The Centre for Optimism has developed a new narrative for Australia, along with a reframing of government and corporate planning and thinking.
The Centre for Optimism today released a Six-point Plan for government and industry to adopt with a leadership focus on collaboration, participation, and transparency.
The plan complements the Federal Government’s proposed well-being measurements set out in the October Budget’s “Measuring what Matters” paper. The plan seeks to counter growing anxiety levels and loss of confidence in the future. It also seeks to address tumbling Australian consumer sentiment, and business confidence as higher interest rates and surging inflation continue to trigger concerns about the nation’s economic outlook.
The Centre’s founder Victor Perton said Australia now had an opportunity to lead a ‘world optimism movement’ in ditching old behaviours and setting a new path of recognition, engagement and thinking.
“Australians want a change from the old behaviours of state-federal squabbling over policy and service responsibility, blame games, hand-outs addressing market failures, institutional inertia, and short-run responses to crises,” he said. “They want to move to a ‘nation of optimism’, led by the new government and corporate behaviours.
Proposing well-being measurements in the Federal Budget was an important step in this direction. This now needs a restructuring of the framework for policies and strategies, as well as community engagement for decision-making for the nation and its people to achieve an optimistic mindset.
“Consumer sentiment is now at its lowest level since the early pandemic period in April 2020 — dropping 6.9% to 78. This highlights that pessimists now greatly outnumber optimists,” he said. “The ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Australia Bank’s business confidence has slid 5 points to 0, also highlighting the negative headwinds beginning to weigh on business expectations for the foreseeable future.”
Victor Perton was a Victorian MP for 18 years, a former Victorian Government’s Commissioner to the Americas, and the Federal Government’s Senior Engagement Adviser for the Brisbane G20 Leaders’ Summit of Finance Ministers & Central Bank Governors.
Mr Perton said people’s lives have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they expected their governments and employers to change too. This was highlighted in the May Federal election and is likely to be repeated in the forthcoming Victorian and NSW elections.
“People want positivity, not blaming and aggressive fear-driven narrative. They want trusted reasons and strategies to hope for better outcomes with realistic optimism as their base,” he said. “They want to remain connected because Australians have shown they are driven by wanting to engage in the policy agenda, to be able to speak up and be heard, and they want more optimism and hope for the nation.
Australia can lead the world with a vision for the future. It must change from a ‘land of hope to one of ‘optimism’ which is reflected in global scales of happiness, well-being and growth.
“It can be built from an optimistic mindset which reframes challenges as opportunities rather than constraints,” he said. “It needs to bring people together on the journey which is aligned to new possibilities that are limited only by individual and collective imaginations. In short, a future where optimism is the fuel for a better normal.”
Mr Perton said the new approach had to incorporate an optimistic framework for measuring progress, focusing on boosting capabilities and industries with well-defined plans and 10-year-plus strategies. “This requires a collective change from all political and business leaders,” he added.
The six (6) point-plan proposed to government and political leaders is:
- Collaboration – as a primary goal – Federal Cabinet should create a ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Collaboration Commission to exist alongside the ACCC and ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Competition Council with the core purpose of pro-actively generating and encouraging collaborative projects across all segments of society and capitalising on and leveraging disparate capabilities, co-creating shareable and re-useable knowledge to address complex challenges.
- Vision focus – Government Agencies should establish teams in each Department whose core purpose is to develop a vision and a long-run view of the future and invite public comment and participation in influencing policy formulation and implementation. The focus should be on ‘optimism’, much like the Departments of Happiness in many nations, which celebrate not only an International Day of Happiness, but also set down key milestones around real GDP per capita (See Point 4), social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and perceptions of corruption.
- Active community engagement – Active community engagement in developing policies and programs should be developed and implemented through the establishment of citizen juries, in which citizens can assess policies or plans that are either prospective or already in place. This approach could be used as part of the annual budget process, which invites feedback on prospective Government policy changes, which are tangible and practical and based on “on-the-ground” impact. Its outcomes can be based around the Four As of Awareness, Attitude, Ability and Action
- Reframe measurement (evaluation). Replace the preoccupation with GDP and introduce a new Optimism indicator which would add valuable insight in a departure from traditional metrics, thus reducing the focus on marketized goods and services and increasing attention on (a) volunteerism, (b) community engagement, (c) non-market work, (d) care for disadvantaged segments, (e) satisfaction with life, and (f) confident and optimistic outlooks.
- Reframe economic development – Move from a focus on the size of Government to broader-based policies. This includes policies on care and health, innovation (technology and manufacturing), education, green capabilities, energy development and supply and supporting them through “needs clusters”. This would involve establishing more public-private partnerships and socially responsible funds, including social impact funding.
- Broader institutional change – The inclusion of Opposition party members in the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Cabinet to promote bipartisanship and a collective long-term view on national issues which have been clearly delineated, such as those covering climate change and immigration. The Cabinet would have pre-determined flexibility to add issues or remove them from the agenda.
