Happy days!

Dear Neglected Reader,

I've been otherwise occupied for large chunks of this year in my role as interim Convener of the Australian Open Government Partnership Network.

Postings in this our tenth year suffered I'm afraid.
 
Loads of things I planned to bring to your attention... but alas, 140 characters was sometimes the best I could manage. (Follow @FOIguru)

The good news is that after a a bumpy, frequently interrupted less than perfect process, Australia now has a national action plan with 15 commitments that constitute a broad program of reforms. 

Some of those commitments will be of particular interest to you:

1.3 Extractive industries transparency
Australia will enhance disclosure of company payments and government revenues from the oil, gas and mining sectors. We will do this by implementing the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Standard (including working to enhance company disclosure of payments to governments for the sale of petroleum and minerals) and by continuing to support the application of EITI principles around the world.

2.1 Release high-value datasets and enable data-driven innovation

Australia will continue to make more public data openly available and support its use to launch commercial and non-profit ventures, conduct research, make data-driven decisions, and solve complex problems. As part of this, we will work with the research, not-for-profit and private sectors to identify the characteristics of high-value public datasets, and to promote innovative use of data to drive social and economic outcomes.

2.2 Build and maintain public trust to address concerns about data sharing and release

Australia will build public trust around data sharing and release. We will do this by actively engaging with the public regarding how open data is being used to better communicate the benefits and understand public concerns, and we will improve privacy risk management capability across government.

3.1 Information management and access laws fit for the 21st Century

Australia will ensure our information access laws, policies and practices are modern and appropriate for the digital information age. As part of this, we will consider and consult on options to develop a simpler and more coherent framework for managing and accessing government information that better reflects the digital era, including the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act), the Archives Act 1983 (Archives Act) and, where relevant, the Privacy Act 1988 (with primary focus on the Archives Act and FOI Act), which is supported by efficient and effective policies and practices.

3.2 Understand the use of Freedom of Information
Australia will better measure and improve our understanding of the public’s use of rights under freedom of information laws. We will do this by working with states and territories to develop uniform metrics on public use of freedom of information access rights, and by collecting and publishing this data.

3.3 Improve the discoverability and accessibility of government data and information

Australia will make it easier for the public to find, access and use government data and information. We will do this by making greater use of central portals, digital platforms and other tools to improve discoverability and accessibility.

4.3 Open Contracting

Australia will ensure transparency in government procurement and continue to support the Open Contracting Global Principles. As part of this, we will publicly review the Australian Government’s compliance with the Open Contracting Data Standard.
................................................ 
The complete plan was published on 7 December.

If you support more open transparent government please give consideration to joining the like minded who have pushed the government hard on this over the last 12 months and plan to stick with it as attention moves to implementation. See the Get Involved Tab on the Network Homepage

Now time for a bit of a breather so best wishes.

Will be back in the new year, refreshed and with best intentions to do a better job on Open and Shut in 2017.

 

By Anne Dirkse (www.annedirkse.com) (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Sydney council adds ' 2010, year of the great fire' to Sir Humphrey's list

The Sydney Morning Herald on the mysterious $20 million fire at Liverpool City Council (NSW) that according to staff at the time destroyed 8905 files.

Councillors were unconvinced of the report's accuracy and scope and ordered a new investigation in response to queries from residents.

"A more professional investigation last year found that only 624 hard copy files, many of them dating back decades or more and of limited contemporary use, had been lost in the fire," a spokesman for the council said.

Cabinet document open access: Sir Humphrey had it nailed

Enjoyed episodes of the marvellous Yes Minister series over the break, including The Skeleton in the Cupboard where Sir Humphrey is anxious to avoid disclosure of his involvement as a junior official thirty years before in a monumental stuff up. As the file is now due for open access the Minister asks:
How am I going to explain the missing documents to "The Mail"?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Well, this is what we normally do in circumstances like these.
James Hacker: [reads memo] This file contains the complete set of papers, except for a number of secret documents, a few others which are part of still active files, some correspondence lost in the floods of 1967...
James Hacker: Was 1967 a particularly bad winter?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: No, a marvellous winter. We lost no end of embarrassing files.
James Hacker: [reads] Some records which went astray in the move to London and others when the War Office was incorporated in the Ministry of Defence, and the normal withdrawal of papers whose publication could give grounds for an action for libel or breach of confidence or cause embarrassment to friendly governments.
James Hacker: That's pretty comprehensive. How many does that normally leave for them to look at?
James Hacker: How many does it actually leave? About a hundred?... Fifty?... Ten?... Five?... Four?... Three?... Two?... One?... *Zero?*
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Yes, Minister. 

