Guest post from Henry Sherrell on access to open data for effective policy development

Henry Sherrell is a former Australian Public Servant who now works in policy research at the Australian National University.

As a researcher, open data has become an important input into his work. As such I thought it worth sharing (with his permission) this post from his blog, On The Move, as an example of some of the difficulties researchers still face in accessing data from the Australian Government for important policy work.

It is notable that since Henry published his post, only four days ago, the legislation regarding Henry's policy work is going back to parliament - still with no modelling of its impact on affected communities or any real public understanding of the potential consequences.

I've reproduced Henry's post as a guest post below in full. You can also view Henry's post here in On The Move.

My battle with the Australian Border Force Act: A small, but worrying, example

Posted on November 24, 2016 by Henry

There are hundreds of interesting questions to ask when someone moves from one country to another. For as long as I can remember, Australia has been one of the best places to explore migration. There are two reasons for this: We welcome immigrants and the government and bureaucracy collect and make accessible robust migration data.

They are not household names but people like Graeme Hugo, the late Paul Miller, Deborah Cobb-Clarke and Peter McDonald have shaped global debates on migration. A new generation of scholars are now examining big, important questions about the intersection migration and work as well as any number of other themes, many of which will help us as a society in the future. Yet this tradition depends on access to Australian migration data from a number of sources, including the ABS, the Department of Immigration and various surveys funded by the government.

Until I received the following email from DIBP, I hadn’t realised just how uncertain this type of knowledge will be in the future:

“The data that was provided to Department of Agriculture was done so for a specific purpose in line with the Australian Border Force Act 2015 (ABF Act).  Unfortunately your request does not comply with the ABF Act and we are therefore unable to provide the requested data.”

I didn’t receive this email because I asked for something controversial. The reason this email stopped me in my tracks was I asked for something which was already largely public.

About a month ago I stumbled across the below map in a Senate submission to the Working Holiday Reform legislation.  The Department of Agricultural and ABARES had produced the map to help show where backpackers worked to gain their second visa. This was an important part of a big public debate about the merits or otherwise of the backpacker tax (as I write this legislation has just been voted on in the Senate, amended and defeat for the government).

I’d never seen this information before and I’m interested in exploring it further as there are decent labour market implications stemming from backpackers and the results may shed light on employment and migration trends. As you can see below, the Department helpfully documented the top 10 postcodes where backpackers worked to become eligible for their 2nd visa:

I get teased a little bit about the number of emails I send asking for stuff. But I’ve found you normally don’t get something unless you ask for it. So using the Department of Agriculture’s handy feedback form on their website, I asked for the data showing how many 2nd working holiday visas have been granted for each postcode.

The top 10 postcodes are already public but as the map shows, there is lots of other information about what you might term a ‘long tail’ of postcodes. One reason I wanted this information was to match up major industries in these postcodes and understand what type of work these people were doing. It would also be good to go back a couple of years and compare trends over time, whether employment activity shifts over time. All sorts of things were possible.

One thing I’ve learnt in the past is don’t ask for too much, too soon. In addition, there is always a potential privacy consideration when examining immigration data. For these reasons, I limited my request to the list of postcodes and number of second visa grants in each. That’s it.

This ensured I excluded information about individuals like age and country of birth which may compromise privacy. I also assumed if the number of backpackers in a postcode was less than five, it would be shown as “<5 as="" data.="" for="" immigration="" is="" of="" other="" p="" practice="" standard="" this="" types="">

ABARES let me know they had passed the response to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. After following up with DIBP twice, about a month after my initial request, I received the above email which prompted a series of internal questions roughly in this order:

• You have to be f****** kidding me?
• If the data was provided to the Department of Agricultural with the knowledge it would be at least partially public, why isn’t the same data available but in a different format? i.e. a spreadsheet not a map based
• How does my request not comply with the ABF Act? What’s in the ABF Act which prevents highly aggregated data being shared to better inform our understanding of relevant public debates?

And finally: why couldn’t someone work out a way to comply with the ABF Act and still provide me with data?

From what I can work out, the relevant part of the ABF Act is Part 6 pertaining to secrecy and disclosure provisions. Section 44 outlines ‘Disclosure to certain bodies and persons’ and subsection (1) is about ‘protected information that is not personal information’ disclosed to “an entrusted person”. This is the same process causing serious consternation among health professionals working in detention centres.

I am not “an entrusted person”. According to subsection (3), the Secretary of the Department has authority to designate this. Perhaps I should email and ask? Again from what I can work out, it looks like the person who created the data made a record now classified as protected information. This information is then automatically restricted to people who are classified as entrusted, including other bureaucrats, such as those in the Department of Agriculture.

Yet this begs the question. If the Department of Agriculture can publish a partial piece of a protected record, why can’t the Department of Immigration and Border Protection?

All I know is this stinks. And while this concern does not rank anywhere close to those faced by doctors and nurses who work in detention centres, the slow corrosion of sharing information caused directly by this legislation will have massive costs to how we understand migration in Australia.

Think about the very reason we’re even having a debate about the backpacker tax. Not enough people knew about immigration policy, trends and behaviour. The wonks at Treasury didn’t do any modelling on the labour market implications and the politicians in ERC and Cabinet – including the National Party – had no idea about what this might do to their own constituents. Outside the government, when I did a quick ring around in the days after the 2015 budget, the peak industry groups for horticultural didn’t think the backpacker tax would be a big deal. If I was a farmer, I’d rip up my membership. People should have known from very early on this would have real effects in the labour market as I wrote 10 days after the Budget. The fact no-one stopped or modified the tax before it got out of control shows we are working off a low base in terms of awareness about immigration.

The Australian Border Force Act is only going to make that more difficult. Hiding basic, aggregated data behind this legislation will increase future episodes of poor policy making and limit the ability of Australia to set an example to world for immigration. Our Prime Minister is fond of musing on our successful multicultural society yet alongside this decades of learning that has shaped communities, policy decisions, funding allocations and everything else under the sun.

I have no idea how I’m meant to take part in this process if access to information is restricted to bureaucrats and ‘entrusted persons’, who at the moment don’t seem able to analyse worth a damn, judging from the quality of public debates we are having. I don’t expect a personalised service with open access to immigration data. But I expect the public service to serve the public interest, especially when the matter is straightforward, uncontroversial and has the potential to inform relevant public debate.

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Census 2016 Senate Inquiry report - what's been recommended to avoid another #CensusFail

Both the Senate Inquiry report on Census 2016 and the Review of the Events Surrounding the 2016 eCensus (by Alastair MacGibbon, Special Adviser to the Prime Minister on Cyber Security) have just been released - I've embedded both reports below (so they appear in one place).

