Fostering the Sharing Economy in Australia

Andrew Leigh, the ALP Federal Shadow Minister for Competition, has invited comment on "Sharing the future: Getting policy right in the Age of the App" (Federal Opposition Discussion Paper, 24 March 2015). This gives an overview of the "Sharing Economy", where an on-line service can be used to allow individuals to make use of each others goods and services (for free, in return for the opportunity to borrow others for for a fee). Borrowing something from a neighbor, or renting out a room for a night, is hardly a new idea, but web based services make it possible on a global scale. The ALP paper covers the issues of: Employment and workers’ rights, Public safety and consumer protections, Accessibility, Equity, Taxation, Competition and Federal/state coordination. What is not covered is policy for encouraging Australian sharing economy ventures.

Unfortunately the pro-Australian message of the ALP's paper is somewhat weakened by it being distributed via a non-Australian web service and including only examples of non-Australian companies. The message from this might be that the Sharing Economy will consist of Australian money and jobs being funneled out of Australia to foreign multinational companies located in tax havens. It would be a good idea for the ALP to put the paper on a web server located in Australia and, even better, convert it from PDF into a more readable web page (in accordance with accessibility guidelines).

It should not be too difficult to find some Australian examples of the the Sharing Economy. I regularly attend and judge startup competitions and there are always examples of sharing economy ventures. One place to look would be the Canberra Innovation Network and GriffinAccelerator. Another place is the Telstra Muru-D Start-up Accelerator in Sydney.

Also, it would be worth having something in the policy about encouraging the creation of new sharing economy ventures. There is scope for Australia to provide products and services (including education) to support the sharing economy worldwide. There would likely be markets in China, India and Indonesia for this.

There could also be a role for government in the Sharing Economy. The Australian Digital Transformation Office (DTO) is to look at innovative ways to deliver government services. One way would be for the government to help facilitate Australians to help each other.

G20 Summit Overview and Critique

Greetings from the Australian National University in Canberra, where John E. Ruthrauff, Director, International Advocacy at InterAction, is speaking on "G20 Summit Overview and Critique: Tales from a G20 Veteran". The G-20 started as a meeting of the Group of Twenty Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors. but is now a more general series of summits  of major governments. Mr. Ruthrauff pointed out that the summit is a venue for announcing previously agreed decisions and advocacy groups needed to be lobbying long beforehand. He described the series of meetings and activities carried out by advocacy groups in advance. The process described involved action though the nation where the advocacy organisation is based and through then to the other nations. There are also informal opportunities after the G20 meetings. Mr. Ruthrauff also described other ancillary meetings around the G20.

The G20 process as described sounds like a waste of time and effort for any organisation with limited means. It would seem to make more sense to contact the government staff in the agencies which feed into the G20 process online and and influence the process that way. As an example, I post policy proposals to my blog, so that government people can copy and paste whatever might be useful into their documents. This works well.

Government Communication in the Internet Age

Greetings from the Australian National University in Canberra, where academics, journalists and public servants are discussing "How government communicates in a complex world". The event is hosted by the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy. This features Andrew Hockley, Executive Coordinator, Strategic Policy, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet; Katharine Murphy, Deputy political editor for Guardian Australia; James Button, Communications Manager, Grattan Institute; Michael Wesley, Professor of National Security, ANU. There is a large contingent in the audience from the Singapore Government. This bookends neatly with the DesignGov Co-Design Workshop I attended this morning.

The panel event was disappointing, they discussed social media as something used for political campaigns. They did not touch on how government might engage with the community about complex, long-term policy, or the public service communicate about its work and role? There was none of the depth of theory and experience in implementation of the Department of Finance's "Proposed online engagement courses for the APS".

How government communicates in a complex world

The Australian National University is holding a forum on "How government communicates in a complex world", in Canberra, 5:30pm, 22 July 2013. This features Andrew Hockley, Executive Coordinator, Strategic Policy, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet; Katharine Murphy, Deputy political editor for Guardian Australia; James Button, Communications Manager, Grattan Institute; Michael Wesley, Professor of National Security, ANU.

Politics and the media move fast. But the longer-term work of democracy and government goes on, often dealing with complex policy issues of major importance.
The ways in which we understand changes in geopolitics, demographics, equality and the environment have long histories and will shape the future of the nation for decades to come. This public event focuses on the public service and the changing ways in which it communicates and engages with the community about complex, long-term policy.
How does the public service communicate about its work and role? How has the relationship between the public service and media changed, and what does this mean for public understanding and debate of major policy issues? And what role can academics and think-tanks play?
This forum brings together leading figures from the public service, academia and policy think-tanks for a discussion of these important questions.
-Michael Wesley, Professor of National Security, ANU and 2011 winner of the John Button Prize;
-James Button, Communications Manager, Grattan Institute and board member, John Button Foundation;
-Andrew Hockley, Executive Coordinator, Strategic Policy, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet;
-Katharine Murphy, Deputy political editor for Guardian Australia;
-Chaired by Mark Matthews, Executive Director, HC Coombs Policy Forum, Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU
It is presented in partnership with the John Button Foundation - johnbuttonprize.org.au
REGISTRATION REQUIRED. This forum is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be provided after the forum

Measuring Policy Impact of University Research

Greetings from the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University in Canberra. Paul Harris is speaking on "Pathways to policy impact". ANU and CSIRO are collaborating to look at how the research which is undertaken at a university contributes to the development of government policy. The ANU and CSIRO between them spend more than $2B of public money on research each year, so they are obliged to look at if this expenditure is providing a benefit to the public. Paul pointed out there is much informal interaction between researchers and government people, so clearly it is having an impact. There are some attempts to document this, especially in CSIRO, but this could be done more systematically. Paul pointed out that as CSIRO is a government body, the researchers have more direct access to internal policy processes in government. In contrast ANU as a university does not have as direct access (alto ugh there is less formal consultations made through those of us at the ANU who are former public servants). Paul also suggests that researcher should consider the possible impact of proposed research. The UK Research Councils have done some work on "Pathways to Impact". It occurs to me that this work could benefit from the work done on teaching commercialization to researchers, through projects such as "Innovation ACT". Impact on government policy would then be just one way the results of research could be turned into a useful result. Many of the skills developed in innovation courses would also apply to policy, covering IP issues, how to prepare and present a proposal. Paul gave the example of the US "SPARC Usable Science A Handbook for Science Policy Decision Makers". He pointed out that the process of research to policy is not necessarily linear: instead there is two way interaction between researchers and policy makers. Paul asked the interesting question of the role of science of the public service policy cycle. I suggest this raises a more interesting question about what the actual policy development process is in government and what it should be. My experience of working for government was that there was no workable policy development process: policies had to be developed in secret, as a draft policy could be used by your enemies. Paul touched on this by suggesting that the political impact of research needs to be considered.

Public Policy Development Online

One system demonstrated at GovCampNSW, was the Cancer Council Australia' wiki platform provides a version of the Wikimedia platform tailored for policy development. This provides for two levels of interaction with the wiki: the general public can post comments, but only registered experts can edit the content. The system includes formal traditional references, as needed for schoolyard work and formal policy documents:

Wiki-based clinical practice guidelines will ultimately improve the standard and consistency of clinical practice according to the best and most recent scientific evidence available. It is a service provided by Cancer Council Australia to inform clinical practice. Unlike written guidelines wiki guidelines are constantly updated as new evidence becomes available and are linked to source abstracts and other evidence-based sites that add to the value of visiting the wiki site.