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Lismore People's Assembly logo
Status: activeType: 🤝 practiceCountry: Australia Website: reclaim.org.au/lpa-home/
Status active
Type 🤝 practice
Country Australia
Website reclaim.org.au/lpa-home/
Contact reclaimourrecovery@protonmail.com
Contact form ↗
RSS feed reclaim.org.au/feed
News page reclaim.org.au/category/lpa-resources/
Concepts Citizens Assembly Deliberative Democracy Direct Democracy Democracy
Last activity 2026-02-09 dod
RSS feed's latest entry dated Feb 9, 2026: 'Nearly four years after the NR Floods, the community is given a (small) chance to be heard'

Lismore People's Assembly

The Lismore People's Assembly emerged from the 2022 flood crisis, when conventional governance structures were seen as failing the community. It runs as a project of Reclaim Our Recovery, a grassroots flood-recovery advocacy group, and describes its aim explicitly as reinventing democracy from the ground up: bypassing vested interests and giving everyday people a direct voice in decisions that affect them.1

The assembly format runs ~2 hours: two speakers or community testimonials set the frame, then attendees break into small groups (~8 people) for 45 minutes of facilitated deliberation with a notetaker. The whole group reconvenes to hear each group's ideas and vote on the most popular. The first assembly, held in August 2024, drew around fifty people ranging in age from twenties to seventies, and focused on the question "What can this community do to get everyone a home?"2

Since launching in May 2024, the LPA has held assemblies on housing (two sessions, Aug–Sep 2024) and disaster preparedness (two sessions, late 2024). The housing assemblies generated three solution categories — using empty buyback houses, building community-based cooperative housing models, and pursuing regulatory reforms — with participants voting on priorities for action.2 3

At a planning day in May 2025, the group set its priorities for the year ahead: supporting local tiny house production, erecting 2022 flood-level signage, neighbourhood picnics ("Neighbourocracy"), a regular stall at local markets, and training and workshops.4 The organising group meets weekly on Thursdays.

See also

  1. "The Lismore People’s Assembly seeks to change this in the hopes of reinventing democracy – starting from the ground up" and "not just any kind of democracy, but participatory and deliberative democracy," Inaugural Lismore People's Assembly, originally published at Echo Net Daily, August 2024. ↩

  2. "On Saturday 10th August, around fifty people gathered" and "The attendees were diverse and ranged in age from their twenties to seventies," Lismore People's Assembly on Housing, Reclaim Our Recovery, recounting the August 2024 assembly. ↩↩

  3. "Community based diverse and cooperative solutions for housing" #1 Lismore People's Assembly/Housing, Reclaim Our Recovery — full list of solutions generated. ↩

  4. "Support local tiny house production (one of the solutions from the housing assembly)" The year ahead for the Lismore People's Assembly, Reclaim Our Recovery, May 2025. ↩

History