Why won’t the Queensland Parliament allow OpenAustralia to publish the Queensland State Parliamentary Hansards? Crikey intern Michelle Loh investigates.
Freedom of information
Public servants serve the public interest, period
Public servants have a direct responsibility to act in the public interest in all aspects of their work, writes former public service commissioner Andrew Podger.
Faulkner flicks FOI exclusivity; bunfight begins!
The new era of transparency and openness sought by the media (and most prominently by the News Ltd dominated Right To Know Coalition) comes with an unexpected complication: now everyone can play.
TechCrunch release confidential Twitter documents
Hundreds of pages of confidential internal documents from Twitter have been leaked to TechCrunch, which they claim “rhave so much news value that we think it’s appropriate to publish them.” And so they have.
The BBC’s big spend
The BBC has published five years’ worth of expense claims made by its executive board members, totalling £363,963.83 and including a £100 bottle of champagne and a £500 handbag.
5000 back journalist over IRA interviews
5000 people, including politicians, celebrities and journalists, have signed a petition backing journalist Suzanne Breen for refusing to hand over information about the murder of two British soldiers by the Real IRA.
Guy Rundle: The deep wormy rot of English politics
The improvised nature of British political institutions has always been something that anglophiles have celebrated. The downside is that it gives you plenty of places to hide.
ProPublica frees ethics information for the Internet age
ProPublica has taken it upon itself to obtain and scrutinise the Obama administration members’ financial and ethical disclosure forms.
SSCI torture narrative
The US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has released a narrative of the general history of torture under the Bush Administration.
Media freedom hampered by media irresponsibility
An audit of the freedom of information available to the Australian media, released today, makes a powerful argument that free speech in Australia is being subtly whittled away, writes Denis Muller.