They are a good read with some useful recommendations for the future.

Reflecting on what has become known as #CensusFail, in comparison to other technical issues experienced by government, the Census 2016 experience probably rates as the most significant public ICT issue experienced by the Australian Government so far this century.

While in the last 15 years the Australian Government has had other incidents, these have been relatively minor, with limited public visibility or impact.

This includes incidents such as the 15 year delay in creating an Apple version of e-Tax (now rectified), launch issues with sites such as MySchool, challenges with access and security within the MyGov system, data breaches from the PCEHR (personally controlled electronic health records) eHealth system and the accidental exposure of private data for asylum seekers.

In contrast, the issues experienced during the 2016 Census have been far more widespread in their public visibility, impact and long-term ramifications for trust in government.

However, to put "the most significant public ICT issue experienced by the Australian Government this so far this century" into perspective - no-one died, no-one was hurt and no-one even lost control of their personal data.

At worst a number of government and IBM staff experienced unhealthy levels of anxiety for several days.

Given the struggles that developing countries have had to get their egovernment ICT working in the first place (with a reported 15% success rate); or the challenges advanced countries like the US have had with national systems (such as ObamaCare); or the experience of states like Queensland, which could not pay some of its Health staff for some time when its new payroll system failed, CensusFail just doesn't rate as an ICT disaster.

The actual operational impact of the 2016 Census problems was merely a short delay for people attempting to fill in the Census online.

Ultimately the ABS still exceeded the desired Census response rate, will still be releasing Census data much faster than ever before, and the agency still saved over $70 million dollars by moving more of the Census online.

However despite not actually rating as a ICT disaster, there was still a real cost to CensusFail - the perceptual and reputational damage from the ABS publicly failing to deliver on its Census Night promise, exacerbated by poor crisis engagement.

As a net result the real impact of CensusFail is on long-term governance in Australian, due to a reduction in trust in public institutions to 'do the job right the first time'.

I'm aware of other agencies now being regularly questioned by their Ministerial offices on whether they have any systems or projects which pose a similar reputational risk to the Australian Government. I've watched as the term 'CensusFail' has become the 'go to' term raised whenever a new government ICT issue is reported.

As a result the trust in government agencies to deliver complex technical solutions has been diminished, and it will take years to recover.

I hope that the recommendations in this Senate report, the lessons from Census 2016, will be top-of-mind for every public servant and Minister engaged in a significant government ICT project for years to come.

Hopefully the right lessons will be learnt - that managing your communications and public engagement well when the ICT gets wonky is critical.

In fact you can even transform a technical failure into an engagement success, if you get your messaging and timing right - strengthening, rather than weakening, trust in government.

Census 2016 Senate Inquiry Report as redistributed by Craig Thomler on Scribd

Review of the 2016 ECensus - Final Report as redistributed by Craig Thomler on Scribd

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A new hire isn't always the best solution - rethinking organisational resourcing in the age of flux

After 18 months freelancing in digital engagement and innovation consulting, I've been revisiting the recruitment market to see what opportunities are becoming available as the digital transformation environment matures across Australia.

There's definitely some very interesting roles around - more and more of them part-time - but also still a great deal of older thinking about.

I've recently observed friends in public sector processes where organisations have been very definitive about what they wanted "someone with extensive private sector experience in leading digital innovation", "someone with deep-rooted data analytics expertise who can lead a transformational team".

However it seems that in many cases these organisations fall short of hiring what they say they want. In the first example above, a career bureaucrat was hired, in the second a generalist manager with a little change management expertise.

These are only a sampling of some of the decisions I've seen made - where government agencies have defined clearly they need someone prepared to be disruptive, but have settled for someone 'safe'.

I appreciate there's factors behind these decisions and don't doubt that the people hired have been intelligent and well-qualified - but do they match what these public sector organisations need?

This has led me into some deeper thinking around whether current recruitment processes are capable of meeting the needs of organisations during what is a transformational time.

Traditionally most roles have been clearly definable and static for long periods of time, reflecting the organisations they're part of. Business and public sector hierarchies are designed to force order onto chaos and over the last century have generally fallen into two buckets - specialists, who have deep but narrow skillsets, and generalists, with broad but shallower skillsets.

Specialists were required to be experts in a few things, with deep training and experience reinforcing their natural abilities. They have traditionally worked in narrowly defined silos on work that fits within their expertise set - in many ways like the operators on a single station on a manufacturing production line.

Generalists, on the other hand, were there to manage end-to-end delivery of outcomes, taking on a horizontal role to the specialist vertical. These people - the product managers, project managers, COOs and the like, had broader responsibilities but relied on the deep experience of specialists to deliver specific 'packets' of work. Their skills were more managerial - coordinating resources and effort to achieve a desired outcome.

Most organisations still function in this way - it largely works and delivers the outcomes required.

However this approach is best designed for situations where an environment is largely stable - consistent organisational goals. customers, economic conditions, regulation, competition and technology.

When one of these factors change an organisation has to change - adapting to the new reality. Most organisations can cope with this reasonably well, provided that the factor changes from one stable state to another stable state. This could be the replacement of a CEO, Secretary or Minister, the introduction of a new technology such as mobile phones, a recession.

The change causes stress, the organisation may have to restructure or even institute a change program, but the change can and is managed within the overall framework of specialists and generalists.

However what happens when change becomes continuous. When a stable state shifts to a new 'stable' state every week - effectively shifting into an instable, or flux, state.

Suddenly the organisation no longer requires a change program, it has become the change program - with the requirement for all staff to continually adapt and shift their approach, position and activities to keep the organisation stable within flux.

The traditional specialist and generalist roles are now all endlessly mutable and adaptive, and suddenly the old approaches to recruitment begin to fail as the organisation begins to need individuals who are simultaneously generalists and specialists - who can leap between these two states as needed at any time.

Others have written about this as the rise of the fluid organisation. Rather than having hard roles and boundaries, the organisation flows with change, adapting and readapting itself as needed to fill the market space at the time.

In these types of organisations the notion of a job, of employment, is itself mutable. The practical differences between employee, contractor, consultant, partner, outsourced worker, supplier, competitor, largely disappear.

The organisation essentially scoops up the skills and capabilities it requires for a specific outcome, and then those people move elsewhere once the outcome is delivered - within or outside the organisation.

Our regulatory frameworks struggle with these forms of organisations as they depend on a central core 'organisational entity' to be responsible for signing contracts, taking money, representing in courts.

Our management hierarchies struggle, with empires disappearing overnight, peoples' status and responsibilities changing to adapt to the needs of the moment - everyone potentially a senior leader, a specialist, a consultant, at different times for different projects or goals.

