These petitions are pointless, sorry.
this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2026
73 points (97.4% liked)
Australian Politics
1760 readers
31 users here now
A place to discuss Australia Politics.
Rules
This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone.
Recommended and Related Communities
Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:
- Australia (general)
- Australian News
- World News (from an Australian Perspective)
- Aussie Environment
- Ask an Australian
- AusFinance
- Pictures
- AusLegal
- Aussie Frugal Living
- Cars (Australia)
- Coffee
- Chat
- Aussie Zone Meta
- bapcsalesaustralia
- Food Australia
Plus other communities for sport and major cities.
https://aussie.zone/communities
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
It takes 2 seconds to sign. Even if it's ignored it's an important first step to show resistance.
Upvoting this post only takes a moment. That must mean this is an even more important first step right?
I disagree with you. Not all get their requests met, but many do. Numbers mean votes so a point comes when local politicians see their position at risk when there are very large numbers of people against what they are pushing. Mind you, being Qld, it's harder to say.
but many do
Do you have any examples if issues where a petition in and of itself has influenced an outcome?
Politicians know that clicking on a petition you saw on social media isn't going to influence someone's vote.
Conversely, when people "sign" a petition they feel like they've had their say and don't take any further action.
It's worse than a waste of time.
Have you called your local government representative? Usually they're very happy to discuss things. There's no point just saying what you want. You need to ask them where it's up to in the process and what the contentious issues are. Often, councillors don't actually have any ability to intervene. For example they won't be able to exclude a specific buyer or developer.
The simplest example that petitions influence government https://www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions
That doesn't indicate that petitions are effective.
Its just a mechanism to submit a petition, in order to minimise the disruption to admin staff.
Like creating a complaints@ email inbox.
You make very valid points but I don't think they are the end of the story. Petitions form a number of functions (this list is not comprehensive). They:
- can and have influenced outcomes. The following is a fairly old article but it gives you an idea: https://www.smh.com.au/national/people-power-14-online-petitions-that-changed-australia-in-2015-20151222-gltgyb.html
- bring awareness about issues to people and communities who may not have been aware previously
- give people the opportunity to become involved, even if at arm's length. There is a great deal of apathy in Australia. People who don't even sign petitions are hardly likely to get really active as you indicate. People who are active will be the first to sign and share petitions for the issues they care about. I say this because I know such people
- give politicians and planners a sense of where people are at and what sort of issues they feel strongly about.
- may be used by politicians (cynically or not) to identify sectors of the population to address
- are used by social historians to map community development and salient issues over time (see for example, https://www.aspg.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Petitions-a-voice.pdf)
Finally, the above petition is for all Australians to sign, not just Gold Coast locals. It is very unlikely that someone living in Perth would contact their MP or one covering the Gold Coast to follow the situation. I am one of those people who write individual letters to politicians about issues. More often than not, they fob you off with unctuous polliespeak, so, that IS a waste of time.
To sign a petition is to put a small amount of energy into a significant cause (usually) and join others rather than not put in energy at all and sit on the side lines feeling helpless, alone and grumbling.
Sorry im not convinced.
The article you linked is a puff piece promoting change dot org.
The first petition it mentions illustrates my point - the medication wasnt even approved for use in Australia. As soon as it was, it was added to the PBS.
If I start a petition saying that the sun should rise tomorrow morning, obviously that doesn't demonstrate the effectiveness of my advocation.
Besides which, you seem to have e disregarded my points about identifying the mechanism by which a councillor can intervene. An "i dont like trump" petition can not succeed.
That's ok, I'm just giving an alternate point of view. You don't have to be convinced.
By calling the SMH article a puff piece and only picking the outcome of one petition and disregarding the other 13 you do not make much of a case for your argument, however.
As to your last point, which is important, I'll get back to you. I've made an enquiry because I also want more clarification. Thank you for that.
Sorry mate im not going to read change dot org marketing material. I assumed they put their best case up top.
I suggested you find some examples supporting your position. If thats the best then youve got nothing, sorry.
Here's a couple of items to broaden perspective that show why petitions are useful and have broader implications that are important for democracies. https://theconversation.com/not-another-online-petition-but-heres-why-you-should-think-before-deleting-it-110029 https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/lifematters/from-slacktivism-to-real-change-are-petitions-still-effective-/105805264
Over the years I have signed many petitions. Positive outcomes have been because petitions are mostly part of a multi-pronged 'campaign'. One example is the Free Julian Assange petition on your pet peeve, Change.org. I signed the original petition plus just about every other online means of support I could. Julian was finally brought back. I am sure the original petition was not the cause alone but it helped to make the issue broadly dispersed and became an integral part of the campaign as the number of signatories went from tens, to thousands to nearly 800,000. Another is https://www.change.org/p/introduce-arnie-s-law-stronger-penalties-for-crimes-against-pets which you can read for yourself is now closer to being tabled in the Qld Parliament as the petition initiators have been hard at work advocating to MPs.
