What do we do with the feedback from our community?
NCV operates in Communication Mode after each election, listening to the needs and wishes of our community, documenting the outcomes they want and researching the issues they are concerned about. We take their feedback and add value by communicating what they tell us to the relevant level of government and canvassing possible actions that could be taken in response.
The roles of Voices Groups and Community Independents
NCV sees the independence movement/mosaic as comprising two main arms –
Voices Groups are grass-roots community organisations whose role is to listen to the wishes of all sections of their community , record their desired outcome, investigate the issues of concern to residents, research those issues through the lens of the group’s shared values and trusted information sources, document their findings and promote informed discussion and activities designed to achieve the desire outcomes. We don’t make policies ourselves, but we prepare the groundwork, we know what the community wants, the values that we support and evidence that makes good policies when we see them.
Politicians, including Community Independents, campaign on policies. Candidates from major parties inherit and must support the policy platform of their Party. We will only endorse an independent candidates if their policies are in the best interest of our community and their first allegiance is to our community, not themselves, their Party, donors or faction.
National Policy Library demo
NCV is proposing a national collaboration of people from all voices groups who have an interest in common issues/topics of concern to their communities (e.g. housing, climate change). The output would be a “shopping list” of draft policy responses (and the underpinning evidence, research and analysis) that could be selected from by Community Independent candidates to adapt/formulate their own higher-level policies to complement their unique local policies.
It is not meant to replace local policy development by candidates, but to be used by them and their voices group support team as a high quality starting point based on reliable data, inputs from voices group members all around Australia with relevant expertise and experience and framed in terms of intrinsic values of the community independence movement.
Our key documents
NCV is committed to transparency. The menus below link to the key documents outining our planning and governance processes.
Planning: we started out by preparing a detailed Business Plan that established our structure and set out a brief strategic direction and a more comprehensive operational plan. We are committed to a vision of Doing Democracy Differently, long term thinking, continuous dialogue with our community and stakeholders and active involvement in the fight for improved democratic processes and achieving community priorities and outcomes
Governance: the NCV Board is responsible for the good governance of the association and for ensuring it operates in accordance with our Constitution, relevant legislation and the ten shared values that all Members and Friends have agreed to when they joined. Governance issues are reviewed at every Board meeting and reported to the membership at the AGM.