Australia's history and unique geography have both played an important role in shaping Australian society and the system of government that supports it. Building on the foundations of Britain's legal and parliamentary system, local political leaders built the institutions that eventually transformed Australia from a colony to an independent nation. They did it, however, in a way that suited their times and the task of managing a large continent. Can Australia's 20^th century governance structures deliver solutions to 21^st century problems?

Increasingly, distance and a relatively small population are no longer barriers to the changes that come with globalisation. Like the rest of the world, Australia now finds itself facing an array of  interlinked social, economic, geo-political and environmental challenges. These challenges can only be solved if we are all part of the solution, not by governments alone. Unfortunately, the current political class has no vision that involves the people, other than as periodic voters or focus group members. This old model of government is failing to solve the difficult, complex challenges and long-term issues we are facing. 

For example, the inability of the States to agree on the effective management of the Murray-Darling Basin highlights the inefficiency of the current approach and its inability to deal with complex problems[i]. One solution proposed is to centralise policy and decision making about this particular problem at a Federal level, but it is neither clear nor certain that moving the issue to a higher level of government will mean that they are any better equipped to solve it[ii].

It is now time to take a serious look at how we can leverage human talent, energy and creativity to begin rebooting the Australian political system. We need to create sustainable, affordable, long-term mechanisms for public engagement. A new approach to government in the 21st Century can use the vast human resources that exist both within government and among citizens to accelerate progress, solve complex problems and help develop modern, affordable services.

Smarter, simpler, social technology has a key role to play here. Our society is capable of running itself better, and cheaper, if we trust people to be part of the solution, rather than passive ‘consumers' of services who just get to swap their federal and state representatives periodically. We need to see government as an enabler or a force multiplier that can combine with the energy and resources of ordinary people to improve governance and public service delivery. This, howerver, also means re-balancing our expectations of government and encouraging (and possibly educating) us as citizens to be, individually and collectively, more socially responsible.  Social tools supporting real conversation between government and citizens can also help people develop realistic expectations, instead of making unlimited demands (e.g. like expecting a Scandinavian level of services combined with a US level of taxes).

The first thing we can do is to make better use of government spending to make it go further. Government procurement should be treated as a stimulus fund, and used to deliver social and economic benefits as well as products and services. Big ticket projects in areas such as IT, Health and Defence have a high failure rate, which is made worse by the tendency to select a large supplier and require them to spend all the money up front in one big hit. This has now been recognised in the case of the national e-health record rollout, with calls for a more pragmatic and incremental approach that targets identified areas of need first[iii].

Instead, it makes more sense to adopt an investment mindset and provide seed funding to various potential suppliers (ideally community groups and small companies as well as generic corporations that specialise in outsourcing contracts), and then provide more substantial first and second round funding to those projects that show potential, until a clear winner emerges. This way, funding can be leveraged to stimulate innovation as well as deliver a service, and an iterative multi-round approach is more likely to pick winners than just handing over the whole thing in one go.

Social Innovation Camp (www.sicamp.org) is an early example of using this approach for designing Web-based solutions to real social issues. It brings together software developers, designers and social entrepreneurs to transform a set of early-stage concepts into prototype web-based tools in under 48 hours. Ultimately the aim is for the best idea to become sustainable social ventures. Social Innovation Camps have taken place in the United Kingdom and the concept is being taken to Eastern Europe (Slovakia), New Zealand, and is coming to Australia in March 2010.

The second thing we can do is harness people power to improve existing democratic and public services. If we are to target spending on public services better, then we also need better ways of surveying and identifying need. Too many public sector bodies are created as part of a shiny new political initiative and then waste huge sums of money consolidating their own position rather than helping people, before finally being wound down after a few years.

One of the best lessons of the social web is the idea of rapid feedback-driven iteration as an evolutionary model. The launch of a service is just the beginning of a process whereby user involvement and feedback drives improvements and refinements. Giving feedback need not be onerous. There is a wealth of (often ignored) behavioural and usage data that can provide useful feedback to developers and designers, even where it needs to be anonymised. Instead of ‘experts' gathering requirements, obtaining a huge budget and then spending it all in one go, this evolutionary model seeks to co-create services with users. There is a lot of good thinking emerging around concepts of service (co-)design[iv] in the public sector, and perhaps it is time to apply this on a bigger stage. There is both a cost and a quality rationale for citizens to participate in the process of service delivery, which implies going way beyond the current practice of occasional consultation.

For example, Patient Opinion (www.patientopinion.org.uk) is a pioneering service that provides a transparent feedback channel for patients and their families about their experiences of receiving care in the UK's public health system. For the people concerned it ensures individual complaints of poor quality care are addressed. This system can also be used to say thank you for the treatment received and much of the feedback through Patient Opinion is actually positive. However, more critically, this qualitative feedback compliments quantitative data collected by hospitals and helps to actually drive process and service improvement, rather than simply reporting that data.

In government, as in business, we suffer from organisational models that are too expensive, cumbersome and inefficient to succeed in the current climate. We need to place people above process and - assuming we have hired the right individuals and trained them well - let them get on with their job. Key to this is the introduction of simple, social tools that let people develop their own networks within organisations and use these to get things done. Corporate IT has become a blocker not an enabler and we urgently need a new, more human-scale approach to internal communications and knowledge sharing within organisations in both the private and public sector. We need flatter, more agile organisational structures instead of the stultifying middle management bureaucratic machines that exist because organisations fundamentally don't trust their own people, let alone their customers and users.

The big question, though, is how to achieve this? Despite the presence of politicians on Twitter, Australia's public institutions are unchanged, and we are still left with a government designed for the 20th century. We also lack some of the catalysts for change, like MySociety (www.mysociety.org) in the UK, and our third-sector is woefully under-prepared to step up to an enhanced role. In the United States, the Internet was crucial to Obama's spectacular refactoring of the US body politic, and has acted as a driver for even greater innovation in how government operates.

There are some positive signals. Initiatives like OpenAustralia (www.openaustralia.org) show that even if the government itself lacks the capability, then the Australian community is itself ready for the job of creating new people-powered structures and services.  The 20th century is over, and we urgently need more scalable solutions to 21st Century problems. Harnessing people power online would be a good start.

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[i] Transcript of interview with Senator the Hon. Penny Wong on 29 May 2009 http://www.environment.gov.au/minister/wong/2009/tr20090529.html

[ii] Snatch the Murray-Darling Basin from the states to save it, Crikey, 24 July 2009, http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/07/24/water-report-part-2-snatch-the-basin-from-the-states-to-save-it/

[iii] Small steps better in e-health, The Australian, August 18, 2009 http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,,25942529-5013040,00.html

[iv] Recommended reading for public service co-design:

• Making the most of collaboration - http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/makingthemostofcollaboration
• The Collaborative State - http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/collaborativestatecollection
• Service Design is a glossary of terms related to Service Design and contains links to further reading - http://www.servicedesign.org/
• Social by Social: A practical guide to using new technologies to deliver social impact - http://www.socialbysocial.com/
• Success stories from Think Public, a specialist service design consultancy - http://thinkpublic.com/success.php
• Notes from the Engine, a specialist service design consultancy, on their experiences in public service design http://www.enginegroup.co.uk/service_design/v_page/organisational_challenges_of_public_service_co_design and http://www.enginegroup.co.uk/projects/pcs_page/building_a_social_innovation_lab