Our recruitment practices struggle as well. They tend to align around one potential solution for an organisational challenge - hiring an employee (or at least a contractor) - whereas there may be a range of potential solutions, from retraining, through partnering to automation.

Even where a new hire is the most effective solution, organisations still struggle to hire for the future, often preferring to hire to fill a need today, rather than fully mapping how that need may change in the next few years.

This is having significant impacts on the job market right now. There's been a huge shift towards temporary and part-time roles (both in the public and private sector), which can be partially attributed to the more fluid needs of organisations.

What this situation suggests to me, other than there is an increasing need for new thinking around structuring and managing organisations for continual change, is that recruitment approaches need to be reframed around solving organisational problems with the most appropriate solutions.

Yes some recruiters already do a great job of proactively helping their clients to identify gaps and the skilled resources to fill them, however their solutions to a gap are limited to 'a staff member' or 'a contractor' - where other solutions may be more effective i.e. 'a partner', 'a consultant', 'retraining', 'restructuring', 'automation'.

Unfortunately though, even these proactive recruiters aren't themselves structured to offer solutions other than a person for a role - which suggest to me a role for a new form of 'resourcing advisor' that takes a longer and deeper view of organisational challenges and provides a broader set of solutions to draw on.

But for this type of approach to be effective, organisations need to also rethink their recruiting practices - from budgetary 'buckets' to hiring protocols to the definition of an employee.

They also need to recognise that the recruitment practices they used in the past may not continue to succeed into the future - in fact they may not be terribly effective now, with some studies indicating that almost half of all hiring decisions result in a failure.

As someone who has worked both for extremely hierarchical and extremely flexible organisations (including one that has no employees, contracts all staff and has been successful for nearly 20 years), I can see how difficult it is for organisations glued to, and by, their structures to change.

However ultimately what defines an organisation is the outcomes it achieves for the audiences it serves - its structure, personnel and resourcing practices are all flexible and replaceable tools for achieving its desired goals.

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Asking 'what should be the limits on how public servants engage in social media' is the wrong question

The Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) has just released a consultation paper asking for feedback regarding how public servants may be able to 'Make Public Comment' specifically focused on social media.

It's great to see the APSC consulting on this area. It is subject to rapid change, both in the nature of the approaches and tools available for public servants to comment online, and in regards the evolution of thinking and expectations within the public service itself.

For example, Gov 2.0 and the current follow-on push for digital transformation has continued to attract new groups of potential employees and partners to the APS. These are groups with their own established (generally active, transparent and outspoken) approaches to online engagement - creating challenges for existing public sector hierarchies in both recruitment and management of these cohorts and acculturalising them to current APS norms.

Equally the blurring of the lines between private and professional continues to grow. With government policy now essentially touching on every aspect of life, existing public servants can feel constrained and muted by current requirements to not comment negatively on any policy area.

This is whether it be a public servant/parent dealing with schooling challenges, a public servant/carer dealing with NDIS challenges, a public servant/driver dealing with road infrastructure challenges, a public servant/patient dealing with health challenges, or a public servant/former immigrant dealing with family unification challenges. In all of these cases, even if their career is in a totally unrelated area of the public service, it is unwise for them to share even privately via their social media channels comments critical of the policies which are impacting their lives in a real and significant manner - just in case their public service friends report them and their public service bosses decide to define their comments as less than appropriate.

At the same time with the increasing normalisation of social media as the primary 'town square' for civil discussions (though not always so 'civil'), younger people, former APS staff (such as myself) and others who might at some point work in or to governments, are more enabled and likely to debate or share contentious political and policy issues via social networks without full consideration of the likely views of older-fashioned agency management and the impact on potential employment or contracts.

Similar to the lament of police and other security services ten years ago, who found it increasingly hard to hire individuals able to conduct important undercover work, due to the widespread adoption of social media (forcing a shift to profile cleansing from profile hiding), it's rare for any young person to not have an active social presence online, potentially touching on a range of politically sensitive topics - if not crossing professional lines with beach and party shots.

Similar to the debate over whether children should be seen and not heard, I've witnessed a number of older senior APS managers express their ongoing views that public servants should neither be seen nor heard in public debate - despite this going further than even the existing guidance for how public servants may engage in public discourse.

Moving on to the current consultation process, there's a few assumptions in the approach which could significant impact the outcomes.

Benefits vs Risks

Firstly the entire consultation, while nominally appearing to aim to be neutral, overwhelmingly concentrates on the negative impacts of public comments by public servants.

The approach largely overlooks the benefits of having an engaged workforce, interested and knowledgeable about a policy area, able to engage effectively in online debates - providing facts, busting myths and communicating compassion and concern for the communities impacted by policy decisions.

Some organisations outside the public sector have realised the value of staff as advocates for an organisation - that every staff member is connected to hundreds of peers, friends and family members who are potential customers or clients. However it seems only rare public sector organisations have recognised the same potential.

Imagine the impact of having 4,000 Health Department staff sharing the latest PBS drug additions, or carefully explaining government policy to communities who haven't been on the same journey to recognise why alternate approaches look fine on the surface, but have significant long-term negative impacts.

Imagine having over 30,000 Human Services staff sharing the latest information on changes to welfare programs, the release of new apps, or helping parents considering separation to understand their potential financial obligations to their children in a divorce.

The upside of having staff engaging socially is immense where staff are provided with the right access to tools, advice and potentially training - more effective than spending millions on 'shouting at' communities via traditional media, or even online communication campaigns.

However taking this positive approach to staff social engagement relies on a critical factor that increasingly appears in short supply in the public service - trust. Senior executives in the public sector have long been shown to be significantly disconnected from their staff - with regular APSC studies showing enormous differences in perceptions as to how well senior managers communicate and with work satisfaction levels.

With rolling pay disputes, increasingly employee concerns around the casualisation of workforces, fewer opportunities for staff to progress and ongoing budget cuts, there's a range of factors already impacting on trust relations within agencies - a largely negatively focused social media policy, designed around preventing bad behaviour rather than enabling and supporting good behaviour, is merely another straw on the back of the increasingly concerned camel.

Policy for the future of the APS

Looking further at the consultation, while it doesn't specifically exclude any group from consulting, the placement and approach strongly favours current APS staff, or the hyper-interested (such as myself).

This means the consultation will largely be biased around current staff and their current expectations, having little consideration of potential staff who increasingly consider their ability to engage freely on social media as a right rather than a privilege restricted by an employer.

This could lead to amended guidance on social media engagement that progressively discourage good people from potentially considering APS roles, particularly in emerging areas related to digital.

Given social media comments are forever, there's an entire group of young, university educated, visionary and innovative people who, under strict APS social comment policies, may never be eligible for APS employment based on their past personal views 'poisoning' their ability to be impartial.