Ah, relief we've left all that nonsense behind in the 33 years since the program first aired. 

Haven't we ?

Best wishes

"Sydney Opera House Night". Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sydney_Opera_House_Night.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Sydney_Opera_House_Night.jpg

Whatever you celebrate at this time of the year!

Thanks to readers for your interest and hats off to those who stood and shouted in the right direction about the government plan to abolish the office of information commissioner. You helped slow and hopefully halt this backward step for open transparent and accountable government.

I have a drafts file with loads of things started but not finished so I'll be back sometime soon. In the meantime, all the best.

Techo problem

Temporary (I hope) problem-lost the sidebar and content while trying to fix something else. Bear with me. Update: Can hardly believe I solved that myself!

Sorry emailees, power now restored

Apologies to email subscribers who may have not have had a message in a while. 

Like to tell you that my brilliant technical skills over many hours located the problem and fixed it. The truth be known, I don't have a clue what happened or how it magically corrected itself. The system is back. You may have missed all or some of the posts listed, starting with the most recent.

Apart from the email subscription in the sidebar you can also follow me on Twitter where my modest handle is @Foiguru

• Policy 101: Blind siding rarely the way to bring the troops with you
• Is this the senate to sort out public interest immunity claims?
• What's the problem: why not close to real time disclosure for accountability purposes?
• AEC way too quick in reaching for the 'vexatious' FOI button.
• NSW access to information law under review
• Silver Anniversary: 25 years since FOI commenced in NSW
• G20 and countries including Australia need to re-open the whistleblower protection file
• FOI commentaries: two for the money
• Trust in politicians Episode XXX: "Democracy for Sale"
• Civil society puts it to the G20: open, transparent government part of the growth equation.
• The trust thing-where to from here?
• First report card on operation of NSW GIPA act
• C20 Global Summit this week in Melbourne.
• Victoria rejigs privacy law
• Victoria proposes to improve FOI commissioner model not abolish it
• Prime Minister's travels: missed opportunities galore
• SA Ombudsman's FOI wisdom should travel beyond state borders
• DFAT waiting for Finance to ring before opening the OGP file.
• Parallel 'open government' worlds on display
• The time and cost equation for AAT review of FOI matters
• Prime Minister's travels: missed opportunity No 1
• OAIC, a casualty in the name of efficiency, or set to fail: you choose.

Leave of absence

I'm traveling in Asia, the Middle East and Europe for much of the next month so leave you to your own devices to follow the ins and outs of issues usually discussed here. I'll check in as opportunity provides and can still be contacted by email. Enjoy...

Happy happies

Lots that could be said but I know right across the country you have better things to do than listen, so best wishes and thanks for your interest and contributions throughout the year. Back soon.

Jacques-Wikimedia Commons

Short shut for Open and Shut

If only I had the time before heading off on the high seas for two weeks, I would have said something about:

• The Open Government Guide launched by the Transparency and Accountability Initiative  during the Open Governmernt Partnership Summit in London. The guide lays out practical steps that could  be taken to improve transparency, accountability and citizen participation in 19 areas, from public services and open data to elections, environment and illicit financial flows. The Guide links to other resources - over 330 case studies and country examples, and external resources on standards. Should be particularly useful when, hopefully, not if,  we get around to discussion of a national action plan, assuming the Open Government Partnership file eventually reaches the top of the pile in Canberra.

• The statutory review of the Queensland Right to Information Act and the Information Privacy Act. Submissions closed 15 November.

•  Information about the state of the game in all those annual reports, the OAIC for one.

