Tairāwhiti Transition Citizens’ Assembly FAQ

1. What is a Citizens’ Assembly?

A Citizens’ Assembly is made up of members of the general public who come together to look at issues of local or national importance. The members of a Citizens’ Assembly are randomly selected in a two-step process where first as many people as possible are invited to register interest. From that large pool, a smaller group is selected using a software tool and based on a few demographic variables (usually gender, age and ethnicity, but often also place of residence, education, income and similar). The idea is that the group should be broadly descriptively representative of the community from which they are selected. This is why this group is called “mini-public” (i.e. broader public in miniature) and is different from the public that usually engages in consultative processes. In Koi Tū’s research, about ¾ of people attending deliberative processes (citizens’ assemblies and others) had never participated in other consultative processes.

 A major difference between deliberative processes such as citizens’ assembly and ‘standard’ consultative processes is that in the former people are given enough resources (time, access to expertise and evidence, deliberation with peers in a respectful environment) to move from quick opinions to informed judgements. The Citizens’ Assembly operates under a set of rules that ensure balance, fairness, respect and inclusion of diverse perspectives. The final decision is formed collectively through reasoned discussion aimed at finding ‘shared ground’. This is different from e.g voting where individual preferences are aggregated and their sum is understood as collective preference.

Arising from its work, the Citizens’ Assembly will make recommendations to Gisborne District Council and perhaps central government and other stakeholders.

2. Who is Te Weu and where did it come from? 

After a series of extreme weather events in Tairāwhiti, Te Weu was established in 2021 to undertake research and raise awareness about the local challenges and opportunities in a changing climate. The group was initially under the umbrella of Hikurangi Enterprises, a social enterprise based in Ruatōrea, and worked towards becoming its own Charitable Trust by the end of 2022. 

The first project Te Weu focused on in 2021 looked at issues for workers in the farming and forestry industries who would be impacted by land use changes as the footprint of those industries reduce as a result of climate impacts, market access challenges, rising carbon prices and regulatory changes. 

Since 2021 Te Weu has led a wide range of research projects related to climate change, land use, energy options and a Just Transition in Tairāwhiti. Details about the projects and people involved are on the Te Weu website.

3. Where did the Citizens Assembly project come from? 

Through a series of local initiatives and processes coming out of the work of Te Weu, the organisation was approached by GDC in 2022 to consider leading a project that would focus on climate adaptation using a deliberative, participatory process. GDC needed to do more to support the region, prepare for climate change impacts and were interested in testing deliberative processes in the region to potentially address a range of complex issues, so if this works well, the skills and knowledge developed could be applied to other kaupapa. 

Te Weu agreed to take on the project and signed a contract for the project in December 2022. A few weeks later Ex-Tropical Cyclone Hale hit Tairāwhiti, followed a month later by Cyclone Gabrielle. 

With the massive disruption and focus for communities on recovery efforts, it was going to be difficult to ask the region to participate in a deliberative process and the project focus pivoted to look at how communities were recovering following the cyclones and how the deliberative democracy process could be used to support communities in adaptation planning.

In May 2023 the preliminary project plan was presented to Council to receive their feedback on the purpose, design and intended outcomes. Councillors supported the approach and agreed to consider the recommendations developed through a deliberative process using a Citizens Assembly to support regional adaptation and transition planning.

In Phase 1, Te Weu first undertook research working with three communities (Muriwai in the south, Gisborne city’s disabled community and Matakaoa in the north) to understand their experiences and perspectives before, during and after the cyclones in terms of community preparedness for extreme weather events, and how they were thinking about contributing to climate resilience planning in the region. The findings from this community research were documented in a report that was presented to a series of community hui in November 2023 and to Council in February 2024.

By 2024 the deliberative process planning was restarted with engagement with deliberative democracy experts at Koi Tū the Centre for Informed Futures at the University of Auckland. Further updates were provided to councillors with the opportunity for Koi tū to present and answer questions from elected representatives about Citizen Assemblies and other deliberative democracy processes. 

During the year representatives from some of the catchments in the region were invited to participate in a workshop to explore options for the focus of the deliberative process. The issue of a fair and just land use transition was settled on as a complex question that could benefit from citizens hearing from experts and locals to inform their deliberations and recommendations.

GDC is undertaking two land use plan change processes alongside transition planning to address this issue. The Citizens’ Assembly sits alongside formal plan change engagement and consultation processes, however the recommendations that the Citizens’ Assembly arrives at will seek to provide a practical resource for use by Council in it’s decision-making.     

