Tom Bentley
Policy Adviser, Government of Victoria
Tom Bentley will be Executive Director for policy and cabinet for the Premier of Victoria, Australia from September 2006. He was Director of Demos from 1999-2006.
- Place making I'm at the Tallberg Forum in Sweden, discussing how to make the world sustainable with a whole crowd of concerned souls. It's deliberately in a part of Sweden that is off the beaten track, on a very beautiful lake, in an area that is 97% forest, and proud of its traditional identity. A funny place to discuss global poverty and and environmental degradation, you might think. One of the ways to ground the somewhat lofty discussions is that this year, the forum is running 10 workshops based on... continue reading on 29th June 2006
- localise that... Yesterday morning I attended the launch of Sir Michael Lyons' latest report on the role of local authorities. The floor keeps moving under his review, given the restructuring of government departments involving local government, but the paper makes a strong case for thinking differently about some of the essential functions of government. His argument is that, as well as limiting the number of national priorities that can genuinely be priorities, we need to recognise the role of local... continue reading on 9th May 2006
- Queen of urbanists Jane Jacobs, legendary cities and systems thinker, died last week aged 89. You can read an obituary here. She started out as an activist in Pennsylvania, and her first great work, the Death and Life of Great American Cities, was all about how everyday behaviour and self-organisation are fundamental to healthy city life. She developed her approach by wandering the streets of New York, pioneering what later generations of Demos researchers would later christen 'deep hanging out'. Her ideas... continue reading on 29th April 2006
- Risky Business Last week I took part in the Moral Maze on Radio 4, discussing whether our approach to 'public risk' is creating a culture of fear among that public. The panel included Melanie Philips of the Daily Mail and Clare Fox of the Institute of Ideas, as well as Stephen Rose, who is contributing to a forthcoming Demos collection on Better Humans. Being a witness on the moral maze is a bit like running a gauntlet, with panellists doing their best to outwit you from any direction, but the point that... continue reading on 3rd November 2005
- sharing through hyperlinks In two separate international discussions I have been in this year, the conversation has ended up focusing on how people working on similar problems in different countries can share what they are doing more easily. One was a British Council event on education reform in South East Asia. The other was an OECD project called schooling for tomorrow generating future scenarios for public service reform. What struck me was that, while the logic of knowledge sharing was so strong, it remains so... continue reading on 1st March 2005
- Who controls whom? Last week I wrote a piece on the state of the immigration debate pre-election for openDemocracy.net. It recalled the kind of open, fundamental, wide-ranging debate we tried to provoke with People Flow in 2003, and the fact that this year's party politics has gone in precisely the opposite direction. While we might say 'election rules' apply or 'that's politics', the problem is that the way the parties trade blows helps to shape the definition of issues and the political risks for years to... continue reading on 18th February 2005
- Access2Democracy George Papandreou, now Leader of the Opposition and President of PASOK, the Greek Socialist Party, launched a new NGO at a conference in Athens this week. Access2Democracy grew out of last year's Greek presidency of the EU, when Papandreou, as foreign minister, regularly took the results of his 'e-vote' initiative to the Council of Ministers as they debated how to handle Iraq, immigration, the environment and so on. The organisation is dedicated to the development of e-democracy, and how it... continue reading on 23rd May 2004 Comments (6)
- DEMASEAN In a joint declaration dated April 1 2004, Demos Director Tom Bentley today signed an historic and unprecedented cooperation agreement with twelve of the Asia Pacific region's leading policy institutes and intellectuals. The agreement will trigger a multilateral, multidirectional, network based exchange of conference anecdotes and restaurant recommendations, facilitated by a series of global 'hubs' based in Qantas lounges across South East Asia. The unique new partnership will begin by... continue reading on 1st April 2004 Comments (3)
- A renewal of democratic roots? The new leader of the Greek PASOK party, George Papandreou, has set out to create a political vision based on active citizenship and participation. He is an intriguing figure - son and grandson of past Greek Prime Ministers, and therefore a member of a very traditional dynasty, but nonetheless a striking break with the style and preoccupations of Greek national politics. Greece holds national elections on March 7th - at the moment the conservative New Democracy party lead in the polls. So... continue reading on 24th February 2004
- Casualties of war Are the media and politics at war? If so, is democracy a casualty? In a piece on opendemocracy.netI've tried to find a dimension of the debate over the Hutton enquiry which has not been properly examined. It follows a piece from FT journalist John Llloyd, a Demos associate who is currently working on a new book about the media. The question I ask but can't yet answer is whether there are alternative processes for uncovering the truth in the public interest. Meanwhile, the front page of... continue reading on 10th February 2004
1 - 10 of 12 posts
Page:
1 2