The questions for consideration included within the consultation are quite broad and I've covered each below with my views.

1. Should APS employees be prevented from making public comment on all political issues? Should there be different rules for different groups of APS employees?

Even Ministers only focus on their own portfolio policies and challenges, so it's highly impractical to expect public servants at any level to be sufficiently across all political issues to be able to avoid commentary on topics that affect them personally, but may (to a greater or lessor extent) also touch on significant political issues.

Equally with political policies now touching on most areas of life, even indirectly, there's little that a public servant could say that could not be deemed a public comment on a particular issue, even if via a slightly drawn bow by a hostile outside party.

The impact of this would be similar to the impact of the current APSC policy, to cause many public servants to choose not to engage in public debate at all. Given that public servants are generally well-educated and well-informed and trained to form opinions based on evidence, this presents a significant loss to public debate within Australia and the exclusion of expertise that could otherwise shift and shape national views.

I'm aware of experts who have been effectively silenced in their areas of expertise due to a government engagement for a different set of their skills. This weakens Australia's democracy, rather than protects it.

While it may seem prudent to at minimum limit the scope for public servants to engage publicly at least within their own policy area, the area in which they have greatest experience and expertise, this is also counter-intuitive.

I do believe that public servants should strive to present the positives of current policy positions and effectively communicate set government to the public including, if they so choose, via their own social media accounts - even when respectfully making it clear that their views might differ from the government's, but that their role is to carry out the policies irregardless of personal opinion.

However in areas where policies are under debate, not yet confirmed by government or otherwise not set, public servants should have the right to choose to engage in the public debate and express their views in a respectful manner. Due to their experience in their own policies areas, it would be expected that their views would be well-informed and therefore support the public debate.

In essence I believe that public servants should be exemplars of public engagement in democracy, not simply 'bag carriers' for agencies. Through positive, respectful and evidenced sharing of their views they not only contribute to the content but to the shape and effectiveness of public debates in Australia, fostering effective democratic engagement - thereby supporting Australia's underpinning principles as well as perceptions of the public service and government.

As to the second question, of different rules for different groups, I understand how more senior or personally expert public servants can have a bigger impact on public debates - and this is appropriate, when used sensitively. This is no different from the different regard to voices from across Australia's democracy - different groups will always hold different voices in higher, or lower, regard, based on positional influence, knowledge or celebrity.

Constraining more knowledgeable or senior public servants to keep a debate 'level' makes no practical sense, and while I can see where certain elected or senior appointed officials may have concerns over being 'outshone' or having their decision-processes impacted by senior public servants, or more hierarchically junior celebrity individuals or experts, this is more related to ego than to good policy formulation processes.

Ultimately evidence and outcome effectiveness should drive policy processes - and even when this isn't perfectly the case, agencies should always strive to champion the right approach and leave it to elected officials (who can also be unelected) to make decisions on particular courses. As such allowing public servants to speak in undefined policy areas with respect and evidence is totally appropriate and supports robust and engaged democratic processes (even if this may at times personally annoy Ministers or senior public servants with specific ideological agendas).

2. Should APS employees be prevented explicitly from making critical public comment about services or programs administered by their agencies?

While this question appears reasonable on the surface, it overlooks the sheer scale and extent of some agencies, and the absence of effective internal processes to manage programmatic issues or failures.

Firstly, certain programs and services are frequently moved between agencies due to machinery of government changes or due to agreements between agencies where one may deliver services for another. This means that a public servant having issues with a program one week, and commenting about this publicly, could suddenly find themselves under investigation after a Minister or senior public servant decides to move the service into their agency.

Secondly, the scale of agencies, and the lack of communication of their range of activities, can mean that public servants may be unaware that a particular program or service is actually administered by their agency, particularly if delivered by external contractors or other agencies. Again this could easily catch out public servants who are not omnipotent - an expectation that is unrealistic when even Ministers can often be unaware of all the activities in the nooks and crannies of agencies within their remit.

Finally, agencies must commit to having effective internal dispute resolution processes for staff having issues with specific programs or services administered by their agencies. These are in place in some, but not all cases - leaving some public servants with no internal avenue to resolve disputes and thereby driving some to speak out publicly. Agencies would eliminate a significant amount of the potential for this risk by instituting effective internal dispute resolution processes.

If public servants are using and finding concerns with certain services or programs from their agency it is highly likely that members of the community will be as well, meaning that staff concerns should be treated like a canary in a coal mine - an early indicator of an issue that the agency needs to address and solve.

Essentially APS employees should not be prevented (if that were even possible) from making critical public comment about services or programs administered by their agencies. However they should be held to a high standard of providing evidence, of engaging respectfully and making it clear that these are their personal views only. Few programs will achieve 100% happiness rates amongst the communities affected by them, and recognising and acknowledging alternate views, even from within the organisation delivering them, is a sign of a mature and secure organisation committed to continual improvement and the engagement of staff who will act to improve outcomes, not merely remain silent about poor ones.

3. Should senior public servants have specific limitations about making public comments?

Per my response to the first question - no. However they should be held to a high standard of evidenced and considered responses, and selective engagement.

It is still relatively rare for senior public servants to actively engage in public discourse, particularly via social media channels - and this is a significant loss of role models who could help set a respectful tone for engagement across the community. If senior public servants fear criticism, or fear criticising their Ministers publicly this helps reinforce a status quo where their expertise, knowledge and experience is subordinated to snap decisions, supporting the gradual degradation of trust and respect in government and agencies.

Where senior executives strategically engage in public debates as 'eminent Australians' they both enrich the conversations and model a form of democratic engagement that others across the community are influenced to follow.

That said, this engagement should be respectful and carefully timed, rather than proliferate. They must also ensure that they demonstrate that they can work effectively with Ministers' offices even when disagreeing with policy. This can be a delicate high wire to walk and many current senior public servants may not have the depth of experience with social channels to carry this out effectively. This will change over time.

Currently few senior public servants engage at all via social channels, and I believe this is a significant loss to public discourse in Australia.

4. Should public servants posting in a private capacity be able to say anything as long as it includes a clear disclaimer stating that the opinion they have expressed is purely a statement of their own opinion and not that of their employer and is otherwise lawful?

Looking at this realistically, any public servant, or individual, can set up a pseudonymous account and say anything they want with limited chance of detection or identification (due to the large number of such accounts). Indeed it is likely that a number of public servants already do this in order to be part of the groups they wish to associate with online.

I believe that public servants, by way of their employment, should be held to a higher standard of engagement than general citizens, therefore should be expected to remain fair in their comments and criticisms, obey all laws regarding abusive or otherwise inappropriate behaviour on social media channels (as suggested in the question) and is evidenced where feasible - noting that not all areas of opinion lend themselves to evidence.

