Comments on: Three pillars of Open Government

By: Pia Waugh

Pia Waugh — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 04:48:29 +0000

A great post by Julian Carver in New Zealand after hearing a speech by Senator Lundy on the Three pillars of Open Government is at:

http://seradigm.co.nz/2009/08/29/3-pillars-of-open-government.html

By: Matt Moore

Matt Moore — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:52:08 +0000

The Public Sphere initiatives are very welcome and I hope that they gain traction.

However federal, state & local government have a mixed reputation for open government and the ‘default’ setting for many government agencies is ‘closed’. We are closer to the UK than the US in terms of our current practices.

As recently as February, the NSW Ombudsman stated: “The current FOI regime is not working well and is frustrating for both users and administrators. We need a simpler system and a significant cultural change from within government in its attitude to information disclosure”.

This is going to an uphill struggle.

By: Pia Waugh

Pia Waugh — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:02:43 +0000

Thanks for that Julia. We’re checking out the Apps for Democracy project. Some amazing projects can happen when public innovation is facilitated

By: Julia Fetherston

Julia Fetherston — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 10:27:53 +0000

Great post about an important challange for governments. While the technology is new, the question of how elected representatives most effectively engage with citizens is not.

One programme which has created enormous public value in this area is Washington D.C’s Apps for Democracy (www.appsfordemocracy.org). Citizens created $2.3mn in public value for the city’s $50,000 outlay. Projects included a carpool matchmaker and a public alert system.

By: Andrew Harvey

Andrew Harvey — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 01:38:28 +0000

…and here I was thinking that the Government was some evil alliance who want perpetual copyright on their tax payer funded information (eg. http://andrewharvey4.wordpress.com/2009/03/14/a-letter-to-the-board-of-studies-nsw/, http://tickets.openaustralia.org/browse/OA-237?focusedCommentId=10063&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels%3Acomment-tabpanel#action_10063) and to do everything behind a closed door with as little engagement with the public as possible (senate videos can’t be downloaded to disk easily).

Kudos to you.

You would have my vote if only I lived in the ACT.