Category Archives: Projects

Our response to the ‘Electronic voting in the House of Representatives’ Report

By Mackay Ash | Published: May 24, 2016

Back in March, we submitted our views to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Procedure’s inquiry into electronic voting. And their Final Report is out now! Our submission outlined the benefits that electronic voting could bring by creating a fuller voting record, which increases accountability and transparency. Unfortunately, the Committee didn’t quite see it […]

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Rebels in the ranks? Hardly.

By Mackay Ash | Published: May 5, 2016

Members of parliamentary parties rarely cross the floor, because parties expect loyalty from their team members. … [Crossing the floor] may be seen to be giving greater preference to the needs of the electorate than the needs of the party. … A member of parliament who crosses the floor may be considered a traitor to […]

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They Vote For You and the Open Government Partnership (OGP) – Continued

By Mackay Ash | