Team Name:
Goldwyn
Team Members:
Goldwyn
Bridging Social Divides: Strengthening Social Connections in Australia
How can we bring people together from diverse backgrounds to communicate respectfully, even when they hold opposing views?
Social cohesion is the “glue” that binds society together. Cohesive societies are healthier, more resilient, and experience greater prosperity. While Australians have historically come together in times of crisis, recent reports (Scanlon Institute 2023, 2024) show a decline in cohesion — with the Scanlon-Monash Index dropping to its lowest score since 2007.
Key dimensions of cohesion include:
This project addresses following GovHack challenges: to design initiatives that strengthen community connection, trust in government, and respectful debate. Deliverables should:
Our solution is CommunityLink – an AI-powered platform that brings residents and councils together.
The solution enables councils to:
This repository includes a lightweight developer/demo setup used for prototyping and presentation. These notes explain what is in the repo and how it differs from a production deployment:
src/mockData/ used to populate charts and tiles during developmentResidents
Council Admins
Notes (prod):
| Method | Path | Description | Auth |
| ------ | ------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------- | -------------- |
| GET | /auth/start?provider=mygovid | Begin OIDC flow | Public |
| GET | /auth/callback | OIDC callback → sets HttpOnly session cookie | Public |
| POST | /auth/logout | Clears session | Session cookie |
| Method | Path | Description |
| ------ | ------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------- |
| GET | /api/v1/events?lga={id}&from=YYYY-MM-DD&to=YYYY-MM-DD | List public events (tenant-scoped) |
| POST | /api/v1/events/{eventId}/interest | Register interest |
| GET | /api/v1/preferences | Get user prefs |
| PUT | /api/v1/preferences | Update prefs (categories, accessibility, times) |
Example payloads
json
// PUT /api/v1/preferences
{
"categories": ["arts_culture","sports"],
"age_group": "18_34",
"availability": ["weeknights","weekend_mornings"],
"accessibility": ["step_free","quiet_space"]
}
| Method | Path | Description |
| ------ | ---------------------------- | ------------------------------------------- |
| POST | /api/v1/ideas | Submit an idea (text + optional attachment) |
| POST | /api/v1/ideas/{id}/vote | { "vote": "support|neutral|oppose" } |
| POST | /api/v1/ideas/{id}/comment | Short, moderated comment |
| POST | /api/v1/ideas/summarise | (Server-side) AI summary helper |
Example payloads
```json
// POST /api/v1/ideas
{
"title": "Pop-up multicultural food night",
"body": "Partner with local groups to host monthly events in the town square.",
"tags": ["belonging","youth","food"],
"location_lga": "Whitehorse"
}
// POST /api/v1/ideas/summarise
{
"text": "Partner with local groups to host monthly multicultural food nights..."
}
```
Example responses
```json
// 201 Created (idea)
{
"id": "idea_01HZX...",
"status": "received",
"moderation": "pending"
}
// 200 OK (summary)
{
"summary": "Monthly multicultural food nights to foster belonging and cross-cultural exchange.",
"key_points": ["low-cost pilots", "partner local groups", "youth focus"]
}
```
| Method | Path | Description |
| ------ | ----------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------- |
| GET | /api/v1/engagement/participation?lga={id}&months=12 | Time series index (aggregated) |
| GET | /api/v1/engagement/sentiment?lga={id} | Aggregated sentiment per project/topic |
| GET | /api/v1/ideas?lga={id} | List ideas + vote tallies (thresholded) |
Example responses
```json
// GET /api/v1/engagement/participation
{
"lga": "Whitehorse",
"series": [
{"month": "2024-01", "index": 62},
{"month": "2024-02", "index": 64},
{"month": "2024-03", "index": 67}
],
"method": "z-scored composite (events, ideas, votes, visits)"
}
// GET /api/v1/engagement/sentiment
{
"lga": "Whitehorse",
"topics": [
{"topic": "parksupgrade", "support": 132, "neutral": 41, "oppose": 28, "n": 201},
{"topic": "nightmarkets", "support": 98, "neutral": 22, "oppose": 11, "n": 131}
],
"min_threshold": 10
}
```
Wyndham Council has approved a $372,000 private security patrol in Truganina despite 42% of residents opposing it. The controversial trial passed as part of the citywide budget, with attempts to stop it voted down by the Mayor and her allies.
In June 2025, our team saw first-hand how Australian councils sometimes disregard community feedback—despite the majority of more than 4,000 responses opposing the trial. This experience was the main driver for our inspiration to take on this challenge and develop solutions to address this kind of disconnect between councils and their communities.
Furthermore, through our analysis of government data available, we found that in most jurisdictions, only 7% comment on public consultations; 4% attend council meetings.
data sources used:
https://scanloninstitute.org.au/mapping-social-cohesion-2024
https://www.apsreform.gov.au/resources/reports/trust-and-satisfaction-australian-democracy-survey-report
https://humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/document/publication/WEB_Building_social_cohesion_A4_brochure.pdf
#Strengthening-social-connections-for-community
Eligibility: Open to all. At least one government dataset must be used.
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#Democracy-in-practice
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#Smarter-services
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