater role in shaping public policy titled, Reforming Democracy. This is an incredibly important initiative that will boost greater participation in our democratic process in South Australia and inspires involvement in and ownership of government decision-making, broadening out the consultation with communities and encouraging people to be involved.

I am pleased to report on a series of initiatives within the environment portfolio involving more South Australians than ever before, with some fantastic outcomes for the environment and the community. For example, South Australians have been directly involved in deciding how the state government's commitment to investing $10.4 million to improve our metropolitan national parks should be spent. This is vital, I think, because we want more people getting out and enjoying our parks and reserves and we want to ensure that the changes reflect what they need and that the investment is directed towards facilities or infrastructure that will actually encourage further involvement in our parks.

In total, the community engagement process has reached over 11,000 people, I have been told. We have received 449 submissions through the Have Your Say online survey, 90 submissions through a southern community survey conducted by the member for Kaurna and 369 responses to a Department for Communities and Social Inclusion quick poll on parks.

We have also held seven free park open days where thousands of attendees contributed ideas, and a school competition inviting students to design their ideal park using a video game called Minecraft—not one that I have engaged in, but I am sure there are members of the chamber who have done, and in fact several of them are probably playing with it on their machines right now.

Two co-design teams were set up which include people with an interest in conservation, recreation, local government and tourism. The Adelaide International Bird Sanctuary, which I talked about earlier this afternoon, is another fantastic example of community engagement. We have held open days, tours and community meetings, including a highly successful two-day ecology summit held in August of this year. The summit involved both scientific experts and others in the surrounding community to ensure the sanctuary is not just of an ecological value but also takes into account community and business opportunities. It is precisely this sort of diversity of views that is important and has been reflected in the leadership group we have established to help steer the sanctuary.

The Collective is made up of a diverse group of people with a strong connection to the sanctuary, either through their love of birds and nature or as a link to the place itself—a place they grew up in, call home or involve themselves in recreation or indeed have a business in. The group will work under the principle of collective impact. The idea is that you bring together the diverse skills of individuals to make a greater difference than each individual could have made on their own.

It is the first time, I am advised, that collective impact is being applied to an environmental project in South Australia, and it received a great deal of praise and attention. Mr Jeffrey Newchurch, a Kaurna elder, commented after the launch of the collective, 'It means a lot that Kaurna is being engaged from the beginning, I thank you for that. I thank you also for the way that you have approached this, my energy is driven that we are equal in this approach together.'

Similar positive comments have been heard following the recent dog and cat citizens' jury. The jury ran alongside a broader community engagement process on the proposed dog and cat management reforms, which resulted in a total of 2,312 submissions. While the jury came up with a range of recommendations that have received strong support from local government and animal welfare agencies, it is in some respects the process itself that has generated so much enthusiasm. The citizens' jury saw 35 randomly selected jurors listen to experts and opinions in order to determine the best course of action.

According to Democracy Co, who facilitated the jury process, the vast majority of the jurists wanted to be involved because of the process and their interest in community engagement and democracy. Feedback from the jurors showed that they would all be willing to be involved in a similar process again and that they would recommend the process to other people. One of the jurors was asked about his experience of being part of a citizens' jury on 891 on 13 August 2015. He said it was an 'absolutely fantastic experience...I went in with an open mind...I had some strong opinions...and yet I also wanted to go through this process...and it was fantastic.'

These are outstanding initiatives that will encourage more South Australians to be involved in government decisions, and surely that is a good in itself. I would like to thank staff from my department who have driven these programs but, most importantly, the thousands of South Australians who have volunteered their time to help shape government decision-making. I look forward to involving South Australians even further in future decisions that affect the environment portfolio of this state.