Big welcome and congratulations to OpenAustralia.org

A big bouquet to Matthew Landauer, Katherine Szuminska, Bruno Mattarollo, Matthew Panetta and Wade Millican for the launch last week of OpenAustralia.org and free and easily searchable Federal Hansard (the parliamentary record for readers from afar). Its based on the work of mysociety in the UK and their TheyWorkForYou website.

This is a terrific and welcome resource. I'm with OpenAustralia.org on this:

"For all its faults and foibles, our democracy is a profound gift from previous generations. Yet most people don't know the name of their representative, let alone what they do or say in their name. We aim to help bridge this growing democratic disconnect, in the belief that there is little wrong with Parliament that a healthy mixture of transparency and public engagement won't fix."