Endangered governance: Public trust, urban decisions, and ethical practice

The annual Festival of Urbanism is a series of conversations where researchers, practitioners, community advocates and industry leaders come together to debate the threats and opportunities facing our cities. 

About

Clear and transparent ethical frameworks can and should feature much more overtly in decision making across development processes, which are uniquely exposed to risks associated with conflicts of interest, politicisation, compromise, and corruption. This panel explores the realities facing planners and policy makers, and highlights strategies for those committed to ethical practice.

Speakers

• Dr Dallas Rogers (chair), Senior Lecturer Architecture and Environments, University of Sydney
• Han Aulby, Executive Director, Centre for Public Integrity
• Sue Weatherley, MPIA, Director, City Strategy and Innovation, Georges River Council 
• Michael West, Investigative Journalist, Michael West Media
• Dr Crystal Legacy, Assoc Prof Urban Planning, University of Melbourne

Han Aulby is the founder and Executive Director of the Centre for Public Integrity, an independent think tank dedicated to preventing corruption, protecting the integrity of our institutions, and eliminating undue influence of money in politics. CPI has worked on anti-corruption reforms for the past 5 years, leading policy research and engaging former judges and legal experts in the push for a National Integrity Commission.

Michael West is an investigative journalist and founder of Michael West Media, a news website specialising in areas of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporation over democracy and impropriety in areas of business, finance, tax, and energy. He began his career at the Australian Financial Review and later became business editor at the Sydney Morning Herald and a columnist at News Corp.

Sue Weatherley MPIA, is the Director, City Strategy and Innovation at Georges River Council where she oversees the development and implementation of key city strategies. Sue is a passionate and successful urban planner and senior local government executive with over 20 years of experience in senior local government executive roles in NSW and QLD, including Townsville and Ryde.

Dr Crystal Legacy is Associate Professor of Urban Planning at the University of Melbourne and Deputy Director of the Informal Urbanism Research Hub. As a former recipient of an ARC DECRA, Crystal has published widely on the topics of urban transport politics and the post-political city. Her current research examines the governance and policy challenges of planning future urban transport, and the politics of citizen participation in infrastructure planning.

Dr Dallas Rogers is an urban geographer with a broad interest in housing, land, real estate and urban development. He writes about the colonial histories of land claiming, public housing, foreign real estate investment, the politics of urban development, participatory planning, platform real estate, and more. His work involves working closely with people and institutions on collaborative research projects.  

How to join the conversation

This virtual event is free and open to all. Register to get the details for how you can tune in on the day via Zoom webinar.

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