4. Who is leading the initiative?

In late 2022 Te Weu agreed to lead this initiative with support from relevant experts. Part of the goal is to build expertise within the region on planning and facilitating deliberative decision-making processes for public issues. 

Harley Dibble is coordinating the project with support from the experts at Koi Tū and with regular input from GDC staff and other stakeholders. 

A small number of locals will be involved on the days the Citizens’ Assembly meets to support the process and learn how to run a deliberative event so it can be used for other local issues in the future. 

5. How does Deliberative Democracy work with Representative Democracy?

Deliberative democracy and representative democracy interact in several ways to enhance the democratic process:

• Complementarity: Deliberative democracy emphasises informed discussion and consensus-building among citizens, while representative democracy relies on elected officials to make decisions. Together, they can ensure that policies and decisions reflect both (informed) public opinion and expert insights. 
• Engagement: Deliberative processes, such as citizen assemblies, can enhance civic engagement by involving citizens directly in discussions about important issues. This can inform representatives about constituents’ views and preferences.
• Legitimacy: Incorporating deliberative elements can enhance the legitimacy of representative decisions. When representatives provide for citizens to engage in meaningful dialogue, it can foster trust and accountability.
• Policy Development: Deliberative forums can serve as a space for developing policy proposals that elected officials can consider, ensuring that decisions are well-informed and reflective of diverse perspectives that may not all be represented around the elected governance table.
• Feedback Mechanism: Deliberative democracy can provide feedback to representatives, helping them gauge public sentiment and adjust their decisions accordingly.

By combining the strengths of both systems, communities using both approaches can foster more inclusive and responsive governance.

6. Why did the land use transition question get chosen to focus on? Will it make binding decisions on land use rules?

Following years of increasingly frequent and severe weather events resulting in more than one billion dollars damage in 2023 alone, and looking at existing land use activities and climate change projections for the region, Gisborne District Council has embarked on two important ‘plan changes’ (changing the rules around land use). Both proposed changes will be subject to public consultation, final decisions by councillors and/or independent commissioners, and any change to the law that central Government makes prior to the regional plan changes being finalised. 

The first proposed plan change focuses on consent conditions for commercial plantations, particularly rules around harvesting, road construction, maintenance and site clean up. The second identifies land with high risk of landslide and high connectivity to waterways, with the intention of shifting this high risk land into permanent vegetation cover to reduce the risk of slips and more soil loss. 

The Citizens Assembly doesn’t replace statutory consultation required for any plan changes, but is intended to sit alongside and hopefully help provide useful analysis and conclusions others can utilise. We intend the CA to enrich other processes, and the public conversation more broadly, with a new reference point, summarised as: 

What everyday people think when they’ve had time and support to become thoroughly informed about the issues by hearing from independent experts, stakeholders on all sides, and the reasoned opinions of demographically illustrative fellow citizens.

So by giving deep and informed consideration to how fairness can be achieved as the region manages necessary transitions through land use changes, the CA will already have done some of the heavy lifting that goes into any eventual policy implementation work, but it doesn’t replace the right of affected landowners to be consulted or elected representatives to make decisions within the boundaries of existing legislation. In this way, its outcome recommendations might be considered a public reference and resource to support subsequent decision-making.

7. Are Citizen Assemblies the only form of Deliberative Democracy? 

No. There are many others such as: 

• Deliberative Polling: Developed by James Fishkin, this process involves surveying a representative sample of citizens, providing them with information on an issue, and then reconvening them to discuss and re-survey their opinions. An example is the Deliberative Polling on health care in Texas.
• Participatory Budgeting: In this process, citizens are directly involved in deciding how to allocate a portion of public funds. Cities like Porto Alegre in Brazil have successfully implemented participatory budgeting, allowing residents to propose and vote on projects.
• Community Forums and Deliberative Workshops: These can be organised around local issues, allowing community members to engage in discussions. For instance, the Kettering Foundation supports forums to facilitate community deliberation on pressing local topics.
• Online Deliberation Platforms: Initiatives like “1000 Minds” or “MySociety” use digital platforms to facilitate deliberative discussions among citizens on policy issues.
• Jury-like Panels: Some local governments convene panels that resemble juries to deliberate on specific issues, such as environmental policies or social issues, to make recommendations to policymakers.

