OGP High Level meet in NY this week

Ten heads of government/heads of state are to attend the meeting, the latest to sign up President Hollande of France. No official word on Prime Minister Abbott's response to an invitation from President Yudhoyono but as I've heard from New York that a delegation from Australia is expected to attend as observers, maybe that says it all. 

Follow the meeting on Twitter at #OGPatUN and @opengovpart

It will be livestreamed starting at 3.45pm 24 September New York time, by my calculation 5.45am 25 September AEST.

Yesterday President Obama spoke at the Clinton Global Initiative on the importance of civil society:

Citizens remind us why civil society is so essential. When people are free to speak their minds and hold their leaders accountable, governments are more responsive and more effective. When entrepreneurs are free to create and develop new ideas, then economies are more innovative, and attract more trade and investment, and ultimately become more prosperous. When communities, including minorities, are free to live and pray and love as they choose; when nations uphold the rights of all their people -- including, perhaps especially, women and girls -- then those countries are more likely to thrive.  If you want strong, successful countries, you need strong, vibrant civil societies.  When citizens are free to organize and work together across borders to make our communities healthier, our environment cleaner, and our world safer, that's when real change comes.

A citizen is a powerful force for change. That is why more and more governments are doing what they can to silence them -- from Russia to China to Venezuela and more. "This growing crackdown on civil society is a campaign to undermine the very idea of democracy. And what's needed is an even stronger campaign to defend democracy," the President said.  

I'd been told Foreign Minister Bishop intended to be there. 

A statement on Australia's  support for civil society?

Australia's support for democratic values on display in New York next week

The government's participation or non participation at two high level meetings in New York next week will be an indicator of the importance it attaches to support for democratic values and matching words with actions.

No, not talking about the Prime Minister participating on 24-25 September in a meeting of the UN Security Council convened by US President Obama to address the threat posed by foreign terrorist fighters, delivering Australia’s national statement at the General Assembly, or meetings with key leaders ahead of the G20 meeting in Brisbane.

Or talking about the Climate Summit on 23 September the day before he arrives when Foreign Minister Bishop will be in Australia's seat as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomes 125 heads of state and government or deputies.

No, talking about two other high level meetings that the likes of President Obama, President Yudhoyono and other heads of government and senior ministers think important enough to squeeze in while they are in New York - meetings about support for civil society and for open, transparent and accountable government.

Where will Australia stand?

With civil society?
On 23 September at the Clinton Global Initiative, President Obama will reconvene partners to advance the Stand with Civil Society agenda. The State Department describes the forum this year as providing "a platform for partners to take stock of progress made to date, define a strategy for the next year, and make commitments that will have a lasting impact on the future of civil society."

It follows a meeting a year ago where President Obama brought together government and   philanthropic leaders to launch the agenda, 

"a groundbreaking effort to support, defend and sustain the work of civil society amid a rising tide of restrictions on its work. Together with the philanthropic community and working through existing initiatives and partnerships including the Open Government Partnership (OGP), the Community of Democracies, Lifeline, and Making All Voices Count, participants agreed to collaborate to: (1) promote laws, policies, and practices that foster a supportive environment for civil society in accordance with international norms; (2) coordinate multilateral, diplomatic pressure to roll back restrictions being imposed on civil society; and (3) identify innovative ways of providing technical, financial, and logistical support to civil society. 

Australia was there last year, the government signing on to this joint statement issued by the White House at the time. 

No reply so far to my email to DFAT about Australian representation.
(Update: A Yes on this one: Although it is not mentioned in the Media Release outlining her schedule in New York I have been informed the Foreign Minister will attend the Clinton Global Initiative event as part of her visit.) 

With the Open Government Partnership?
On 24 September President Yudhoyono of Indonesia and President Peña Nieto of Mexico will chair a meeting at UN headquarters, “Open Government Partnership: Citizen Action, Responsive Government." The gathering will celebrate the third anniversary of the OGP.

Seven other heads of state or government (so far) are listed as speakers to government and civil society represenatives of the 64 countries that have joined or are in the process of joining the partnership, including President Obama, the presidents of South Africa, Tanzania and Croatia and the prime ministers of Georgia and Norway.

President Yudhoyono has sent an invitation to Prime Minister Abbott to attend.