Public servants should model the digital engagement behaviour that a democratic society should aspire to, helping to foster productive and insightful debate, dispel misinformation and accurately direct people to where they can receive the help they require.

Currently I believe that APSC gudiance is more directed at an outdated view of 'impartial', which includes 'passionless' and 'unemotional'. Public servants should be free to be excited and passionate about their work and about principles that matter in democracy. This positively enhances their perceived capacity to be effective in service to the public, whereas emotionless engagement only serves to diminish effective debate.

5. Are the requirements of the APSC guidelines expressed clearly? Can they be made simpler and easier to understand?

I have never been a fan of the current APSC guidelines for public comment via social media.

They leave too many gray areas for senior management discretion around what is meant by 'harsh or extreme', 'strong criticism' or 'disrupt the workplace' - which I have seen used negatively against exceptional people by jealous bosses, to the loss of the public sector.

They are too broad, effectively covering every policy from every parliamentary party or independent - leaving public servants in a live minefield where, at any time, additional mines can be placed under their feet.

Overall they are negatively focused - looking at the downside risk of social media engagement without fully embracing the potential benefits of effective involvement by public servants in public discourse.

As an ex-public servant this blog, which touches on various policy areas, programs and initiatives - often in a critical but constructive manner, would never have been started under this APSC policy. Given my readership and the level of positive engagement it's had, I can't see how this would have been a better outcome for the public service.

Equally I've not been prepared to work directly for a government with this level of restrictive social media policy, and have spoken to many other people from the private world who ceased considering a public service career after seeing the draconic provisions in the current guidelines.

Of course the majority of the public service have continued to work productively under the current guidelines, however I saw an 80% reduction in public servant engagement online in the twelve months after its introduction - with many people closing down social accounts, going silent or shifting to pseudonyms to protect themselves.

This has had a negative impact on the online public policy debate in Australia and these personal accounts cannot be replaced by departmental accounts, which do not have the peer-to-peer engagement or influence of individuals online.

Looking at the international perspective, there's now far deeper and more constructive engagement by US, UK and NZ public servants on social channels then by Australians.

Ultimately, under the current APSC guidelines, any Australian public servants who wish to participate in public democracy online must weigh the negative impact if they ever stray, in their management's opinion, over a wide gray line, even only once within thousands of posts.

This makes the risk to the individual simply not worth it - but the cost to Australian democracy of the silencing of these voices is immense.

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It's time to provide feedback on Australia's Open Government Plan

Last week the government released Australia's draft Open Government National Action Plan, a requirement to join the international Open Government Partnership, for community consultation.

Australians have until the 18th November (Edit: extended from 14th based on community feedback) to comment on the plan, at which stage the government intends to move to rapidly endorse it via Cabinet and begin implementation.

The plan is available as a PDF download from the government's Open Government Partnership website (ogpau.govspace.gov.au) as well as in web format (much easier to read) at the civil society Open Government Partnership Network site (opengovernment.org.au).

I've included the 14 commitments proposed below in brief - for more detail click through to the sites. (Edit: thanks to Asher for corrected number).

Transparency and accountability in business

The Government will enhance Australia’s strong reputation for responsible, transparent and accountable business practice. 

• Improve whistle-blower protections in the tax and corporate sectors 
• Beneficial Ownership 
• Natural Resource Transparency

Open data and digital transformation 

The Government will advance our commitments to make government data open by default and to digitally transform government services. 

• Release high-value datasets and enable data-driven innovation
• Build and maintain public trust to address concerns about data sharing
• Digitally transform the delivery of government services

Access to government information  

The Government will improve and modernise the way in which the public accesses government information.  

• Information Management and access laws for the 21st century
• Understand the use of freedom of information
• Improve the discoverability and accessibility of government data and information

Integrity in the public sector  

The Government will improve transparency and integrity in public sector activities to build public confidence and trust in government. 

• Confidence in the electoral system and political parties
• National Integrity Framework
• Open contracting

Public Participation and Engagement

The Government will improve the way the Australian Government consults and engages with the Australian public.

• Delivery of Australia’s Open Government National Action Plan
• Enhance public participation in government decision making

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It's past time for governments to mandate security levels for all internet-connected devices

On the tail of the 2016's Census issues dealing with four relatively small distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks, the US East Coast was recently hit by a massive DDOS attack that succeeded in taking offline, or at least slowing down, major sites - from Amazon, Twitter and Spotify to PayPal and Netflix.

This major attack, involving millions of devices, had global impacts - including impacting the websites of range of Australian companies - retailers, banks, media services, insurance companies and hotels.

This type of attack isn't new - for years organisations have had to harden their computers and networks to fend off DDOS and more focused hacking attempts.

In fact a DDOS attack is often considered one of the most unsophisticated approaches - simply flooding a network with an unmanageable number of requests from hundreds, thousands or millions of hijacked devices until the routers and web servers collapse under the pressure.

However this latest attack was different in several regards to what organisations now should plan for.

Firstly it was on a scale that few had imagined. The company targeted, Dyn, provides backbone services for the internet and was well prepared for massive DDOS attacks. However this attack was at a scale that even such a service was unable to fend off without significant disruption for hours.

Secondly, the approach didn't use the normal range of compromised and poorly patched internet-connected devices to launch and sustain the DDOS attack. Normally hackers conscript or buy access to 'botnets' made up of hundreds or thousands of poorly maintained computers on insecure networks, using malware on these PCs to launch an attack.

In this case, however, the people responsible used open source hacking software to tap into a network of devices connected to the internet - security cameras,  Digital Video Recorders and web cameras, amongst other types.

The majority of these devices were older, with many were linked to one specific Chinese manufacturer who develops white-label products for others to brand and sell. Most relevant, these devices had little if any security in place to prevent hijacking. They are also unpatchable - they can never be secured in ways that make it hard, if not impossible, for hackers to take them over.

In other words, these non-computing insecure devices are a permanent threat to the internet. They can easily be used in malicious or military cyberattacks by anyone with the inclination to do so.

While the manufacturer has issued a recall for these permanently insecure devices (though its unknown how many devices will be returned as part of this process), the growth of the 'internet of things', where DVRs, smart fridges, air conditioners, cars and all kinds of household and work appliances are linked to the internet for monitoring and management purposes, poses a growing threat to the ongoing viability of the internet.

With billions of devices progressively being connected to the internet, there's little in the way of mandated or legislated requirements for devices to be secure to a given standard at a point in time, or have their software regularly upgraded to ensure that known security risks are patched.

