Council engagement to include ongoing listening posts

The City of Melbourne will introduce ongoing councillor listening posts and clearer consultation rules under a new community engagement policy aimed at making public feedback more meaningful.

Councillors voted unanimously to support the updated four-year policy at the Future Melbourne Committee meeting on May 26, following months of consultation and policy development involving more than 360 residents, stakeholders and community group members.

The policy sets out a clearer framework for when and how the city should consult, who it should engage with, and when engagement is not recommended.

It also states that where there is “very limited opportunity to influence outcomes”, the council’s role will be to inform the community rather than seek feedback.

Community, health and city services portfolio lead Cr Gladys Liu said the policy would guide how the council listened to and involved the community in decision-making.

“This policy is important because it sets out how the City of Melbourne listens to, engages with and involves our community in decision making,” Cr Liu said.

“It also reflects our commitment to transparent, inclusive and meaningful engagement across the city.”

I’m not saying this is perfect but it’s so good to have this document, this policy to guide us to do what we need to do, and that is to listen to the community, to engage the community.

The policy places greater emphasis on inclusivity, including multilingual engagement, and responds to feedback that the council should prioritise ongoing conversations rather than transactional requests for feedback.

A review document said the “overarching theme” from consultation was that representative engagement required transparency, tailored methods and trust.

The need to “close the loop” after consultations, by actively sharing information about outcomes, was also identified as a key priority.

When the policy was previously discussed in March, Lord Mayor Nick Reece described the review as an attempt “to get the BS factor out of our consultation processes”.

At the May 26 meeting, he said the new policy was “taking democracy to a new level in our city”.

Cr Reece said the council had an active and engaged citizenship, and that ongoing councillor listening posts would help the city become “more present” in the
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He said feedback had also led to clearer recognition of ratepayers as a distinct stakeholder group, new mandated processes and more formal planning and documentation for engagement.

Cr Davydd Griffiths said the policy would “revolutionise” aspects of consultation.

But Cr Owen Guest said “the proof will be in the pudding”, warning that the policy was only useful if properly implemented.