8. Where have Citizen Assemblies been used successfully? 

• Ireland has used Citizen Assemblies at the national level for many years – to provide direction on public issues as big as their constitutional arrangements, abortion laws, biodiversity loss and drug policy. 
• Auckland has used Citizen Assemblies to look at the best options for reducing traffic congestion, the future of the city water supply and mobility issues. 
• Municipalities in Canada, UK, USA, Australia, Belgium, France and The Philippines are using modern citizen assemblies, while countries like Switzerland and Japan have had citizen-led decision-making for hundreds of years. 
• In Victoria Australia, deliberative processes have been legislated in the Local Government Act 2020 as the preferred way for public engagement 

9. Can other issues be explored using deliberative processes? 

Yes! That is the plan. GDC (and hopefully other local entities) are interested in exploring the potential of deliberative processes to tackle really tricky issues. The key to a good DD process seems to be to keep the question it is seeking to answer quite specific. The best questions for DD are those where multiple options are considered, require considering both technical evidence and 

10. Is GDC in control of the process? 

Councillors have been updated about the project on a regular basis with presentations from Te Weu, Koi Tū and GDC staff. The councillors have provided input and asked questions at these meetings to help shape the process but GDC is not in control of this project other than ensuring the deliverables agreed to are met within the timeframes agreed (these were updated in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle). Harley Dibble from Te Weu Charitable Trust is coordinating the project with support from the experts at Koi Tū and with regular input from GDC staff and other stakeholders. 

11. How does sortition work? Can ‘problematic’ people get excluded? How do we know it’s not a set-up of hand-picked individuals to create a predetermined outcome? 

Sortition, or random selection, is a key feature of citizen assemblies designed to create a representative sample of the population. Here’s how it typically works and addresses concerns about fairness and representation:

How Sortition Works:

1. Random Selection: Citizens are randomly chosen from a pre-established pool, in this case based on demographic criteria (residential location, age, gender, income level and ethnicity) to reflect the diversity of the community.
2. Recruitment: The selection process can involve various methods, such as mailing invitations, using public databases, or advertising to ensure a broad reach. We have used the GDC postal mailing list and email newsletter list as well as newspaper articles to encourage residents to express interest in being a selected participant. 
3. Orientation and Training: Selected individuals will participate in two orientation sessions to understand the issues at hand and the Citizen Assembly process, helping them engage meaningfully in discussions and ensure they are committed to the process.

Addressing Exclusion and Concerns:

1. Inclusion Criteria: The goal is to include a wide range of participants, and everyone of voting age is eligible for this CA. There will be shared rules negotiated at the start of the process to ensure a safe and functional assembly that everyone agrees to adhere to, but the only exclusion option is a self-exclusion if someone decides they won’t stick to that shared agreement.
2. Transparency: The process of sortition and the selection criteria are often made public to enhance trust. Independent oversight may also be involved to ensure the integrity of the process. These are definitely options for the Tairāwhiti CA. 
3. Diversity of Perspectives: The random selection aims to include diverse viewpoints, which helps mitigate the risk of a “set-up” scenario. If a wide array of voices is represented, it becomes more challenging to manipulate outcomes.
4. Independent Facilitation: Many citizen assemblies are facilitated by neutral organisations or experts to ensure that discussions remain open and inclusive, further protecting against bias. In this case while Te Weu has local knowledge, networks and expertise that have been used during the design process, Koi Tū is completely independent and will be running the CA participant selection, experts recruitment and facilitating the CA meetings. 
5. Public Scrutiny: The outcomes and processes of citizen assemblies are usually subject to public scrutiny, which helps ensure accountability and transparency. That’s what this FAQ is for and there will also be an online opportunity to hear from the facilitators and ask questions about the process and desired outcomes.

Concerns About Predetermined Outcomes:

To combat fears of manipulation, citizen assemblies often emphasise:

• Open Procedures: Public access to evidence presented by experts and local stakeholders, clear documentation of discussions, and accessible reports help ensure that the assembly’s work is transparent.
• Diverse Recruitment: Efforts to engage various community sectors and demographics (e.g. in this case having an extra weighting for rural residents) and having the process managed independent of involvement from any individual or organisation with specific interests in the issue, reduce the risk of hand-picking participants.
• Feedback Mechanisms: Some assemblies involve feedback from the broader public on their findings, which helps validate the assembly’s work.

Some people have already expressed concerns that this Assembly might exclude people with certain views, but the experience of Koi Tū shows that having diverse views in the mix of participants is valuable for both the process and outcome – it ensures those perspectives are included in the deliberations and the final outcome should be more robust and enduring if all perspectives have been included in the process. 

12. Is this just another imported/imposed western/academic process that’s not grounded in local realities and traditional ways of doing things? 

