![\"Image](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/IMG_8869web2.jpg?resize=600%2C400\")
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Image by No Fibs citizen journalist Wayne Jansson taken on election night, of Alana Johnson, Cathy McGowan and Mary Crooks.By\u00a0Sarah Capper<\/a> 20 September 2013<\/p>\n When Jeff Kennett lost the \u201cunlosable\u201d Victorian election in 1999, the Victorian Women\u2019s Trust\u2019s Mary Crooks wasn\u2019t overly surprised.<\/p>\n In the years leading up the state poll, in her new role as Executive Director of the VWT, Crooks designed and led the \u2018Purple Sage Project<\/a>\u2019 \u2013 which involved a community \u2018kitchen table\u2019 dialogue process with some 6000 people across the state.<\/p>\n During this time, over 600 female and male group leaders (76% were women, all of whom had been taken through briefing sessions, many in country Victoria), met in their own groups of up to ten people. These individual groups met on average for three hours in their lounge rooms, church halls, book clubs, and yes, at their kitchen tables.<\/p>\n These group leaders then reported back their findings to the project team. From the 6000 participants, common themes emerged \u2013 people were disturbed by an erosion of democratic culture, they were concerned about unemployment and youth unemployment, and they sensed their communities being weakened. They were angry about the loss of Victoria\u2019s public assets.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a mood across electorates demonstrating how citizens felt incredibly disengaged from their representatives, as well as being despairing and angry about a range of policies and their impacts on people and communities. While polling and many commentators assumed the Kennett Government would be returned, the mood for change was completely underestimated \u2013 the Purple Sage Project gauged this mood and I knew Kennett was set to lose a swag of seats,\u201d Mary reflects.<\/p>\n That he did, with Steve Bracks forming a minority Labor government, and with Labor then governing in their own right for the next decade in Victoria.<\/p>\n Fourteen years later, Mary Crooks is similarly unsurprised by Independent\u00a0Cathy McGowan<\/a>\u2019s remarkable victory in Indi, seen by many as an \u201cupset\u201d, causing a swing of over 9% against the sitting Liberal Member Sophie Mirabella \u2013 despite consistent swings towards the Liberal Party across the country ushering in the new Abbott Government.<\/p>\n As part of a newly emerging community led group\u00a0Voice 4 Indi<\/a>, Cathy McGowan also tapped into the \u2018mood\u2019 of the electorate, and was part of the group\u2019s initial dozen members who met in August 2012.<\/p>\n The Seat of Indi<\/a>\u00a0stretches across Victoria\u2019s North-East corner, taking in the major towns of Wodonga, Wangaratta and Benalla. Its history is steeped in conservative politics, which makes the 2013 result all the more interesting.<\/p>\n The 2013 election story of Indi is not about a negative reaction to a \u2018divisive\u2019 local member, and it\u00a0is not about a one-off \u2018fluke\u2019 result in favour of a conservative independent.<\/p>\n \u201cRather than this being seen as Sophie Mirabella losing Indi, it is actually about Cathy McGowan winning the Seat,\u201d Mary Crooks explains.<\/p>\n For Crooks, Cathy McGowan\u2019s successful bid for the Seat, through the community group Voice 4 Indi, represents \u201ca carefully-constructed, structured campaign\u201d which began last August, 2012.<\/p>\n Along with Cathy McGowan, farmer and rural consultant and VWT Board member\u00a0Alana Johnson<\/a>\u00a0was one of the original members of Indi residents at the initial Voice 4 Indi committee meetings. Johnson explains that one of the motivating factors behind the group meeting was to address the disengagement around politics, particularly with young people living in what is conceived to be a safe seat who didn\u2019t think their vote mattered. There was also a level of frustration at the level of debate in Canberra, in what many saw as being reduced to nasty political slanging matches.<\/p>\n \u201cWe felt that if we as interested community people didn\u2019t demonstrate that we can do something about this, then we absolutely deserve the leadership we have,\u201d Johnson says.<\/p>\n In working out how to create a method of engaging other members of the electorate, the group contacted the\u00a0Victorian Women\u2019s Trust<\/a>\u00a0Executive Director to travel up for the day and brief them.<\/p>\n As a long-term Board member of the Trust, Alana had been involved in the\u00a0Purple Sage Project<\/a>\u2019s \u2018Kitchen Table\u2019 conversation process, and she was also involved in using the process around water, as part of the VWT\u2019s six-year\u00a0Watermark Australia<\/a>\u00a0project.<\/p>\n \u2018Our Water Mark<\/a>\u2019 combined\u00a0the\u00a0actions and stories of many citizens and scientists working together around water reform (culminating in a June 2007 publication, at the height of Australia\u2019s drought). As with Purple Sage,\u00a0Our Water Mark<\/em>\u00a0tapped into everyday Australians\u2019 views on a critical issue \u2013 and thousands were engaged in the kitchen table conversation process.<\/p>\n So when the\u00a0Voice 4 Indi<\/a>\u00a0group was ready to engage with people across the electorate, Mary Crooks, the architect of the model as used by the VWT for two major community-based projects, seemed an obvious choice to help the group nut down their values and vision.<\/p>\n Mary travelled (on a late train, but of course) up to Wangaratta on the day before Melbourne Cup in early November 2012. Apart from engaging in some intensive work clarifying the vision and values<\/a>\u00a0that would underpin the Voice 4 Indi\u2019s efforts, Mary also helped the group shape the initial communications materials needed to engage with the community.