Are we opening up Australian Government?

Greetings from a law-book lined library at the Australian National University, where Daniel Stewart, Senior Lecturer, ANU College of Law is asking "Are we opening up government?". This is in his role as part of the evaluation of the Australian Open Government National Action Plan 2016-18. This is a bit like being an extra in an episode of the ABC TV comedy "Utopia", with a "dashboard" showing cute green icons, which claims everything is on track.

Leaving the cynicism aside, and the difficulty of a credible plan for open government in the current political climate, the plan has some good intentions. As an example 2.3 "Digitally transform the delivery of government services" is a good idea. This is delegated to the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA), which makes sense. The DTA was to to deliver a roadmap, which they seem to have done. However, what is lacking are the trained staff needed to implement the roadmap.

Open Government Partnership

Greetings from the OGP Australia Information Session at the Inspire Centre, University of Canberra. This is on the Open Government Partnership (OGP) and is to help develop an Australian Government National Action Plan by July 2016. Canada and the UK signed up in 2011 and so Australia has a bit of catching up to do. Perhaps the Australian Government could skip a few steps, and not for the first time, prepare a draft from the Canadian and UK plans.

It happens that the "Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance" is located at the University of Canberra and might be able to assist.

"OGP’s vision is that more governments become sustainably more transparent, more accountable, and more responsive to their own citizens, with the ultimate goal of improving the quality of governance, as well as the quality of services that citizens receive. This will require a shift in norms and culture to ensure genuine dialogue and collaboration between governments and civil society." From OGP Mission and Plans.

• Mission and Strategy