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Mayor Robert Doyle should be congratulated for this bold move. Photo: Angela Wylie

A radical experiment in democracy has begun at Melbourne Town Hall. But it does not involve online activism, marching in the streets, or the Occupy Movement. Instead it draws on the earliest democratic traditions together with some new thinking from social scientists to trial a new approach to public decision-making on tough issues.

Melbourne City Council has recruited a "People's Panel" of everyday Melburnians to make recommendations on how the council should prioritise spending over the next decade. The panel comprises 46 residents, business owners and students who have been randomly selected to represent a broad cross-section of the community.

Over the next three months panel members will be given open access to information and financial data about council, along with briefings by experts, senior bureaucrats and councillors. Like citizens serving on a jury, the panel members will deliberate over what they have heard and will reach a verdict in the form of recommendations to councillors on priority projects, services, revenue and spending.

The Herald Sun and the Institute of Public Affairs have already come out swinging against this exercise. They have attacked the $150,000 cost and accused council of "subcontracting the responsibility to make decisions councillors are equipped to make themselves".

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Once upon a time I would have agreed with these views. But the fact is the first 14 years of this millennium have not been great for democracy. Australia's political system is in pretty crook shape our democracy seems incapable of solving tough problems such as climate change, tax reform or balancing the budget.

A Lowy Poll in June found that only 60 per cent of Australians believe that "democracy is preferable to any other kind of government". And a recent ANU survey found that Australians' satisfaction with democracy had slumped from 86 per cent in 2007 to 72 per cent in 2014.

There is no simple explanation for this decline. And there is no simple or single solution. But we need to start experimenting with new models that just might help governments get good but difficult things done.

Australia has had two major waves of democratic reform: the establishment of the states in the 1850s, and the creation of the federation in 1901. At both of these points Australia arguably led the world in democratic innovation.

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For democracy's sake, give power to the people