I have the experience of probably hundreds of public consultations on electoral boundaries, on different electoral systems across this country, and my experience is that they're not very helpful at all. Most people who come to them either come with their own very narrow agenda, with a line to push, or they really don't know very much about it.
Where they can be very helpful is if you have a concrete proposal you're seeking a response to. Certainly that's the lesson of electoral boundary commissions. We go out and hear ideas for boundaries and you get stuff that's not helpful to boundary commissions, but when you propose a map then you get really specific suggestions and reactions that can be enormously helpful.
I think that without a specific proposal saying, “Look, what do you think about this and how should we be thinking about it?”, it's very difficult to get very coherent and cumulative opinion.