While most countries specifically regulate and test products designed for health use, power use and radio spectrum to verify they won't cause harm, few nations have similar requirements for security.

Largely this remains in the general 'fit for purpose' terms in relevant trade practice legislation, which is effectively useless when a device, such as a baby monitor or smart fridge, can remain fit for purpose and be used in a economic or politically inspired cyberattack at the same time.

This isn't a future issue. I can name six types of non-computing devices in my home which are, right now, internet capable - DVRs, TVs, web cameras, security cameras, air conditioners and light globes.

Households across Australia, and the world, are rapidly adopting or upgrading to these devices for convenience and improved management purposes - but security requirements are lagging badly.

This is an area where it's not sufficient for governments to trust that manufacturers and retailers will 'do the right thing' on an ongoing basis.

Some manufacturers and supplies  might cut corners in their software, or not realise the significance of how their devices could be remotely accessed and used maliciously. Others may discontinue products or go bankrupt, leaving devices unsupported.

The end result is not necessarily a risk to the consumer who bought the product, but rather a broader risk to society that these devices are used in an attack that damages companies or governments.

There's also a risk that companies or unscrupulous governments may use these 'smart' connected devices themselves to spy on citizens. Indeed this may already be happening.

Left: Samsung SmartTV privacy policy, warning users not to discuss personal info in front of their TV
Right: 1984 pic.twitter.com/osywjYKV3W

— Parker Higgins (@xor) February 8, 2015

Now some governments, such as the Australian Government have begun offering advice to citizens on how to secure their personal networks. A good home firewall will, currently, help keep many potentially insecure devices protected against external risks.

However this is merely a stopgap. Firewalls have flaws, can be bypassed and are not consistently installed or maintained by households.

With internet-connected devices already proliferating, many already in households and businesses may be impossible to secure, as were many of those used in the recent US cyberattack.

For governments to protect societies against cyberintrusions - economic loss, political damage and inconvenience, there needs to be far more consideration of the potential risks around internet-connected devices - and fast.

Extra: I've just read a post that sums up this issue very eloquently, so have embedded it below...

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Support my ePetition for a better Australian ePetition site

Openness in government is supported by low barriers to engagement between citizens, agencies and politicians.

For example, making the House of Members' Register of Interests available publicly is great - but not THAT great if it is only available for viewing in hardcopy in one location in Canberra between the hours of 9-5pm (which used to be the case).

Recently the Australian Government launched its ePetitions site, designed to make it easier for citizens to petition government on specific issues or goals.

You probably didn't see any media headlines about it, or even government announcements - nor is the site easy to find via search or within the Parliament House's website.

If you do find it - the approach is uninspired and basic. I reviewed it compared to three other ePetitions sites internationally, and it just didn't stack up on usability, accessibility, attractiveness or tone. Read my comparison here.

There's ePetition platforms available that are far more developed and inviting, and there's lessons from international ePetition sites that clearly weren't learnt.

The cost to us, to Australia, is that people won't engage with Parliament and the Government in the ways they could, reducing the openness and effectiveness of the process.

So... I created an ePetition to Parliament. It ask them to mandate the Department to work with the broader community to implement a true Web 2.0 ePetitions platform.

This platform should be equivalent to the best of breed internationally and embed best practice design principles (such as from the Digital Transformation Office).

Slightly to my surprise, they've published my ePetition, though without actually telling me - another issue with the Aussie process.

Therefore I'd appreciate if you could sign my ePetition at: http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Petitions/House_of_Representatives_Petitions/Petitions_General/Petitions_List?id=EN0028

And then please share this ePetition with your networks.

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Disruption is often simply a failure to prepare and evolve

Digital disruption is one of the buzz terms of the last few years, underscoring the increasingly rapid changes in society, industries and governments as new ideas and techniques enabled by digital technologies take hold.

Photo by Tsahi Levent-Levi

While some embrace this disruption (generally those doing the disrupting), for many it remains an unsettling or even negative concept.

Disruption implies a disturbance or breakdown in the existing order, a situation where the status quo is overturned in an unpleasant way. To disrupt a process is seen as interfering with the ordinary course of events, and 'disruptors' of events or organisations are rarely looked on in a positive light.

While many disruptions are predictable, they are often not avoidable - such as the impacts of a natural disaster or the consequences of a terminal illness.

Equally disruptions in business and governance, through new technologies, ideas and approaches, can often appear to come rapidly out of 'left field', even when they can have been expected for a long time.

However in many of these cases, disruption has a much greater impact on societies and organisations than it needs too, not because it was unexpected or not discussed, but because leaders refused to see the writing on the wall, and begin a process of communication, adaptation and evolution soon enough.

A classic example is Kodak Eastman - the inventor of the digital camera, whose business was destroyed by the product it originally designed and marketed.

Kodak did not go bankrupt because no-one within or outside the company could see the impact of digital cameras, or their widespread adoption into mobile phones, laptops, tablets, drones and more. The company failed because the company's leaders chose to believe that their business could not be disrupted, that their name, reputation and products would allow them to survive no matter where the market went.

As a result they adapted too little and too late to the 'digipocalypse', where film cameras rapidly disappeared and even the digital camera market fell as people started using other devices as their primary photographic tool.

When I hear business and government leaders speak of disruption, of new industries replacing old or new thinking flushing out the old, I often wonder how much is just talk and how much actual action is taking place in their organisations to adapt to new realities.

Few disruptions are truly unpredicted, although their course may be unpredictable, with some technologies being rapidly adopted and others festering amongst early adopters for decades.

Organisations that are truly committed to survival and growth don't talk about the 'disruption' due to digital, but of the opportunity to re-imagine their business models and redesign their operations, preparing for and adopting innovations and new ideas in an evolutionary manner.

By preparing early and evolving continuously these organisations never actually face actual disruption, because they are almost always in the right place at the right time, with the talent, tools and techniques at hand to move with the market, rather than trying vainly to keep up.

When these organisations are tripped up by market or social change, it's due to velocity, not disruption, and they remain well-equipped in talent and tools to pivot their operations to minimise any disruption.

If your organisation is facing digital disruption, consider why that might be the case.

Was the disruption truly unpredictable? Or did your management fail to watch the market closely, or ignored advice on the basis of their belief that the status quo was unshakeable?

Is the disruption due to a lack of preparation in the face of a clear and present danger? Or due to an unwillingness to change, even at the point of extinction?

While change is a constant feature of business and social environments, disruption is simply what happens to organisations who fail or fear to face change. Organisations that do not design structures, generate strategies or train and recruit staff who can lead and support the internal transition in a prepared and evolutionary way.

Therefore any organisation that has been disrupted should first look inwards, not outwards, for the cause, and take appropriate steps to ensure that, if it survives, it never makes the same mistake again - to inadequately prepare itself for environmental and market change.

