Water for life Community Panel

We committed to taking a community led approach to developing the Water for Life strategy. To achieve this, we recruited an independent community panel that developed a vision and a set of community criteria to help shape our 50 year water strategy. The panel did a fantastic job of representing the broader community and the criteria they developed has helped to shape decisions about future water options.

Watch the latest video from our Community Panel

What we heard from the panel

The Community Panel provided their recommendations in a detailed Community Panel Report, available to download in the right hand side column of this page. The Report details the following community vision and fourteen criteria for the Water for Life strategy:

Vision

Our Melbourne. Our Water. Our Responsibility.

The vision is for a future with:

• innovation driving equitable access to water
• pristine, precious, secure and sustainable water
• meaningful engagement with traditional owners and consumers.

Criteria

• Ongoing education and engagement with stakeholders
• Protecting the health of waterways
• Optimising water usage from all sources
• Accessibility of water to the community
• Self sustaining water supply
• Water security – ensuring a reliable supply of water in the future
• Environmental preservation (conservation)
• Water efficiencies
• Reduction of water wastage
• Responsible water usage
• Efficient and integrated water management
• Adoption of new technology
• Water affordability
• Collaboration between relevant levels of government and stakeholders.

What is a community panel?

People’s panels, or community panels are powerful examples of deliberative democratic engagement. This means the community and/or stakeholders affected by a decision are put at the centre of the decision making. The process brings members of the public closer to decision makers and the activity of government.

The panel is built around a number of principles including:

• A random sample of people affected by the decision are selected to participate.
• Participants are provided with detailed, in-depth information from a range of sources that helps them to understand the issues and options related to the decision.
• Participants are given the time and support they need to consider and discuss information and ideas, weigh up issues and options and agree on recommendations.
• Participants write their own report which is presented directly to decision makers. The recommendations in their report have a high level of influence over outcomes or decisions.

How we recruited the Panel

To ensure our Panel was independently recruited, we commissioned independent specialist engagement consultants the Sortition Foundation to select the community panel members and oversee the recruitment process.

As part of this process we mailed hard copy invitations to more than 10,000 households across our service region, inviting one person per household to express their interest in being part of the Panel.

From the pool of candidates, Sortition Foundation independently selected our panellists.