<\/p>\n Leading up to this meeting, Crooks had penned the publication \u2018A Switch in Time<\/a>\u2019 (published in September, 2012), which outlined the toxicity that had encompassed the federal political environment heightened during the Gillard minority government \u2013 a concern which was shared by the group in their initial meetings.<\/p>\n Mary Crooks knew immediately that Voice 4 Indi had something special from the initial November meeting \u2013 that the\u00a0committee members<\/a>\u00a0of the group \u201cgot it\u201d:<\/p>\n \u201cThey were smart and they were prepared to listen. And even I think those who were a bit reluctant at first were totally on board with the process by the day\u2019s end,\u201d Crooks recalls.<\/p>\n Or as Johnson explains, \u201cA couple of the men from science backgrounds were quite taken by Mary and the force of her personality and speaking abilities. They saw that the kitchen table conversations were a sensible path to follow.\u201d<\/p>\n When the group formed, there was some debate about immediately introducing an independent candidate, but as Johnson explains, \u201cMary demonstrated to the people who were really keen for change at the political level, that real change in the community was the first important step, reflected by a solid process of genuine community engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n Following the meeting, Mary Crooks provided some follow up assistance in drafting the all important materials that would be given to every group leader in the electorate in order to host the\u00a0kitchen table conversations, and in \u201cexplaining to people that whole notion that democracy is a conversation between equals about the future\u201d.<\/p>\n Prior to Johnson leading one of the host briefings (Johnson ran the Benalla host briefing session, guiding hosts implementing the process), she travelled with Cathy McGowan to India last December as part of a women\u2019s agricultural tour. She says that the bus ride in India helped them shape \u201cwhat sort of conversation we wanted to have as part of the discussions, and what sort of information we were looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n Also prior to the electorate conversations taking place, the group decided to approach the sitting Indi Member Sophie Mirabella \u2013 to explain the group\u2019s purpose and project they would be undertaking.<\/p>\n They had initially been reluctant to publicise their initial meetings \u2013 partly because of a polite country tradition of not talking about politics, as a number of members had clients or customers across the political spectrum, and partly because there was some fear of retribution. But once the aims of the group had been better established, \u201cwe thought it was consistent with our values and notions of transparency that the Voice 4 Indi belonged to all the people.\u201d<\/p>\n The subsequent meeting between McGowan and another representative from the group with Mirabella turned out to be an incredibly short \u2013 eleven minute \u2013 meeting.\u00a0 Johnson said Mirabella\u2019s response was that she \u201calready knew what the issues were\u201d \u2013 and cited cost of living as the main concern \u2013 ironically an issue that did not actually emerge from the\u00a0kitchen table conversations\u00a0involving hundreds in her electorate.<\/p>\n By the end of April, the \u2018Kitchen Table Conversations\u2019 had occurred across Indi, with over 400 people engaged in the process.<\/p>\n Using the\u00a0Purple Sage<\/a>\u00a0model, each group host had a set of guiding questions to help the conversations, as well as a scribe. The same ground rules adopted in Purple Sage were re-employed so that participants all had a say.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Kitchen Table Conversations created a vehicle or a place that was not only welcoming and safe, because it didn\u2019t matter what your party politics were, but you were there because your ideas were going to be valued,\u201d Johnson says.<\/p>\n Cathy McGowan’s young and enthusiastic young team after the speeches on election night. Image by No Fibs citizen journalist Wayne Jansson.<\/p><\/div>\n Johnson is also grateful for the \u201cincredible amount of conceptual work that Mary Crooks provided in helping us take all the information that we gathered and in being able to distil it,\u201d (which happened when Mary met with the group for a second time earlier this year, and on another late train, yes).<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Mary came up a second time, we were grappling with collating everything. She did two key things \u2013 she assisted us to process faithfully all the output from all the groups, and secondly, she helped provide a template for reporting back to all the people involved.\u201d<\/p>\n As the resulting\u00a0Report\u00a0notes, one of the key learnings to emerge from the conversations was around political representation.<\/p>\n \u201cIt became really apparent people wanted more from their representatives, they wanted a different type of relationship with their representative, and many wanted their representative to be a rural person who understood them, \u201dJohnson says.<\/p>\n At this point, the group began talking with different people about their interest in running as a possible independent candidate, but as Johnson notes, \u201cit became pretty obvious that\u00a0Cathy McGowan<\/a>\u00a0would be outstanding for job\u201d.<\/p>\n After weighing up the decision, McGowan agreed, and was announced as the endorsed candidate for Voice 4 Indi when the group launched the\u00a0Report of their findings\u00a0from the Kitchen Table Conversations. It was endorsed by the audience, or as Johnson puts it, \u201cthe 400 people at the Report\u2019s launch were ecstatic when we announced Cathy as candidate, and it just rolled on from there.