And any organisation that foresees disruption ahead should be preparing now. In order to turn a potential disruptive event into a much less impactful, evolutionary step, that causes far less disruption or damage and buoys the organisation to greater future success. 

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Free range 'strike teams' of specialists are a long overdue innovation for Australia's public service

I'm very pleased to see that the Australian Public Service Commission is finally considering the introduction of 'free range' teams of public servants, unattached to specific agencies, who can provide specialist skills as and where needed.

I proposed this type of team while I was working within government almost ten years ago now, as I could see that there were a range of skills that agencies did not require continuously, but were needed across the public service all the time.

This included experienced community engagement professionals, a range of digital talents as well as design and implementation specialists.

Until now the hierarchies of the public sector have been designed against such free-roaming talent, able to converge as 'strike teams' to assist agencies when they need it, and move on to other assignments when the need wanes.

There's still the strong (almost feudal) hierarchies in place, but it seems that the innovation agenda, combined with diminishing resources and an increasing need for specialists, are helping to wear away the resistance to the recognition that it's all one federal public service.

I always found it peculiar that senior public servants were adamant that they served the government of the day, but chose to do so by building rigid organisations that made it harder for skills to move around, to be 'lent' or 'shared', but instead hoarded people as jealously as they hoarded data.

This always seemed a sub-optimal strategy for government, but one with very deep roots.

There's still a number of challenges ahead for the APSC in realising this idea. It still has to navigate the hierarchies of power - some agencies might wish to hold onto talent for too long, with brush fires between agencies that need similar resources at similar times. There's also likely to be all kinds of power struggled between agency 'owned' resources and the floating specialists, who may be seen as fly-by-nights, dropping in to offer their wisdom, then leaving the mess behind for agency staff to clean up.

The APSC must find public servants with the right psychology and mindset to move around, without having a 'fixed abode' or a hierarchy to protect their position and career progression.

Many people who work in this way already are contractors or consultants and may see little benefit in giving up salary for supposed job security, while new entrants from the private sector, who might be more used to mobility, may not find public service cultures or approaches congenial to their working styles.

However I'm glad the APSC is making the attempt, and hope it will be widely supported, particularly by smaller agencies with less capacity to hire or contract the specialist skills they need.

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Australian government ePetitions compared to international models

Australians might be surprised to learn that the Australian parliament only agreed to formally accept ePetitions in July 2015.

That was five years after it was formally recommended to parliament and follows a trend towards epetitions set by other digitally advanced democratic nations, such as the UK and USA.

In September 2016 the Australian Department of Parliamentary Services launched its epetition site allowing people to create and sign epetitions at aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Petitions/House_of_Representatives_Petitions/Petitions_General - yes that is quite a mouthful.

I've reviewed Australia's site compared to comparative sites released in the US, UK and Canada to form some conclusions on how well we've done.

However, unfortunately for Australians, the model used for Australia doesn't measure up well.

UK - ePetitions

The UK's epetitions site launched in August 2011 at petition.parliament.uk and has been restructured several times over the last five years.

Today it is a sleek, easy to access platform that hides all the technical mechanics the UK parliament requires for petitions behind a usable and simple step-by-step process.

It's very simple to find and sign a petition, with the process for responses explained clearly on each petition's page. 

Sharing tools are embedded to make it simple to encourage others to sign. It's easy to view signatures geographically by electorate (great for parliamentarians and respondents alike).

The data for each petition is immediately available via a standards-compliant data format.

The process for creating new petitions is also simple and seamless.

It uses plain English and employs a range of assistive approaches to ease first-time petitioners through the process. This includes examples of how to write a petition and flagging information that will be required in later steps so the petitioner can pre-prepare.

The site uses text matching to find similar petitions so that a petitioner can choose to sign a pre-existing petition, rather than create a near-identical one - a step that saves effort for both petitioners and for the public servants who need to manage the system.

There's clear warnings when a petitioner reaches irrevocable steps, and the system supports and encourages sharing - to help the petitioner get the petition to audiences who may wish to sign.

All in all it's a solid and well-thought out system with excellent usability - very important when considering that most people rarely petition government and need a helping hand to navigate what can be a complex and seemingly irrational process for those who do not think like bureaucrats or politicians.

USA - WethePeople

The US's epetitions site is similarly five years old - launching in September 2011. Named WethePeople and located at petitions.whitehouse.gov, the site is structured differently, but is just as simple to use, as the UK's version.

While the site doesn't offer the same geographic mapping as the UK site does, it does provide very clear step by step instructions for both signing and creating petitions and is equally clear on the goal number of signatures required for consideration.

The government's responses to epetitions (which must reach 100,000 signatures to get a response) are clearly provided with the petitions themselves, making it easy to understand what was asked and how it was responded to.

The US system requires that people creating a petition must create an account - a small barrier to entry, but one that helps with screening. 

It also makes it easy to track repeat petitioners - a useful thing for a government, if slightly invasive in privacy terms for an individual.

Something I don't like about the site is that after creating an account it sends a confirmation email with a randomly assigned password in plain text. People who don't respond straight away could easily get caught out with identity theft, although the site does force you to change it after you confirm your email.

However when changing your address the site does provide an idea of how strong your password is and makes helpful suggestions on how to improve it (something I think all government sites requiring login should do by default).

Once a petitioner has an account they also get a dashboard to track their petitions, though unfortunately it doesn't also track petitions they have signed or autofill your details when you choose to sign a petition. This may be done for privacy reasons, but there's also huge convenience and utility in these steps.

The process for creating a petition is brilliant - laid out step by step.  

The ability to look at past successful petitions as examples is a nice touch and very helpful for first-time petitioners, and the filtering approach helps guides people to structure their petitions well. 

Later in the process petitioners also get to tag their petitions by topic, providing a useful way of filtering them to the appropriate agency and providing useful statistics for the government on the 'hot topics' for citizens.

The system doesn't have the matching of similar petitions as the UK system does, but nevertheless it's very polished and well executed.

Canada - e-Petitions 

Now the Canadian epetition system is interesting as it debuted in December 2015, less than a year before Australia's system. As such it hasn't had the same amount of time as US and UK sites to refine and restructure based on use. but has the opportunity to learn from their experiences to implement the best of both sites in a Canadian context.

The site is very simply named petitions.parl.gc.ca, similar to the US and UK epetition platforms, but has taken a different approach to either the US or UK sites.

There's no ability to see the latest petitions on the main page, users must use a search tool or click to see all live petitions. This shifts the propensity for people to browse and choose to sign by adding a small 'one click' barrier to the visibility of petitions.

