6 Comments

  1. Yes, I just noticed your comment on the TechCrunch article Laurel 🙂

    For those who can’t be bothered to go and have a look, this is what I had to say earlier in the day:

    I don’t think the Australian Government can be criticised for putting together a consultation paper on this topic … they have to do this in order to receive comments from the public, it’s simply the way they operate. I think it’s great they’ve got to the point of realising that blogs would be a very good way to have conversations with the general public.

    I took a quick look at the PDF. What Duncan didn’t mention is that the public (including organisations) are invited to respond to this paper before 1st December. So if you have something to say about the policy, why don’t you submit a response? If we are unable to engage with pollies on our platform of choice (eg blogs) then we need to engage with them on their platform (white papers) if we want to influence the decision-making process.

    Anyway, take a look at http://www.senatoronline.com.au … the Government is falling behind re online conversations with constituents, so the outcome of the white paper is likely a formality. They will have to produce a blog because the Australian public will demand it if they don’t.

    — ENDS

    While putting up a wiki sounds like a transparent, collaborative and wonderful idea, it’s extremely unlikely AGIMO will accept a submission in that format. Further, the more submissions they receive saying they want blogging etc, the more likely it is they will listen. So it is actually a good idea not to collaborate in this instance. I strongly suggest everyone does the analog thing and send AGIMO your comments the old fashioned way 🙂

    Would love to know what our friend Andrew Bartlett thinks of all this!

  2. *laughs at li’l sis* umm I think you can usually double post on your own and someone elses blog, but … 😛

    I didn’t mean give them the wiki, I meant send in a collaborative document with all our names on it. And really push the web 2.0 thing by treating it as an interactive consumer submission.
    But we don’t have to, I figure I can fill a book up and send it in. Heh.

  3. Good post Laurel – and I liked your comment on TC.

    For an ex-public servant, Duncan has a very short memory (or is just linkbaiting): consultations are meant to be extensive and inclusive, hence the need for a paper like this…

    I posted some thoughts about this and an initiative her in New Zealand here:

    http://tinyurl.com/37vw5j

    Cheers,
    Jason

  4. Hi Anonymous/Jason, thanks for your comments. (incidentally you can use a href=” on here to link to your own blog post directly.)
    Let me show you more of what I gave SMH – they didn’t print it all of course – but I was aware of the NZ Police wiki:

    The approach the Australian Government is taking is different than New Zealand. Instead of having every Government Department eventually deploy their own blog, wiki, forum, chat room, this Australian Government Consultation Blog project seems to be seeking to centralise the discussion. We won’t have to go to the Police Department page to find a way of inserting ourselves in the dicussion on the wording of a New Act for Parliament. We won’t have to hunt down Frank Connolly’s excellent Victorian Public Sector Continuous Improvement Network blog http://www.vpscin.org/ (sponsored by Christine Nixon, Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police) to participate in CI. It will be co-ordinated from one community host, as part of an overall strategy of collating, disseminating and collaborating on government activity and discussion.

    This is a great opportunity for the Australian Government to deal directly with the Australian people and it will mean bypassing traditional media such as newspapers. So that if the Government has had limited ability to voice their point of view in debates in the press, this strategy will challenge the typical Government submits a press release and the Press may publish what they want the Public to know. This blog brings the conversation directly between Government and Voter.

    Finally, if a Government was to resist entering into online communities they also risk becoming locked out of discussions by major Influencers. If the people we listen to and who guide us on major issues are NOT politicians and if they are running communities of their own, politicians may find out they cannot enter into the discussion ( e.g. the Whirlpool.net.au debate where a senator’s comments on broadband were deleted by the moderators as “self-serving”, three times). When it comes time to canvass the Public, the Public will be already online articulating their concerns and issues – only not into a forum the politicians can engage with. That must surely be avoided at all costs?

  5. LOL!!!

    Are you kidding me? I agree with Duncan. The whole idea of a consultation paper on a consultation blog is totally ridiculous. Only a bunch of clueless Canberra bureaucrats could come up with such an idea.

    Btw, was there a consultation paper on whether or not Howard should be using YouTube?

  6. …because YouTube already has policies and procedures in place and are equipped to deal with hosted i.e. remote conversations.

    If the government wants to host the community themselves, they need to get everyone on the same page. That’s a LOT of work. It’s much easier to do a distributed marketing campaign for superficial dialogue at youtube, myspace and facebook.

    Personally, if I was the Gov. I wouldn’t do it. I’d outsource and underwrite to a social network management group. Less aggravation, reduce risk of legal ramifications and still get the same benefits…

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