Where's Australia's robust discussions on democracy, openness and transparency?

Australia is an interesting country.

We're one of the world's oldest democracies, with a strong tradition of free and independent (of government) media.

We have universal public health care and a strong separation between politics and religion and between politics and the enforcement of our laws.

We have an apolitical civil service with an extremely low corruption rate. As a nation we punch above our weight in Sports and Science globally.

However we appear to lack a robust public discussion on our own democracy, on government openness, transparency and the role of Gov 2.0 in this mix.

We have plenty of right-wing and left-wing thinktanks (with some intriguing backers) prepared to give their perspectives on various policy issues to influence government decisions, but rarely opine on the democratic institutions Australia has developed.

We have many media commentators willing to report bad or controversial news (or spin news in that way) about government decisions and activities, but rarely questioning the systems and traditions on which they are based.

We do have the OpenAustralia Foundation, building and maintaining several pro-openness tools - with little or no financial support from Australian Governments or philanthropists.

There's the New Democracy Foundation which, with some big name supports from politics and academic worlds, is looking at new ways of governing for a new millenium.

And there's the Institute of Public Affairs, which has an agenda to promote political and market freedom - though it is hard to assess its impact on public views.

Some scattered individuals also run small communities and services that look at whether and how governments should transform themselves to cope with changing environments and public needs.

However there's not really a broader discussion, as occurs through a network of organisations in the US (spearheaded by the Sunlight Foundation), or the more concentrated efforts in the UK through groups such as the Hansard Society.

Australia is not even a member of the Open Government Partnership (per the image below).

Nations that are members of the Open Government Partnership

So why is this the case? Is our government already so transparent and effective that we don't need more active discussions about our system of democracy, our openness and our processes?

Is it we're not interested in 'navel-gazing' about our own systems, or that we trust politicians, public servants, academics and the media to work out the best system for us and keep it working?

Is it simply that Australians don't actually care, so long as the government stays out of most of their lives - reflecting recent research from the Lowy Institute, as reported by the Institute of Public Affairs, that found that 23 percent of Australians aged 18 to 29 said: "For someone like me, it doesn't matter what kind of government we have." and that "Thirty-eight per cent said: "In some circumstances a non-democratic government can be preferable."

I really don't have an answer, and this worries and concerns me.

As they say in the US, "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty".

Where is Australia's vigilance regarding our democracy?

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Liveblogging GovCamp NSW (focus on innovation)

I'm in Sydney at GovCamp NSW today, where the program is focusing on developing an innovation program for the state.

There's about 30 people in attendance and the event is being hosted by John Wells and Allison Hornery with support from Martin Stewart-Weeks.

The event is partially open, partially under Chatham House rules, so I'll be selective about posting and quoting.

I will include the hashtag (#GovCampNSW) in the liveblog, so various perspectives are captured.

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Is this a world first? Australia's Bureau of Statistics #rickrolls its Twitter followers

Australia has been at the forefront of social media use by government agencies for a few years now (though don't tell them I said so or they might get complacent).

However I think this is possibly a world first.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) yesterday released the first tranche of results from Australia's 2011 Census, to widespread interest - partially fuelled by their effective use of social media during the data collection process.

Today the ABS thanked Australians, via Twitter, for their support with the following message.

Thank you Australia for the great support for the Census. Please see here for a special gift from the 2011Census team http://  bit.ly/7JJSz8 

The thank you link went to a classic internet meme. The RickRoll.

As far as I know this is the first time any government agency, anywhere in the world has RickRolled it's citizens - although the Zombie Apocalypse has been featured several times, by the CDC and by Queensland Police.

I like governments with a sense of human - they feel more human, more connected and more relevant.

From the reaction on Twitter, others feel the same way.

In my view this is a brilliant step that cements the ABS's position as one of the most effective organisational users of Twitter.

They have successfully built and directed attention to the importance of statistics, supporting the census process, through their sensitive, factual and yet human use of the medium.


However I wonder if this show of humanity will be punished by those who wish to portray governments in a negative light, as monolithic, humourless, emotionless institutions.

If you make your money from criticising governments, you don't want them to seem too likeable or human.

Update
I've just been reminded on Twitter that the US government was actually the first to RickRoll its followers in July last year, as covered in this Washington Post article, Did the White House just rickroll its 2 million Twitter followers?

Still it leaves the ABS as an early adopter.

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What may a 2.0 organisation look like?

As the world changes, so must our institutions - particularly government, including government agencies.

Without getting into how hard or easy it is for government agencies to change (recognising there's a diversity of views), any change should, necessarily be for the better.

So how should they change? In which ways should they reinvent themselves to suite a changing nation?

The wrong changes could lead to massive costs and organisational failures, so identifying the right type of changes (as near as possible) is a necessary first step once an organisation has reached a point where it recognises and accepts it need to make changes.

Fortunately there's lots of people thinking about this around the world, and in the US, over the last six months, a group of 900 people, spearheaded by Jonathan Opp and Chris Grams and as a joint collaborative effort by the MIX, Saba, and the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, have conducted a Management 2.0 hackathon (inspired by software hackathons) to consider how management and organisations will need to adapt to survive and thrive in the 21st century.

Entitled The Management 2.0 Hackathon: Using the inspiration of the web to hack management, the process resulted in the blog post (linked) and the marvellous report embedded below.

The report is available for download under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

I strongly recommend that you take a look at the report and consider circulating it to your senior leadership team. It may provoke new thinking and support your organisation's efforts to identify and implement the right changes to ensure your organisation remains relevant, influential and effective into the future.

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It's Census (data) day!

Today at 11:30am the ABS releases the first tranche of the 2011 Census's data - including the core demographics.

How is this Gov 2.0 related? There's a number of ways.

First, this is the first time the majority of Census data will be released, from day one, under a Creative Commons license as open data for reuse. This means that statisticians and interested people (like myself) will be able to download and crunch a lot of the information to find out interesting stuff.

Second, this is the first time the Census release is being announced via social media - with the @2011Census account leading the way, and a number of people already Tweeting using the #2011Census hashtag.

Third, there's a lot of data in the Census that will inform Gov 2.0 efforts. Population demographics, media usage and other data is all useful in building business cases and uncovering opportunities to use new media more effectively.

Fourth, this is the first Census in Australia to have a significant proportion of the data collected online. While the ABS did use a pilot eCensus system for last Census, this time online was a primary collection network for household data.

Finally we're likely to see some very interesting apps, infographics and maps using Census data in ways that were never before possible. These will emerge from the ABS, from other agencies and from the community and commercial sector.

To give an idea of what might come out of this, below is an interesting pre-Census infographic created by McCrindle Research to show Australia's place in the world.


McCrindle Research | Know the Times

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