When a user clicks on 'View all petitions', what they see doesn't really provide enough information to decide whether to sign. Another click is needed to view the details of any specific petition. However the screen does help people refine down to a topical area quickly, unlike the US and UK sites and the keywords by petition are useful, if perhaps put ahead of more useful information such as the title and summary of what a petition is asking.

The language, unfortunately, is a touch more bureaucratic than in the US and UK sites, with petitions titled by number and reference. These may be useful to bureaucrats, but have limited meaning for users and could have been hidden from petitioners and respondents.

Petitions provide a numerical breakdown of respondents by provinces, but no map view and no easy way to download the data without screen-scraping.

Responding to a petition is slightly more complex than in the US and UK epetition sites, with it being mandatory to provide an address and phone number as well as the usual name, email address and confirmation that you're really a resident of the country. The response form is also less friendly than the other sites, using now old-fashioned red asterisks to denote mandatory fields.

Creating a petition involves an equally complex sign-up form, where a user must avow they're a Canadian - so I've not looked into the creation process. I do anticipate that it would not quite be as sleek and refined as the US and UK versions.

The responses to petitions, like in the US site, include all petition information and those that have been responded to can be found easily through the top menu of the site. However the responses are provided as PDFs rather than within the page. This adds an extra step to the process of reviewing a response and most are only one page long, so I feel this is a poor approach, adding complexity with no benefit for users.

Australia - e-Petitions

Similar to the Canadian site, Australia's epetition site is quite new, so some rough edges can be expected. 

However I did not expect as many rough edges as I found, given there's some excellent examples above to learn from.

Also as the code for WethePeople is available as opensource, it is it relatively quick and easy to start with all the US's experience and build from there. 

To start with, Australia's epetitions site doesn't have a short web address like petitions.aph.gov.au, it is deeply buried in the site at www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Petitions/House_of_Representatives_Petitions/Petitions_General

Now it could be argued that as Senate, House of Representatives and Committees might all accept petitions but operate differently, it needed to be buried within each of these section of the site. 

However this could have been easily handled through a single multi-choice question in a petitions process, leaving all petitions to live at the same simple petitions.aph.gov.au address - without requiring petitioners to do the hard work of understanding how government operated.

On top of this the petitions process doesn't come up in the first page of search results when looking for 'petitions' - a critical but easily fixable mistake. 

This type of simple oversight dominates the entire Australian epetitions process, with it being pretty clear than the work was done with little reference to international benchmarks or usability testing.

Moving on to the actual processes, there's currently no petitions listed so it's not possible to analyse the process for signing a petition. I would have expected that the APH would have done some work to ensure there were a few petitions at launch, as other governments did. 

Clearly this wasn't the case, with the APH potentially taking more of a 'build it and they will come' approach rather than promoting the availability of the site widely before and during its launch. The impression that leaves me is that the APH didn't really want to create this site and doesn't really welcome petitions - they'd prefer to not hear from citizens or have the hard work of dealing with any resulting work.

Regardless of whether this was the case - the impression, or perception, is the thing - and the lack of any petitions to sign at launch reflects badly on the site.

Moving on to the creation process, the process for doing so is well explained in the first page (image above) - though with far more text than is necessary (as illustrated by the other epetition sites above).

Some of the steps on this page, and later pages, are not well communicated, using very subjective and bureaucratic terms - such as "Language (must be moderate)". 

I'm not sure what 'moderate' actually means and I doubt most Australians would be able to guess what a bureaucrat would consider 'moderate language'.

However using more words to explain these types of terms would be a mistake - instead the entire page should be written in plain English, aimed at about the 5th grade level. 

In fact I quickly tested the language on the main page, and it scored at a current grade level of 10.5 - well above what is considered acceptable. The subsequent creation pages score even higher, with terms bandied around that are rarely used outside of Canberra's bureaucracy and would serve to confuse, frustrate or even upset many Australians.

The process for filling in an epetition is OK, clearly stepped out, but with far too many steps (and words) on each page. There's no way to compare your petition with existing petitions - as the UK site does - though as there's no existing petitions to compare with I'm not too concerned about this as yet.

It will become a source of additional work for public servants and frustrations for users down the track however.

There's a lot more questions and information requested than in other epetition processes - with a lot of form fields to complete, which will effectively deter many people from establishing an epetition. Whether this is a good thing, however, depends on whether you're a bureaucrat first or a citizen first (I think it's a poor approach).

Nowhere could I see clarity on the thresholds at which you might get a response to a petition, making the entire process seem like a black box - a digital black box, but a black box nonetheless.

The entire process felt very cold and impersonal, unlike the UK and US experiences - which were warm and inviting.

Given parliament serves citizens, I think it is better to strive to leave users feeling they were important welcomed guests rather than nuisances and intruders into a hostile space.

This lack of warmth was particularly characterised by the final 'thanks for submitting a petition' page - which neither thanked the petitioner, nor gave them a feeling they were important and valued. 

Even the title of the page remained 'Request a new e-petition' rather than thanking the petitioner for their engagement in Australia's democracy.

Given how often politicians and public servants complain that Australians are disengaged from politics and democracy, the way this entire epetition creation process was constructed makes it very clear that the government itself holds a lot of responsibility for pushing people away, rather than welcoming their contribution.

Summary

So given my review of the four epetition processes, from Australia, Canada, the UK and US, I can say that I'd happily and enthusiastically recommend both the US and UK approaches, slightly favouring the UK due to it's maps and sharing tools.

Canada's site is OK for a first attempt. It doesn't appear to have learnt a great deal from the US and UK experiences and asks more than it needs from citizens, but it remains usable and functional if not inviting.

Unfortunately Australia's epetitions site is a very poor effort, and reflects poorly on the government, our public service and Australia's claims of being innovative and digitally progressive.

About the most positive thing I can say about it is that at least we now have the site - so there's a starting point to improve from.

However any competent usability designer would not have built the site in the way it has been built - and it seems more of a 'tick and flick' developed with internal resources on little or no funds (not that it would have cost a great deal to have done a good job).

I'm very disappointed at the APH's efforts - and have created an epetition for people to sign accordingly (though I doubt it will make it through the APH's scrutiny process - which is far more involved than for any other jurisdiction compared).

I truly hope the APH spends more time looking at benchmarks internationally and can convince the government that epetitions are a key interaction tool with citizens, so having them feel invited and effective is critical for supporting a positive view of government.

I'll be looking in on the site from time to time to see how its going - and would happily help the APH improve the site if asked (in fact I reached out last July, but never heard from them).

This isn't just a box that government has to tick, it's a vital avenue for citizens to engage with government and an advanced democracy like Australia should recognise the importance of doing it well.

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