Giving a voice to the community

In a democratic society, every voice should have equal weight. Peter Fritz argues that it is not the institutions or formal titles that give individuals the power to make a difference, but an active participation in policy discussions.

Established some 12 years ago as a company endeavouring to help small medium sized enterprises to get access to large companies, GAP found in the first year or two that there were good reasons for the divide between small and large.

Contrary to entrenched wisdom that small companies are little big companies we found that in fact the small and medium sized world is populated by its own particular and peculiar habits and life.  It’s a  different environment from the space that the big companies live in.

Slowly, we saw a much more important role for ourselves rather than trying for the impossible of making small companies relevant to large companies.  We learnt that individuals, the citizens, us people who form the community, can gain a seat at the table where our destinies are being formed and set.

Over the years thus GAP became one of the most, influential entities in Australia in broadening the democratic process of public consultation. Civil society in our view has a legitimate place alongside government and the public service in setting directions for our country.

We lack vehicles through which our voices can be heard, our individual voices, not through lobby groups or aggregating agencies. GAP has set out to make a difference in resetting the balance. It was easy to have ones word heard in a small community, a village, it is difficult when there are millions of voices speaking at the same time. Through the four permanent consultative committees, the many taskforces and online engagements with the participation of the willing we are privileged to be able to say we are making a difference.

In our opinion, it is not the institutions and formal titles that should give power to individuals. In a democratic society, every voice should have equal weight. We have arrived at the stage of human development when again through the technologies we have invented the solitary person can have an audible voice.

Through Open Forum and First 5000 we have managed to create platforms where tens, hundreds, thousands or even millions of people’s voices can be heard at the same time. We have the commitment to broaden the reach of the individual. We don’t need to get permission to speak up, but to be heard we have to speak. We hope that we will be able to provide the platform for every Australian to participate in building the kind of place that upholds each individual’s right and provides the capability to become involved.

I want people to come and have their say. We are giving them the opportunity to share their ideas rather than to complain about what people are or aren’t doing.  Together we can come up with the issues that bother us and debate solutions with the people whose responsibility is to implement them.

Only if we provide solutions which can be debated do we earn the right to complain.
 

Peter Fritz AM is Managing Director of Global Access Partners, and Group Managing Director of TCG – a diverse group of companies which over the last 40 years has produced many breakthrough discoveries in computer and communication technologies. He chairs a number of influential government and private enterprise boards and is active in the international arena, including having represented Australia on the OECD Small and Medium Size Enterprise Committee.