Qld Hansard a closed book to OpenAustralia
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Why won’t the Queensland Parliament allow OpenAustralia to publish the Queensland State Parliamentary Hansards? Open Australia is a volunteer-run website that publishes federal parliamentary Hansards online. The website receives 25,000 page views per month, has slightly over 1300 email subscribers, and is run entirely on open source software. Similar sites exist for the UK, New Zealand, and even the UN, and while the UK website has had issues with younger, more internet savvy MPs attempting to stack the system to increase their personal coverage, the idea has nevertheless proven to be extremely popular. While hansards are already available online, the OpenAustralia website organises this information in a far more intuitive way. The website makes it possible for users to search and track their MPs, and also allows them to subscribe to RSS feeds and email alerts of their MPs votes and parliamentary speeches. In fact, the OpenAustralia has been so successful at collating Hansard information that even public servants are getting on board. Approximately one third of OpenAustralia’s subscribers are public servants with @gov.au email addresses. One of the best things that Open Oz has done is to publish the Register of Members’ Interests online. The register of interest is a list of gifts received by Australian Senators and representatives, and before OpenAustralia’s intervention, the document was previously available only as a 1500-page handwritten tome. So what’s going on in Queensland? Neil Laurie, clerk of the Queensland Parliament says that the issue is “not as simple as would initially appear”. He argues that the Queensland Parliamentary Service posts Hansard online as soon as they can, and that they already make more information available online than any other state or territory government. He notes that Queensland Hansards are already out in the public domain, and says that the Queensland Parliamentary Service simply isn’t prepared to give OpenAustralia “authorised publisher” status. In an email addressing the issue, Laurie refused the request on the following grounds:
Matthew Landauer, from OpenAustralia, acknowledges that “what we’re asking is quite hard”, and recognises that the decision can be a difficult one for public servants to make. While OpenAustralia has contacted all the state and territory governments about this issue, Queensland has thus far, been the only one to respond. However, Landauer says that the concerns raised by Laurie are “not very valid”, and are “all concerns that we’ve seen before”. According to Landauer, OpenAustralia has been publishing federal Hansards for the past six months, and the only extra work that they’ve created for the Federal Parliamentary Service is to help them correct their mistakes. It took OpenAustralia three months (and correspondence with four different government departments) to obtain permission to publish federal Hansards, and Landauer is confident that the states and territories will eventually get on board as well. Peter Timmins is a privacy and freedom of information consultant who blogs at Open and Shut. He notes that:
As Senator Faulkner said in his speech to the Australia’s Right to Know conference:
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10 Comments
All hail OpenAustralia. I am one very satisfied subscriber to their e-mail alert service. State parliamentary coverage can’t come soon enough. More strength to their arm.
Submitting Hansard to Open Australia is potentially a significant threat to political freedom which needs to be very carefully considered. There is a significant risk that with appropriate cross referencing, the activities of politicians and their positions on various subject matters could be tabulated and tracked by ordinary voters.
This could be terribly embarrassing to politicians who regularly need to repackage their position on various matters, and consequently could lead to a lowering of the quality of politicians as a consequence of greater accountability. It is conceivable that only those with no sense of embarrassment could become politicians iif their activities are more closely monitored.
Who wants to have their five-year old opinion on a subject drawn to their attention when they have changed their mind as a consequence of a change in their political fortune. No one likes to be reminded of their position on various matters such as whistleblowers protection when they get into government and decide that these miscreants need to be silenced, whereas when in opposition whistleblowers provide an essential service.
The ability to manoeuvre without consequence is an essential component of political survival, and accurately tracking and tabulating the position of politicians on various matters could restrict ithis essential capacity for obfuscation misrepresentation and downright falsehoods which is the essential tool of a politician, especially when they cross from opposition to the Treasury benches.
Consequently to maintain the very high standard of political representation that we have come to enjoy, it is vitally important that access to Hansard be restricted to an absolute minimum.
Peter Timmins
Yes Open Australia has many fans, me included, and deserves lots more. Just one update on the reference in this article to my comment about the parliaments being outside the scope of FOI and related laws. Tasmania’s Right to Information Act (to commence on 1 July 2010) will apply to the Parliament and the Governor’s Office, both Australian firsts. But no-one in Tasmania has said a word about it, so not sure if it is by mistake or design. See further details at http://bit.ly/4nWl5o
And Queensland just introduced a new right To Know Act!
And I thought Sir Joh was dead…
“Approximately one third of OpenAustralia’s subscribers are public servants with @gov.au email addresses.”
OpenAustralia is a coached site at the federal agency where I work. I can view it, but I’d be ‘closely monitored’ while I do so.
Greg Angelo has put an interesting argument, summarised in his last paragraphs, to the extent that politicians should be permitted, without any question, to change their opinions at whim or upon changing sides of the house.
Interesting indeed! He then supports this with an even more unsupportable statement that “to maintain the very high standard of political representation that we have come to enjoy, it is vitally important that access to Hansard be restricted to an absolute minimum.”
Poppycock, Sir! You have a very odd view of the workings of democracy and the ethical standards required of our parliamentary representatives.
I hope that my representative is both honest and logical. Accountable, even. You seem to prefer to be represented by a bullsh_t artist.
John Bennetts. It would appear that my attempt at satire has backfired if you have taken my comments seriously. It is because of my observation of politicians over 40 or so years that I have come to the conclusion that the majority have very lowstandards of accountability, and avoid accountability at all costs. Duplicity is the order of the day and backdoor deals a regular occurrence.
Politicians opposition have one set of rules and when they get into power their attitude changes significantly. Open Australia will shed more light on political machinations, and consequently is a threat to incumbent politicians. Accordingly they will resist all attempts to provide additional scrutiny.
Greg, I see that we agree.
The only reason I peerceive for Qld obstructionism on this subject is bureaucratic defence of a patch; in this case, the information held within the vellum-bound covers of Hansard.
Using information as a spear or a shield has always been a resort of the powerful scoundrel against the public’s presumed right to know.
Perhaps the greatest such abuse of power lies not in Government, but in the usage of three words, especially by CEO’s, corporate spin artists and lawyers:
“Commercial in confidence”.
This is comparable to the shielding of information behind the lawyer’s ability to cloak it as “advice”.
Both practices cover a mountain of corruption, lies and ineptitude, as well as being… occasionally… warranted.
Who cares if they won’t sanction it as “authorised”. If they are open about their process, which I’m sure they are, and they are using Hansard as the basis for what they do, then that’s enough for me!
You can always refer back to the “official” version if needed.