\u201d<\/p>\n With a rock solid candidate now on board, the Voice 4 Indi group drew on the high quality community engagement process throughout the electorate to fashion and run a sophisticated election campaign. It involved hundreds of sharp, energetic and committed volunteers \u2013 women and men of all ages \u2013 carrying out the group\u2019s ethos of respecting and enriching the broader political conversation.<\/p>\n The campaign rolled on, always gathering momentum. At one stage of the campaign,\u00a0Crikey.com<\/a>\u00a0leaked an email from Mirabella\u2019s camp which talked about being \u201cseverely outflanked and outgunned by a far more active and enthusiastic campaign team\u201d.<\/p>\n Johnson attributes the \u201cinspired young people\u201d who came to help \u2013 some of whom are nieces and nephews of Cathy, and their friends \u2013 some of whom took time off from their jobs or university to help with the campaign. Amongst many other elements, they helped shape a savvy social media strategy.<\/p>\n Other volunteers of all ages also came to the fold, in inspiring ways:<\/p>\n \u201cSome people just brought food to the campaign offices every day. Some people started screenprinting, others doing graphics. It was just this organic process of people coming together and providing their skills. The further the campaign went along, the more people appeared with the next layer of skills needed,\u201d Johnson says.<\/p>\n And it appears they don\u2019t mean to stop now that Cathy has been elected, with Mirabella conceding defeat yesterday.<\/p>\n Johnson believes it will be an \u201congoing conversation\u201d with Cathy about doing politics differently. She says McGowan is keen to act as a \u201cconduit between people with good ideas, and people in decision making processes\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cCathy \u2013 and the group \u2013 really wants this to be an expression of a new relationship between a member of parliament and their constituents, and between parliamentary processes and the people. The whole aim of the group is to create what we think looks more like a 21st\u00a0century democracy,\u201d<\/p>\n Bring it. Welcome, Cathy McGowan MP, the new Independent Member and \u2018Voice\u2019 for Indi.<\/p>\n Postscript:<\/strong><\/p>\n Mary Crooks reckons there is an important broader context to the Indi success story that goes to the heart of the relationship between elected representatives and the people they serve, and ultimately to the overall health of our democratic culture.<\/strong><\/p>\n Purple Sage participants were alert to some of the risks way back in the late 1990s:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThere were three candidates in my electorate \u2013 Liberal, Labor and the Hope party. The Hope party candidate did not have a listed telephone number. The Labor person had a mobile telephone. He lived some distance from the electorate. He arranged to come and see me, but didn\u2019t. I left the questions with the Liberal candidate and made several phone calls before the election. I then wrote to him after the election, but have not had any response. I have written to him again and I hope he might eventually reply.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(Purple Sage Group Leader, metropolitan Melbourne, 2000:41)<\/p>\n The final Purple Sage document (2000: 34), observed:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWhile many ordinary women and men around the State were pushed to the margins, mounting evidence suggested the existence of an inner circle of unelected and unaccountable men wielding enormous power and influence over the directions of the State\u2026Talkback radio replaced consultation. While there were concerned and committed journalists, by and large the media, at management level, were seduced and intimidated.<\/em><\/p>\n The corrosion of democratic culture occurred in the same manner that a slow drip of water corrodes. Week after week, month after month, antic after antic, the ethical bar, so critical to the overall health of a democracy, was lowered.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Our national politics over the past few years has arguably reached a new low.<\/strong><\/p>\n Maybe, just maybe, the Indi experience triggers some upward movement?<\/strong><\/p>\n Editor Sarah Capper writes a monthly \u2018Polly Ticks<\/a>\u2018 column for Sheilas.<\/em> Image by No Fibs citizen journalist Wayne Jansson taken on election night, of Alana Johnson, Cathy McGowan and Mary Crooks.By\u00a0Sarah Capper Sheila’s editor 20 September 2013 When Jeff Kennett lost the \u201cunlosable\u201d Victorian election in 1999, the Victorian Women\u2019s Trust\u2019s Mary Crooks wasn\u2019t overly surprised. In the years leading up the state poll, in her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":10051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3434,3390,2198,514,62,3546,66,585,1163,654,43],"tags":[95,121,1408,637,2621,834,1349,177,2589,531,344,1345,683,2581,2606,655,1337,738,1409,2646],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/IMG_8923web1.jpg?fit=600%2C371&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3t0mw-2F0","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10230"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56347,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10230\/revisions\/56347"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSheila’s editor<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Sage-Project\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Sage-Project.jpg?resize=600%2C422\")
<\/p>\n![\"Cathy](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/IMG_8923web1.jpg?resize=600%2C371\")
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\nNo Fibs Indi campaign archive<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"