WHGNE recently contributed a submission to the Inquiry into Community Consultation Practices, conducted by the Victorian Government. As an organisation that advocates to embed the voices of women and their communities across our region into policy and practice at all levels of government and the public sector, we welcomed the opportunity to share our priorities.
Our submission calls for the application of an intersectional gender lens across community engagement conducted by the Government and public sector, which considers the practical application of these principals alongside policy. We recommend Government and public entities to:
- Apply a gender lens to consultation resources, schedules and expected outcomes – for example, by considering childcare responsibilities, the timing of consultations, power imbalances and the language used.
- Explicitly ask for gendered perspectives during consultations – to elaborate, people of different genders may experience unique barriers when navigating services, infrastructure, public spaces and policies.
- Ensure cultural competency among consultation teams – it is important to ensure that the same groups of people are not overwhelmed with being asked to contribute on behalf of their demographic – this can lead to burnout, especially when they are providing the same perspectives and advice without seeing any legislative or policy change.
- Make renumeration standard practice for in person or face to face online consults – this acknowledges people’s time and effort in sharing their perspectives.
- Collect disaggregated data – including sex, gender, age, disability and cultural background – to understand and respond to the diverse experiences within the community.
A guiding principle to our own approach to community engagement is to centre care – this includes considering factors like cultural competency, agency and accessibility. We recommended particular attention to accessibility as it pertains to rurality, straightforward language, translation formats and digital literacy.
Improving strategies to build relationships with, and conduct respectful, reciprocal and caring consultations with the community members most impacted by policies and practices under review is something that we can all work to improve for effective, equitable policies that serve everyone.
