Public Consultation - Your great idea just died in a 26-question survey

Kevin Norquay

Appeared in The Post - July 4, 2025

He cited his recent experience with the Otaki-Levin expressway, where the Horowhenua community did gel, did speak - successfully rallying for the build to go ahead..

Young led the Build Our Road campaign. It was an example of how social media could be effective in broadcasting the voices of middle New Zealand, he said.

Before co-founding The Media Lab, Young spent 20 year overseas in New York, London, and Asia running media and advertising firms.

He has been a director on the Board of Saatchi & Saatchi Asia, chief executive of ZenithOptimedia UK, and CEO of Mindshare North America.

He has planned campaigns for Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Toyota, and American Express.

In his view, traditional consultation methods such as stakeholder meetings, surveys, and formal submissions often exclude the general public.

There is no voice for the disengaged or under-represented, which makes it easier for special interest groups or the vocal minority to overpower them on issues that directly affect them.

“We did some work for the whole fluoridation issue, district by district, and you get 1% of the people that think it's really terrible, really bad,” he says.

“Then 1% of the population who think you should do it, with 98% of the people not engaged in the issue at all. It flies between the two extremes.”

While social media has been criticised as divisive and full of misinformation, Young says it can actually democratise participation if managed smartly.

Public consultation is broken — slow, exclusive, and dominated by the loudest voices.

That’s according to media strategist Antony Young who says it’s time for a smarter, social-media-savvy reboot that actually reflects what New Zealanders think.

A smarter approach to democratic engagement would cut through bureaucracy to capture genuine public sentiment in decision-making, The Media Lab co-founder argues.

It would be accessible and inclusive, could filter out the haters and yellers who dominate a great deal of public discourse, and result in better outcomes for communities, and the country.

“I have been seeing so many areas where better, more representative consultation beyond just vested parties and the elite is needed,” he tells The Post.

Getting people engaged might be as simple as harnessing social media.

Posts can be targeted, and when haters band together or run campaigns to undermine the result, they can easily be filtered out.

Comments can be analysed using AI to get broader, more nuanced public input, not just those with the loudest voices.

Young says in the modern world influencers and relatable community members can help reach diverse audiences, that surveys dropped in letterboxes simply don’t.

Surveys from official channels are often long, boring, and not consumer-friendly. Even motivated, digital-savvy users give up, he says. Young knows he has done that himself.

“People will be asked to fill out a survey, but essentially, it's outdated, because people haven’t got time to do that,” he says.

Young cites a recent example of walking to the railway station, and seeing there were people with yellow jackets passing out pamphlets saying “have your say on public rail and transport”.

“I take the train so I went up. They gave me a 26-question, questionnaire. I tried to do it on the train - I gave up.

“I'm fairly motivated. I'm a train user, I feel I'm pretty competent digitally, I gave up after about 12 questions … they're not thinking about how consumers actually think.”

In June, Minister of Statistics Shane Reti announced Stats NZ will move to an admin-data-first Census, using data the Government has already collected.

Instead of asking your income on a census form, Stats NZ could ask Inland Revenue how much you earn.

AI offers potential to process large volumes of feedback meaningfully and provide insight, but there have to be better ways of getting quality data, Young says.

Young worked on a public engagement campaign to gather insights to help with the design of the public health system.

“We partnered with mental health advocate Jazz Thornton to engage with her social media followers to share their perspectives,” he says.

“To reach rural audiences, we collaborated with Shepherdess Magazine, leveraging their strong Instagram community with women in rural communities to spark dialogue and gather input on healthcare support in those regions.”

Often politics and not people are shaping decisions on everything from building codes to benefit entitlements, he says.

But ultimately politicians do listen to the public, so getting the public engaged is more important, Young says, highlighting an issue that has galvanised mental health professionals.

“Right now psychologists across the country are raising serious concerns about a government proposal to introduce a new associate psychologist role, allowing those with just a one-year postgraduate diploma to treat patients,” he says.

“It’s a high-stakes issue with potentially significant consequences if mishandled. Yet it’s flying under the radar.”

Despite a strongly worded letter to the minister, a petition on OurActionStation has gathered fewer than 2000 signatures.

“Without public awareness, there’s little urgency. But when the public gets involved, the media pays attention and decision-makers are far more likely to act. Social media can be a great motivator.”

Young has no doubt rallying hearts and minds is possible. That people do care - look at the hikoi against the Treaty Principles Bill, he says.

“My solution is that social media, which always gets put up as the problem, is actually a way of making consultation really accessible.”

Overseas social media has driven democratic change. During the “Arab Spring” platforms such as Twitter (now X) and Facebook helped mobilise millions against authoritarian regimes.

In Tunisia and Egypt, citizen coverage and live updates got past state media to grab international attention and fuel mass uprisings.

People hold placards as they join a spontaneous Black Lives Matter march through central London to protest the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and in support of the demonstrations in North America on May 31, 2020 in London, England.Hollie Adams / Getty Images

In New Zealand, the Black Lives Matter movement caught on, even though it was born out of the US police killing of George Floyd in the US.

Social media messages prompted solidarity marches in New Zealand and a look at its own social record on racism, policing, and its colonial legacy.

Social media gave Māori and Pasifika voices a louder platform.

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