ACT Open Government website debuts with cabinet summaries

The ACT Government's Open Government website is up and running including a single disclosure log for documents released by government agencies in response to Freedom of Information applications, to be posted within ( a generous) 15 business days of release, plus media releases and data sets. And a summary of cabinet outcomes with material posted initially for the period June to September.

The Chief Minister's Welcome statement, " I am pleased that we will be the first Australian government to make a summary of our Cabinet outcomes available..." is welcome, but either makes a neat distinction or ignores the fact that the Queensland Government has been publishing Cabinet material including decisions since July 2008.

Those with long memories might also recall s 10 of the Victorian Freedom of Information Act  that came into effect in 1983, and still in force, requiring the Premier to "cause to be published on a continuing basis a register containing- (a) details of the terms of all decisions made by the Cabinet after the date of commencement of this Act; (b) the reference number assigned to each such decision; and (c) the date on which the decision was made. (2) The information referred to in subsection (1) shall be entered on the register at the discretion of the Premier." 

It was heralded at the time as groundbreaking. Notice it doesn't say when or how. There is this reference to cabinet decisions to 1993 at the Public Record Office. A search of the Department of Premier and Cabinet website for something contemporary produces zero results. A Victorian reader may know when it dropped off the radar and, ahem, why.

Other governments are yet to take such a grand step.