This follows his invitation to the PM to attend the Asia Pacific Regional OGP meeting in Bali in May. The PM said he was unable to accept on that occasion because of Budget preparations. 

At that meeting President Yuhoyono noted that Asia-Pacific countries are under represented in the OGP and called on others in the region to join.

Australia has mostly dithered since first invited to join the OGP in September 2011. The previous government indicated intention to join in May 2013.

The latest public statement by Finance Minister Cormann is we are still 'considering.'

Participation in the meeting would confirm Australia stands with Indonesia, Korea, the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand and other OGP members for open, transparent and accountable government that encourages and empowers citizens and is responsive to their aspirations. 

No reply to my email to the PM, Foreign Minister, Minister for Finance and local member Malcolm Turnbull about the invitation from President Yudhoyono.

Report due in NY next month on government support for civil society

Eleven months ago Australia joined 20 other governments in a High Level Forum in New York chaired by President Obama in support of civil society.

The governments later issued a joint statement that noted their "deep concern that many governments are restricting civil society and the rights of freedom of association and expression, both online and offline"; commited to take action "to respond to growing restrictions on civil society that undermine its ability to perform its crucial role.. an alarming trend"; called on "representatives of civil society, the philanthropic community, the private sector, and other governments to partner with us in supporting and defending civil society"; and agreed to meet again at the opening of the 69th United Nations General Assembly to review progress toward these objectives.

The General Assembly convenes on 16 September. 

Someone in DFAT is no doubt beavering away on what Australia can say about our efforts to this end.

Speeches by Minister Andrews and plans for the National Centre for Excellence will feature; so will government financial support for the C20 and facilitation of the Global Summit earlier in the year.

A specific commitment in the joint statement was to strengthen support for existing mechanisms that encourage civil society participation such as the Open Government Partnership. The government's current public position is that whether Australia should join the OGP is still 'under consideration' so there is a month (it's been three years) to tidy that up.

I'm sure the report won't go there, but squaring our stated support for an active civil society with other words and deeds would constitute a challenge:

• the Prime Minister's warning to those who want to 'grandstand' against Indonesia over West Papua; 

• cuts to funding community legal centres and removal of a clause from the funding agreement that confirmed their role in policy debate and advocacy;

• withdrawal of funding for the Environmental Defenders office (see The Saturday Paper) ; 

• stated interest in stripping environmental groups of charitable status for tax purposes and removal of legal protections for protestors. 

We will hear more at home on the last three issues given this recent speech by Shadow Attorney General Mark Dreyfus.

Abbott Government on civil society and the right to speak out

Flikr-Patos

Getting the ducks in a row - as in policy co-ordination - is a constant challenge. 

Where you stand on freedoms, civil society, engagement, and ensuring consistency across government even more so.

Government voice
The Prime Minister on ABC PM 26 September speaking about new ministers getting ahead of the game:

 TONY ABBOTT: It's very important that the Government speaks with a united voice. In opposition, before my senior colleagues did media they normally called in with my office. It was a very good arrangement in opposition. It's a very good arrangement in Government and it's one that my colleagues have always been happy to comply with.

 Campaigners to be reined in?

Protest groups that stymie major infrastructure projects will be targeted as the Coalition seeks to speed up an $11.5 billion roads program ... The moves challenge 'not-in-my-backyard' protesters." -- The Australian, September 25
"Environmental groups have hit out at a Federal Government proposal to silence organisations from campaigning in overseas markets. Tasmanian senator and Parliamentary secretary for agriculture Richard Colbeck has floated the idea of amendments to consumer law aimed at stopping campaigns against Australian products" -- Hobart Mercury, September 24.

While no one in authority has said so, might aid groups have their activist reins pulled - former Coalition Senator Trood suggests it is a 'Coalition disposition'.
 
Government statement on civil society and the right to speak out
Joint statement issued in Washington on 23 September on behalf of the United States, Australia, Canada and 21 other governments after meeting with civil society and other groups in New York:

We affirmed that the strength and vibrancy of nations depend on an active civil society and robust engagement between governments and civil society to advance shared goals of peace, prosperity, and the well-being of all people.  We noted our deep concern that many governments are restricting civil society and the rights of freedom of association and expression, both online and offline. 
To combat this alarming trend, our governments committed to work together to respond to growing restrictions on civil society that undermine its ability to perform its crucial role....  We will lead by example to promote laws, policy decisions, and practices that foster a positive space for civil society in accordance with international law, and oppose legislation and administrative measures that impede efforts of civil society.  We will undertake joint diplomatic action whenever necessary to support civil society in countries where it is under threat, and to defend the fundamental freedoms of association and peaceful assembly. We will also work to develop new and innovative ways of providing technical, financial, and logistical support to promote and protect the right of citizens and civil society to freely associate, meaningfully engage with government, and constructively participate in processes to improve the well-being of their countries.  Throughout all of these efforts, our nations will continue to engage with representatives of civil society to help us understand and respond to the challenges they confront. 
We commit to gather again at the opening of the 69th United Nations General Assembly to review our progress toward these objectives.  We will work in concert over the coming year to ensure a robust, effective international response to the proliferation of restrictions being placed on civil society. We call on representatives of civil society, the philanthropic community, the private sector, and other governments to partner with us in supporting and defending civil society.

 Australia on joining the Open Government Partnership
The OGP was referred to in the Joint Statement and in the meeting in New York as part of the commitment to protect and promote civil society. Australia had announced in May its intention to join. On joining it will adopt the Open Government Declaration which includes these commitments:

"We commit to making policy formulation and decision making more transparent, creating and using channels to solicit public feedback, and deepening public participation in developing, monitoring and evaluating government activities. We commit to protecting the ability of not-for-profit and civil society organizations to operate in ways consistent with our commitment to freedom of expression, association, and opinion. We commit to creating mechanisms to enable greater collaboration between governments and civil society organizations and businesses."

Interesting times.

OGP urges aspirants to greater ambition

As we await news from the Attorney General on how Australia intends to approach the task of preparing a national action plan to present as part of its application to join the Open Government Partnership, probably at a meeting in March 2014, the message from the recent Steering Committee meeting in London is that the focus in such plans needs to move beyond ‘business as usual’ commitments to more ambitious action plans and civil society engagement.

The meeting endorsed a sub-committee report that the second round of national action plans (that includes us) "should clearly demonstrate how commitments are advancing open government in scope and/or in time frame. Governments should also move beyond traditional civil society consultation models, towards on going meaningful dialogue on policy commitments and implementation of action plans."


The minutes of the meeting are here Jul2013SC_MeetingMinutes_Final.pdf
   
Apart from important matters concerning governance and finances, other items of interest include:

• conversations are underway with four multilateral partners (OECD, World Bank, IDB and UNDP) concerning areas of potential collaboration.

• and somewhere out there is a newly formed OGP Media Council."The Council, which is comprised of high profile journalists from all regions will provide expert guidance on how OGP can better partner with the media to promote our shared objective of more open and accessible government. To inform a white paper that the Media Council will produce, Richard (Sambrook former Director of Global News for BBC) is collecting input from more than 200 journalists and media leaders from around the world.The Media Council will present some initial recommendations to OGP in late July or early August and will organize a session at the October Summit to discuss the white paper."

Wonder whether any Australian journalists and media leaders feature in the 200? 

Australia's intention to join the OGP has hardly rated a mention in the mainstream so far, so any stirring interest would be welcome.

Australia's Right to Know, the coalition of major media organisations, impressively led the backlash over excessive secrecy in 2007-2008 but has rarely surfaced since. The last posted entry on its website is October 2009 and the contact person listed left in 2012 to work for the Leader of the Opposition.

Update: Toby McIntosh has this fuller summary of the Steering Committee minutes.

Freedom of information advocacy: a global snapshot

Ninety five countries now have a right to information or freedom of information law.

But the goal of a universal right of access is still a long way off, according to a report released on 8 July by the Freedom of Information Advocates Network (FOIAnet). The report provides an analysis of the worldwide right to information (RTI) movement by region.
  
Lydia Medland, of Access Info Europe, lead editor, said 

“The report shows that advocates still have a long way to go to see their goal achieved of a universal right to information, however, it also clearly transmits the strength of the movement and their ability to effectively confront obstacles to change.”

The report is available at http://www.foiadvocates.net 

Regional reports cover Africa, the Americas, Australasia and Oceania, East and Southeast Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa and South Asia.