Human societies have used deliberative processes since we started organising ourselves. There is a universal tradition of people coming together in structured ways to consider a situation and come to agreement. In small villages it is relatively easy, in larger communities with tens of thousands or millions of members we have often resorted to elected representatives or dictators to decide on the big issues, set the rules and share the resources. 

This report by Jane Luiten for the Crown Forestry Rental Trust written in 2009 as part of the Waitangi Tribunal investigation into historic breaches of the Treaty, refers to a resident magistrate’s recollections of Māori community governance and deliberative processes that existed before European settler governments imposed their local government structures over the top of local communities in Tairāwhiti:

“…Every day affairs on the Coast at this time were said to be arranged by runanga. [Resident Magistrate] Baker reported that:

‘Almost every village has its own, in which everything, from far country news to domestic life, is freely discussed.’

Based at Rangitukia, Baker defined existing runanga as a community, consisting of any number of persons exceeding one family:

‘Thus, within a few hundred yards of my present residence, there is a collection of some three or four huts, the inhabitants of which style themselves “Te Runanga o Pahairomiromi;” the latter being the name of the village. These, and many other similar Runangas, assume all the powers and privileges of the largest Runanga (as at present constituted), and claim to be independent… of any control by the general Runanga, if such a term may be applied to the voice of the mass of the people.’ 

So there was a strong tradition of community deliberation and decision-making at a very local level.

One GDC councillor suggested we call the process a ‘kāhui’ instead of Citizen Assembly. That’s a great proposal and we hope to create more appropriate terminology as more deliberative processes are reestablished in Tairāwhiti. 

13. What are the weaknesses of citizen assemblies? 

While innovative and usually very useful, it is important to acknowledge citizen assemblies (like elected representatives) aren’t perfect and have some weaknesses, including:

1. Representation: Although designed to be broadly representative through sortition, there can still be biases in who participates. Not all demographic groups may be adequately represented, leading to potential gaps in perspectives. Limits on size is a problem and we don’t yet know how to scale it up – it’s just simply really hard to have deliberation of the same quality in a very large group (which might explain why we limit the size of councils!). One solution is to have multiple deliberative democracy processes running simultaneously or successively to include more people and refine the solutions further. Another is to make the process even more public, this can also present challenges as not every small table discussion can be broadcast or recorded and it impacts on the quality of deliberation, especially if stakeholders or members of the public start engaging directly with CA participants. Often participants in the assembly become ‘ambassadors’ for the process as, having experienced the process, they understand the value and effectiveness.
2. Time Constraints: The complexity of issues may require more time for deliberation than is available, limiting the depth of discussion and understanding prior to recommendations being made.
3. Limited Authority: Recommendations from citizen assemblies often have no binding power. They rely on political leaders to implement their findings, which may lead to frustration if proposals are ignored.
4. Resource Intensity: Organising and facilitating citizen assemblies can be costly and require significant resources, which may not always be feasible for every community or issue.
5. Public Awareness: The effectiveness of citizen assemblies depends on public knowledge and interest in the issues being discussed. If the broader public is disengaged, the impact may be limited.
6. Complexity of Issues: Some topics may be too complex for lay citizens to fully grasp, making it difficult to reach informed consensus.
7. Potential for Polarisation: While assemblies aim for deliberation and consensus, they can also expose or exacerbate existing societal divisions, especially on contentious issues.
8. Follow-up and Implementation: Without a clear mechanism for follow-up and implementation, the results of citizen assemblies may fade into obscurity, undermining their potential impact.

14. What are additional benefits of this process for  Tairawhiti?

Public conversation about climate adaptation and land use transition in Tairawhiti and in New Zealand more broadly is only just beginning, as many public discussions on the new land use regulations and forestry future indicate. Although this Citizens’ Assembly is not directly ‘plugged in’ in a particular consultative process, having ordinary citizens involved in a process that is designed for deepening knowledge and ensuring better mutual understanding, and happens offline, free from polarised social media, can only be a positive.

In Koi Tū’s research,  participants in citizens’ assemblies tend to develop a much better understanding of government’s processes and higher trust in institutions than their peers who had not had this opportunity (or the very same people before the process). Such trust will be needed in the face of large transitions. Additionally, a whole range of academics, from economists and commercial lawyers to geologists and ecologists, professionals and philanthropists, have shown interest in participating in this conversation because they see the need and usefulness. 

Some have suggested that Tairawhiti could lead the way when it comes to public understanding and planning to address the challenges of climate change. Although the cost of $150,000 may seem high, it may ultimately lead to much greater savings resulting from better planning, better compliance, and new ideas for land use.

If you have more questions, please contact us and we can add additional questions and answers.