Public and social policy are concerned with defining and responding to public value which is always open to argumentation and contestation. Australia currently faces numerous policy challenges, raising new questions about public value. Many of the issues explored in earlier chapters – climate change, population growth, the future of cities, social welfare and the continuing ‘gap’ between Indigenous and non- Indigenous Australians – highlight amongst other things uncertainties about what constitutes public value and the complexities of building robust policy responses to problems across this terrain.

This chapter argues that to address these uncertainties will require going well beyond representative democracy to engage more directly with citizens, embracing what Bently (2005) describes as ‘everyday democracy’. More sophisticated citizen deliberation and participation is essential, not only for better policy outcomes, but also to rebuild democratic practices in contemporary society (Mouffe, 2005). Cornwall (2008) identifies three reasons why participatory democracy should be extended: it produces more democratic government, more responsive and engaged citizens, and more efficient and effective programmes and policies.

In many ways, the engagement of the Australian citizen in political and policy processes is weak in comparison with experience in other Western democracies, particularly the European ones. This weakness is, in part, a complex product of the nation's colonial past, its emergence from separate states, the structure of its federal political system, the character of its continuing and increasingly diverse inward migration, and the profound schism between European and Indigenous Australians. The failure of existing political arrangements, the increasingly evident need to respect the diversity of Australian society and culture, and the need to respond creatively to more complex public problems requires the rebuilding and strengthening of Australian citizenship and political participation from the bottom up.