• The iappANZ Privacy Summit in Sydney on 25 November with former UK Information Commissioner Richard Thomas just one of the draws.

• The apparent first instance of exercise of power by the South Australian Minister for the Public Sector under section 39(9) of the FOI act in issuing an assessment of the public interest that in effect limits review of an FOI determination - a near relation to the conclusive ministerial certificate of an earlier darker era in other jurisdictions.

Be back sporadically, and more constantly around the end of the month.

Slow time for Open and Shut but not for Allan Kessing

I'm in the middle of moving house, with a brief overseas visit to follow so thin pickings here through to the end of November. No sympathy sought or needed of course.

And any discombobulation at the sight of those packing cases not worth mentioning in the same breath as Allan Kessing, regrouping after the devastating loss of his home in the bushfires a few weeks back. Friends and supporters of Allan (email me at timminsp@ozemail.com.au for details of how you can contribute) have helped put a slight spring in his step but he still has plenty of 'why' moments.

How do we rate?

Separovic Lawyers in Perth tell me Open and Shut has been selected in the Top Ten Legal Bloggers in Australia. It's a nice thought, and I wouldn't but others might suggest they have already achieved one aspect of what they had in mind by me telling you so. 

However if you are even slightly inclined to a positive reaction to anything you have ever read here, or on the other hand simply wouldn't have a clue, a vote for best at the bottom of this page would see me puff the chest a millimetre or so.

On the other hand, sob, it won't be the end of the world if you pass this wonderful opportunity by.

We're Seven!

Seniors moment- missed Open and Shut's seventh anniversary last week.

2700 posts since February 2006.

'Such is life' or should that be 'get a life' ?

Managing not misspending time

Just passed 2500 posts here since this odyssey began in February 2006. Youth aren't the only ones!

We are six!

Six years this week since this professional hobby started and 2400 posts and 238,000 page views later it is still keeping me off the streets-golf went a couple of years ago.
 (OMPP (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I've previously acknowledged the impetus to get started was the prodding back then from Nicolette Davey, right, who left us for the Financial Times in London and is now with the Baw Baw Shire Council in Victoria-how lucky are they?) and Susan Timmins (still here, no escape for her). They insisted I ditch the occasional client newsletter in favour of a more contemporary communication channel. I'm still resisting other prods for the tweet and similar things.

Looking back there are some trends - a shift in my focus away from initial close attention to NSW freedom of information issues in the direction of attempted coverage of a wider Australian patch and a broader range of issues; year on year increases in visits of 40% or more with Australian readership consistently over 80%; as Australian numbers increase, overseas visitors have declined as a percentage of the total with the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, and India always leading that group; comments have increased but my guess is that public servants of various stripes are behind Anonymous who remains our most steady contributor.


Another trend may be telling: the number of posts in the last three years went from a high 440, to 358 to 260 last year.

Importantly and despite lots of necessary qualifications, the laws and government transparency are better than in 2006, and open government these days involves discussion of a wide range of issues that weren't being talked about then.

Some lessons from blogging: content is king so feeding the beast regularly and often is a necessary part of the trade; some buzz words - the mere mention recently of Schapelle Corby for instance - attract a new audience; the blogger mindset that the last post published is of interest to the reader is wrong as people out there are grazing the net all the time usually looking at published pieces of current interest to them that may be years old; lots of pro forma "great post" comments are spam, meant to provide a link to commercial websites, so hit the delete button rather than take pride in publishing; there are plenty and an increasing number of people out there who need help in dealing with government on information related issues and will write and sometimes call at all sorts of odd times; and someone like me could do with a subeditor skilled in catchy headlines. And a red pen to rein in the tendency to ramble (sorry).

So thanks for the interest. As to the seventh year, on with the show.

Vale Open Australia?

Well not the entire concept-but what ever happened to the wonderful Open Australia, the great volunteer initiative to follow Federal Parliament doings, which has ground to a halt with no postings of parliamentary debate since March. I sure miss the daily Hansard alert service. No response to an email to founder Matthew Landaeur a few weeks ago.