You seem to want a very mechanical cause and effect. Nothing stands alone in relation to the ways we can benefit our society. It's all process and persistence. Petitions do not solve a problem on their own but are a straightforward tool that can be used to engage people in issues they care about but don't know how to improve on their own. They are also a straightforward way for authorities and advocacy groups to get an idea of what people think. Why do you think our govts are so poll-driven? What people are thinking does matter. Some petitions will never make a difference but some most certainly do.
I appreciate you trying to engage with me in good faith, and I'm trying to respond in the same way.
Firstly, theconversation article mentions change dot org directly 3 times, is full of breathless praise for them, and links directly to several of their campaigns. This is the very definition of a puff piece. It was probably written by the communications / PR team at change dot org. These aren't reliable sources from which to base an opinion.
That said, that article is literally the antithesis of the petition you're asking people to sign. The instructions for "what makes a good petition", are basically what I said up top - a councillor can't just reject a specific buyer or developer (and for good reason). You need to find out where in the approval process it's up to, and what are the potential issues a councillor might raise. You do that by having a genuine conversation with a councillor and doing more listening than talking.
This petition is literally just a "trump bad" petition. If you've been paying attention to US politics for the last decade, you'll know that Trumpism thrives on this type of "wokery". It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if no one has any intention of building a Trump tower, and it's just a One Nation gambit to foment division.
The life matters episode you linked has a guest who is from the communications team at change dot org. She's there up front singing the praises of the platform. It's not really clear but it seems to suggest that the petition that actually got traction was launched by and promoted by the organisation itself - sort of the culmination of a number of other petitions around a similar topic. Later in the episode Dr Sky Croeser reveals that episode was actually promoted by News Corp - who had a very obvious vested interest in the new laws.
I think these elements really demonstrate a lack of a causal link between signing a petition and effecting change.
Here is the reply I got from GetUp:
It’s true that councillors can’t simply cancel a development because of a petition. Planning decisions still have to go through a formal approval process and be assessed against planning rules.
But that doesn’t mean petitions are useless.
What petitions do is show the scale of community concern before and during that process. When councillors, planners and governments see that thousands of people are paying attention, it often leads to much closer scrutiny of a proposal and can influence how decisions are made, what conditions are applied, or whether projects move forward at all.
Community pressure has played a role in many planning debates in Australia. Petitions are one way people can make sure their voices are part of that conversation.
So the honest answer is: a petition won’t decide the project on its own, but it helps demonstrate that the community cares and wants decision-makers to take a careful look. We're also considering delivering the petition directly to the mayor – we've got over 15,000 signatures already and climbing, we're sure this will show the community doesn't want the tower to go ahead.
Ok, we'll just have to stick to our points of view. Just wanted to add that Change.org gets a lot of air play because it is the largest petition platform, to my knowledge, in the English-speaking world. Also that petitions can be very useful and effective as part of broader campaigns.
I learnt a lot myself as I was responding to you, so thank you for the exchange.
Change.org gets a lot of air play
Sadly the landscape for journalism in the current era is kind of corrupted.
Instead of journalists doing the investigating and reporting to the public in an objective way, it's very often communications teams employed by companies that are doing a lot of the work.
Someone who works for change dot org writes the backbone of "an article" in dot points and sends it to a contact or even a publicist who puts them in touch with a journalist or presenter.
In an era where there's no money in real journalism this is how print journalists meet their quota.
Certainly that podcast episode was created in this way, change dot org comms lady had a publicist who contacted the abc presenter. They got Dr whoever on board for the episode to create balance. Boom. Easy podcast ep.
The same thing happens with retailers on free to air TV for both news and current affairs shows. If a company, retailer, or website is mentioned there's a very strong likelihood that they created a lot of the content.
They talk about this a lot on media watch on ABC.
Regardless, I wish you well in your opposition to this development.
I forgot to add that environment and other activist organisations find that if their petitions to government are well supported by the general public it gives them more ammo to advocate for causes.
Unhappy voters vs money to politicians pockets? I guess it it obvious what will win.