Status: activeType: 📢 advocacyCountry: Australia Website: cafsa.org.au

Status	active
Type	📢 advocacy
Country	Australia
Website	cafsa.org.au
Contact	Contact form ↗
RSS feed	cafsa.org.au/feed
Concepts	Citizens Assembly Sortition
Last activity	2026-07-09 rss Latest post: CAfSA News Bulletin no. 8

Citizen Assemblies for South Australia (CAfSA)

CAfSA is an incorporated association founded in Adelaide in 2023, advocating for randomly selected, broadly representative citizens' assemblies as a policy-making tool in South Australia. The organisation distinguishes citizens' assemblies from traditional consultation, positioning them as particularly suited to contested issues that are difficult for elected politicians to handle directly.

Advisory board

CAfSA's advisory board is notably cross-partisan:

• Jay Weatherill AO — former SA Premier (Labor, 2011–2018)
• Simon Birmingham — former Liberal Senator for SA (2007–2025)
• Iain Walker — Executive Director, newDemocracy Foundation
• Dr Sonia Randhawa — Sortition Foundation Australia
• David Van Reybrouck — Belgian cultural historian, founded the G1000 Citizens' Summit, author of Against Elections

Notable activity

• National Conference "Citizen Assemblies — Policy without Politics" (June 2025, Woodville Town Hall, Adelaide) — featured Nick Gruen, Tim Dunlop, Jay Weatherill; David Van Reybrouck joined by video link
• Regular newsletter series CAfSA News (from February 2025)
• Educational resources on citizens' assemblies around the world

Links

• Website: cafsa.org.au

See also

• Citizens' Assembly
• Sortition
• Sortition Foundation Australia
• newDemocracy Foundation

History

• 2023-01-01 Established in Adelaide as an incorporated associationFounding of the organisation
  Sourcing: High

  Citizen Assemblies for SA (CAfSA) was founded in Adelaide in 2023 and is an incorporated association advocating for the use of CAs in public policy making.

  ↗ View source
• 2025-06-14 Hosted national conference "Citizen Assemblies — Policy without Politics" at Woodville Town Hall, AdelaideNational conference with prominent deliberative-democracy speakers
  Sourcing: High

  Join us for an unmissable day of bold ideas, honest conversations, and fresh thinking about the future of democracy.

  Full-day national conference featuring Nick Gruen, Iain Walker, and Jay Weatherill, plus a presentation by David Van Reybrouck (author of "Against Elections"), chaired by Elizabeth Farrelly.

  ↗ View source