Open and Shut among the top twenty law blogs

Thanks to Lawyers Weekly for alerting me to Open and Shut's appearance in a top 20 Australian law blogs list compiled by Twosteps, a legal job site. Seeing that I don't regard the blog simply as a law blog and they only listed 13, you might think there can't be many out there or the competition wasn't so hot in any event  Selflessly mind you and at risk of losing my toehold next time, below the Twosteps roll call are others who might have a claim.

Blogger's bad week

Apologies for any unusual experiences you may have encountered here during the week-duplicated RSS or email notifications of posts, or in making a comment, for example- as Google's Blogger platform had a shocker, felt by users around the world. The disasters have mostly been resolved. But at least we're back from a complete wipeout on Thursday/Friday, and compared to some who have lost posts, seem to be intact.

Blogging not quite as usual

We finished 2010 with 43,381 hits for the year, compared to 30,355 the previous year, and 17,003 and 13,574 for the two years before that. Low expectations meant we didn't keep track in 2006, year one of this little effort. Thanks folks. Particularly pleased with the trend, and the increase in comments. We have a busy Anonymous or a surfeit of Anonymouses.

Thanks to whoever is behind Australian Blog Sites for the mention and the wrap generally for the blogosphere.

I'm travelling for much of the next month or so, including time in Washington where I'm catching up with some of the open government community. I was in Palm Springs last week where you're likely to see anything- that's me in the white socks (truly) in long time family friend jennifer lyn browne's photo

Good intentions... again.

Things I meant to do before heading off overseas, but won't get around to:

Tell you that Christmas came and went and still not a word about the Belcher Report on entitlements for federal parliamentarians, that hopefully addresses transparency issues. The Government has had the report since last April.

Comment before submissions closed on 14 January, on the NSW Information Commissioner's consultation paper on the privacy issues arising from the GIPA requirement for online publication of submissions and objections to a local council on development applications. I would have said that submissions and objections are attempts to influence decion making, should as a general rule be available for public inspection, and that publication on the internet facilitates public engagement, discussion and debate. However publication of personal details-signature, home address for example-on the web is unnecessary and inappropriate. And there should always be scope for individuals to submit, for reasons they need to outline, that their name shouldn't be published either. The same rules should apply to any submission to any agency seeking input on policy or regarding the exercise of decision making powers.

Comment before 1 March on the Australian Information Commissioner's issues paper setting out ten draft principles on open public sector information.They all sound pretty good to me. Not only should every agency have a senior information champion, the agency should have a plan on what it will do to promote and achieve more open access to information. And the Commissioner should establish how performance will be measured.

Draw attention to the Guidelines issued by the Australian Information Commissioner under s 93A that an agency must have regard to when they are performing a function or exercising a power under the FOI Act. ("Must have regard to" seems to mean something along the lines of "can't be ignored" but short of "must act in accordance with.") Nothing yet published on the crucial issue of the application of the public interest test in conditional exemptions which now have a more pro-disclosure flavour.

Try to catch up on a raft of interesting decisions handed down in December including by Justice Emmett in the Federal Court in Secretary Department of Health and Ageing v iNova Pharmaceuticals (Australia) Pty Limited; Judge Brebner in the South Australian District Court in Ekaton Corporation Pty Ltd v Chapman& Department of Health; the Western Australian Information Commissioner in Australia First Party Inc v Department of Commerce , and Apache Northwest Pty Ltd v Department of Mines and Petroleu; the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in Petroulias and Commissioner of Taxation and Snell and Civil Aviation Safety Authority

As it's now seven months since the end of the 2009-2010 year, have a look at the annual report of the NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal (but the link on that page to reports doesn't work) and Privacy NSW (but the report didn't make it onto that website before it folded into the Information and Privacy Commission in January and isn't on the Commission website either.)

Good intentions...

All the best...

Wiki Commons-Hai Linh Truong, Sydney

I'll be around for the next few weeks, spending more time than usual enjoying the view, but expect many, most, or all of you will soon be a million miles from caring about the usual fare found here. So best wishes for Christmas, the season, summer or winter solstice or whatever you are celebrating, and a safe, healthy and rewarding 2011. Thanks to readers, casual and dedicated, near and far, for your interest and feedback.