The Australasia and Oceania Chapter  (Peter Timmins is the author) commences on page 35. Some extracts appear below. 

In summary:

While RTI laws are well established in Australia and New Zealand, limited progress on legislated rights has been made in the Pacific, with the Cook Islands the only country to enact a law to date. Tonga introduced a government wide information access policy in 2012.

Australia’s decision to join 58 other countries in the Open Government Partnership is likely to provide new impetus to advocacy efforts and discussion of transparent, open and accountable government in Australia and the region, and may encourage New Zealand and other eligible countries to follow suit.

In Pacific island countries there are hopeful signs. There has been widespread embrace of a ‘good governance’ agenda with accountability, transparency and advancement of human rights parts of the mix. Government aid donors and international NGOs continue to assist developments of this kind in ways respectful of the regional and cultural context. The Tonga experiment with a government wide policy approach may provide experience in developing a ‘pacific way’. The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and interest in anti-corruption measures is highlighting the need for more and better disclosure of government information. And regional ties are strengthening in ways that should enable media organisations and civil society groups to lift the profile of RTI issues and concerns.

Contacts for background and comment on the report are:

Toby Mendel                                                            Lydia Medland

Executive Director                                                   Research and Campaigns Coordinator

Centre for Law and Democracy                               Access Info Europe

Email: toby@law-democracy.org                             Email: Lydia@access-info.org

Tel: +1 902 412 0872                                               Tel +34 91 365 65 58 

www.law-democracy.org                                          www.access-info.org

Twitter: @law_democracy                                       Twitter: @Lydyact / @Access_Info

Extracts-Australasia and Oceania. Global Right to Information Update: An Analysis by Region, Freedom of Information Advocates Network

Transparency silos not unique to Australian CSOs

Infrogmation

Australia isn't the only place faced with the situation that groups and activists beaver away in civil society silos, separately seeking to advance various transparency and accountability issues without much in the way of dialogue or joint effort on common high order goals.

Martin Tisne at Open Up had also written about this in February after attending a meeting in Poland and again in April, offering these reasons why working together had proved difficult for CSOs in the UK:

(1) Each community of practice (whether budget groups, freedom of information, open data groups, extractives’ groups) has its own language, discourse, way of working, basic reason for why they are doing this in the first place (e.g. whether to deepen democracy or decrease poverty) which can be a big barrier to doing business together.
(2) NGOs are in competition for limited resources: why should civil society groups make an effort to coordinate when they will ultimately be competing against each other for a limited pot of funding?
(3) Coordination, partnership is hard work! Why do it unless there is a clear pay-off at the end? With limited resources to start with, why should CSOs work and partner together, when they could forge ahead with their own agenda (perhaps faster)?

I think it's a version of (3) here, more than anything else - limited resources, organisations stretched and forced to make hard choices about the use of time leaving little for the big picture, and pre-occupied with individual agendas. And of course for anyone who puts a hand up, that coalition formation and development is hard work.

Tisne says that in the UK the "OGP is playing a huge role in bringing together a broad group of civil society groups working on opengov that had previously never met nor worked on a common platform."

Hopefully that could be the way things go here - in the lead up, or when we get to "yes" on the OGP.

FOI swings into fourth decade with a spring in the step

Congratulations to the Open Australia Foundation for the launch today of the Right to Know

Freedom of Information application website intended to encourage and ease the way to seek access to non-personal information under the Commonwealth Freedom of Information Act. The site will also publish the paper trail between applicants and agencies and information released (or not as the case may be) as a result of the request.

Two of the key players, Matthew Landeur and Henare Deegan provide an overview of the initiative in this Youtube clip.

Markus Mannheim provides this coverage today in The Canberra Times.

(Update: and this from Stilgherrian in Crikey.)

This is an Australian adaptation of the UK MySociety Whatdotheyknow website, utilising open source software from Avaleteli and fits into a global picture described here last year by Toby McIntosh. This is the NZ version. In this first step the Australian tool is limited to Commonwealth ministers and agencies.

I've commented previously that at about 5000 requests for non-personal information in the last year (a significant increase) use of the FOI act for accountability or participation in government purposes at the national level is pathetically low. Right to Know may change this by removing some of the mystique. It's the first "demand side" initiative in decades.

