A 'big' idea put forward by Britain's PM, but this one has legs

I AM impressed by an idea that surfaced in Britian last month that could be adapted to Australia, especially during an election campaign.

I AM impressed by an idea that surfaced in Britian last month that could be adapted to Australia, especially during an election campaign.

This is the new British PM David Cameron's call for what he describes as "big society".

It is the notion that real power lies in community organisation rather than in government.

(It is instructive that the current US President is in fact a former community organiser.)

The idea of course has been criticised as a ploy to reduce government spending.

If you can get community groups to respond to issues such as homelessness, graffiti removal, housing affordability and a general lack of services, then you can curry favour by redistributing tax dollars elsewhere.

This may well be the case and an outcome.

However, regardless of the motive behind a concept like big society, I think it has unifying grassroots appeal to 21st-century communities.

Over the past two decades there has been a diminution of faith in big government, in big business, perhaps even in big unions and even in big institutions such as the church.

In fact, there is no more pejorative prefix in the activist's lexicon than "big": big oil, big tobacco, big banks, big government, big green.

Oops, sorry, there is no such thing as big green. All green is always good.

Economic calamities such as the global financial crisis, revelations of ungodly behaviour by priests, and the disappointment of the much-anticipated Copenhagen climate talks are all evidence that individuals are being let down by their representatives. What is required is true empowerment of the people. (In another era such talk would have been viewed as incitement to revolution.)

Consider how technology and society have altered in the past decade with the common effect of empowering the individual.

Blogs have created citizen journalists with opinions on everything (and especially on demographics).

Generation Y talks of working in collaboration as opposed to working in competition. Ys are also fond of volunteering: they want to make a difference at the grassroots level.

In the cyber world, developments such as Wikipedia have disembowelled century-old publishing institutions such as Encyclopaedia Britannica with an online concept that is flexible, timely and cost efficient. What Wikipedia does is harness the collective intellect of millions rather than the mighty intellect of a few.

Barack Obama galvanised an army of volunteers who, through a unique esprit de corps, were instrumental in building public momentum and support for the Obama candidacy. The US Tea Party is also another grassroots movement that evolved in response to concern about perceived mismanagement by Washington and greed by Wall Street.

Even in popular culture there has been a decade-long shift away from the artificiality of big corporations. Young people will talk about "keeping it real". Ripped jeans are surely a sign of rebellion against big fashion. Or at least it was until those damn multinational fashion houses started designing artfully ripped jeans.

Since the year 2000, there has been a general preference for reality television as opposed to manufactured drama. Across most aspects of modern society there is clear evidence of individuals railing against instructions and government from above.

Is it truly possible for politicians to harness this latent community desire for connectivity and meaning at a local level?

The problem is that grassroots motivation is more easily swayed to the negative rather than to the positive. And aided, I might add, by a media commentariat for whom it is always intellectually easier to be critical than to be constructive. Big society is at the very least a positive concept even if its motives are unclear.

The challenge, then, for Cameron and indeed for any Australian politician looking to replicate the big society pitch, is to articulate a vision and to transmit genuine conviction. Both are required to garner support and to defray the critics.

I see this as an opportunity that has yet to be tapped in Australia. And yet given what I am sure is the community's predisposition to "get involved" and to do something, this is surely one of the big ideas that, given the right framework and support, could shape the Australian community in the coming decade.

Even though big society might be a good idea it would need to be reworked for the Australian market. The phrase is too similar to "big Australia", which is now a divisive concept. And, in either case, a direct lift of Cameron's idea would be ridiculed by the media. The big society concept needs a different tag (e.g. "Creating Communities") and a legitimising pretext: put the word "sustainable" in the title and no one will question it. By God, I have it. How about a grassroots movement called Creating Sustainable Communities? At the very least I suggest putting this phrase in your very next development application: it's a phrase that makes modern people feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Bernard Salt is a KPMG partner [e-mail]

www.twitter.com/bernardsalt