Paul Bassat’s latest venture Amplify offers a voice for a ‘divided’ Australia

Eighty-four per cent of Australians want more involvement in policy decisions. Will Paul Bassat’s new venture give them a voice?

Entrepreneur Paul Bassat wants to bring communities together and improve debate around the big issues facing the nation. Picture: Aaron Francis

Paul Bassat says we’re more divided than we used to be, but the entrepreneur isn’t looking for common ground, or the middle ground, or consensus in his newest multimillion-dollar venture aimed at reshaping public debate.

The co-founder of Seek and venture capital fund Square Peg says he wants to find the “uncommon ground” on big issues such as housing or the environment using Amplify, a not-for-profit that will connect people via town-hall style forums and an online platform.

“We’re trying to find the creative, innovative solutions,” he said ahead of Tuesday’s launch.

“Not everyone’s got to agree with where we land, but if we look for consensus, then we’re never going to achieve outcomes. We are trying to find that uncommon ground among a plurality of participants and find the best path forward.”

Mr Bassat has spent a couple of years building an organisation that is neither a think-tank nor an advocacy organisation – and definitely not a political party – but rather a nonpartisan community organisation powerful enough to feed policy ideas to government.

Membership and events will be free.

“We’re unbelievably lucky to live in Australia, but it feels that we’re much more divided than we used to be,” Mr Bassat said.

“That’s certainly the findings we’re getting from our research, where two thirds of people are saying we’re more divided today than we have been previously.

“The other thing we’re hearing is that Australians just don’t feel they’re having a say and being heard on really important issues. We’re also looking at what’s happening in other democracies around the world, where things are a bit chaotic right now, and it’s a bit of a warning sign for us.”

Amplify is an ambitious project that is being funded by Mr Bassat, the Commonwealth Bank, the Sidney Myer Fund and other sponsors, with an expected annual budget of between $5m and $10m. There’s a staff of 17 based in Sydney under CEO Georgina Harrisson, a former secretary of the NSW Department of Education.

Mr Bassat chairs a 10-person board that includes former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet; former Queensland minister and now ARL commissioner Kate Jones; Gillon McLachlan, the CEO of Tabcorp and former AFL CEO; Kate Pounder, the former CEO of the Tech Council of Australia; and Michael Schneider, the managing director of Bunnings.

The website goes live on Tuesday and Amplify will later this year run a series of Better Australia forums around the country to identify big issues that need more detailed policy work.

“We’re going to need to go deep on issues to make a difference,” Mr Bassat said.

“There’s a lot of evidence from other parts of the world that if you bring people together in the right format, use different innovative techniques to get people to share their views, but also get them to bring a curious mindset and really think about other ideas and how we can collectively come up with better ideas (there are good outcomes).”

Amplify will likely partner with other organisations on specific issues: “We don’t want to reinvent the wheel. Let’s say, for example, a focus area is housing. There is lots and lots of great work that has been done. We want to bring the experts in, we want to listen to the experts but we also particularly want to get the views of our ­community.”

A recent Amplify survey of more than 4000 Australians found more than 80 per cent think politicians prioritise winning votes over developing sound policies, while three quarters think there’s a lack of long-term thinking in politics. As well, 84 per cent of people think the community should be more directly involved in policy decisions, and 52 per cent think constructive conversations are becoming harder to have.

Says Mr Bassat: “One of the things that we asked ourselves was, if we can get this right, if we can do it successfully, can we drive an outsized impact in the country? That’s kind of what we’re trying to do.”

www.amplifyaus.org