Status: activeType: 📢 advocacyCountry: Australia Website: canberra-alliance.org.au

Status	active
Type	📢 advocacy
Country	Australia
Website	canberra-alliance.org.au
Contact	secretary@canberra-alliance.org.au
RSS feed	canberra-alliance.org.au/feed
Concepts	Direct Democracy Citizens Assembly Cooperative
Last activity	2026-01-03 rss Latest post: Redescribing Democracy: a Review

Canberra Alliance for Participatory Democracy (CAPaD)

CAPaD is an ACT-based community organisation founded in 2015, focused on making elected representatives more accountable and democratic participation more meaningful for Canberra residents. It is independently funded — not by political parties, government, or corporations — and run by a voluntary committee.

What they do

• Kitchen Table Conversations — community self-managed deliberative conversations as an entry point to civic participation
• Genuine Engagement Tool (GET) — a framework for communities to assess government engagement processes
• Candidate accountability forums — ahead of ACT elections, CAPaD develops community-derived assessment questions and runs deliberative forums to help voters evaluate candidates on integrity, community focus, and engagement
• Submissions — to the ACT Parliament, ACT Budget consultations, and federal election inquiries
• Newsletter — Awakening Democracy (ongoing since at least 2024)

For the October 2024 ACT election, CAPaD ran three deliberative forums using six community-derived candidate assessment questions focused on integrity, resistance to vested interests, and engagement with marginalised communities.

Links

• Website: canberra-alliance.org.au

See also

• Direct Democracy
• Citizens' Assembly
• Cooperative

Upcoming events

• 2026-08-23 2026 CAPaD AGM — Annual General Meeting, online via Zoom
  Sourcing: High

  Be part of setting the future for CAPaD for another year.

  ↗ View source
• 2026-10-19 Do more MLAs make for better government? — Re-imagining Governance for the ACT public event, Irish Club Weston
  Sourcing: High

  Event 3 Re-imagining Governance for the ACT: A Public Event Series Expanding the ACT Assembly for better government – is it time? Hosted by CAPaD & Active Democracy Bean

  ↗ View source
• 2026-11-16 A Citizens' Assembly for the ACT — three-year project to build momentum for a trial of citizen input to ACT government
  Sourcing: High

  The ACT Standing Citizens’ Assembly (SCA) is a three-year project to build momentum for a trial of well facilitated input from Canberrans to government in the ACT.

  ↗ View source
• 2026-12-06 Community Assembly following up MP asks for 2026 — Woden Valley Uniting Church, Curtin ACT
  Sourcing: High

  This Community Assembly to to give them opportunity to report back to us and for us to respond to their report.

  ↗ View source