Three of the requests during a pre-launch trial in recent weeks are from me.

Agencies already feeling under pressure may not appreciate this boost for the exercise of  information access rights. But as the Prime Minister remarked back in 2010, "let the sun shine in."

Who carries the flag, advancing and protecting information access rights?

Dr Cassandra Goldie of  the Australian Council of Social Service on Q&A on Monday said Australia has 600,000 civil society organisations out there doing all manner of great things. I'm sure that's true if she says so, and that we are all better for it even if the very term "civil society" still doesn't roll off the tongue easily in these parts.

But you are hard pressed to find CSOs that focus on or attach a high and continuing priority to advocacy for information access rights and related issues. Sure we have bodies such as the Public Interest Access Centre, PILCH, Transparency International and the Accountability Round Table alert to these issues who speak up on occasion along with human rights and civil liberties groups, and from the professional ranks, librarians, archivists, law societies and bar associations. And Open Australia who just gets on delivering Hansard in byte sizes on a plate.

As Craig Thomler observed recently however, we lack a robust public discussion on democracy, government openness, transparency and the role of Gov 2.0 in the mix.

No leadership here from an Article XIX, active in Europe and elsewhere, a Campaign for Freedom of Information as in the UK, or national bodies like the National Freedom of Information Coalition and OpentheGovernment.org or the hundreds of groups that belong to them in the US. Not one Australian organisation is listed among the hundreds of worldwide members of the Freedom of Information Advocates Network.

Of course there's the media. The media coalition Australia's Right to Know was formed in 2007 to provide a new stronger profile for FOI and other law reforms, building on the ongoing efforts of media bodies such as the Australian Press Council and the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance.

But as David Salter writing in Crikey in April (Your right to know whatever happened to the Right to Know) noted, after getting off to a big start in 2007 and through until 2009, it has now all but disappeared. The last published submission was October 2009, the last media release May 2010. Salter observed at the time "the looming extinction-by-neglect of the whole Right to Know campaign reflects a huge cultural shift within the managerial ranks of its main champion, News Limited."

The slide continues. In June The  Australian reported that ARTK's Creina Chapman was leaving News to join Tony Abbott's staff. However the website (described by Salter as looking like an unweeded garden) with a few add-ons to a home page for a 2009 conference still lists her as the contact person. When I rang the given number on Monday this week, the amiable fellow on the other end said he knew nothing about ARTK-"only been here three weeks"- and this was the first ARTK call he had received. He undertook to get someone to contact me, but I'm still waiting.

In early 2008 months after my involvement with ARTK as Deputy Chair of the Independent Audit of Free Speech finished I went to see John Hartigan, then head of News Ltd and ARTK, to make a pitch for the establishment of a permanent, professional and appropriately funded body to research, advocate, educate and lobby on freedom of speech, and the public’s right to be informed. I suggested that the media needed to seek out others who shared these interests, and that it cede some power to them so that the coalition could seek to deliver what its name conveyed-Australia's Right to Know. Voices on these issues were weak, sporadic, divided and underfunded and the coalition was well placed to change this. Hartigan listened politely, nodded at the appropriate time but that was it-and my last contact with ARTK.

So in 2012 only a few of those very active 600,000 CSOs spend much time and effort on advocacy on information access issues, and Australia lacks a high profile co-ordinated representative body focused on community interest in advancing the cause. 

Individuals as much as organisations carry the flag. People inside government who have leadership responsibility such as the information commissioners. And outside government academics such as Rick Snell, Moira Paterson and Johan Lidberg, and journalists including Michael McKinnon of the Seven Network, Sean Parnell of The Australian, Jack Waterford and Markus Mannheim of the Canberra Times, Kelvin Bissett of the Nine Network, Matthew Moore and Linton Besser of the Sydney Morning Herald, and Josh Gordon and Melissa Fyffe of The Age to name just a few. And the occasional blogger has a thing to say as well.

(Update- I'm sure there are other prominent individuals such as Dr Nicholas Gruen who should have been mentioned. I'll add them here as I think or others remind me of them.)

There are also lots of public spirited individuals pushing the envelope on access issues associated with important causes right across the country who might support a public voice if we could find one.

What chance a real "australia's right to know." Takers?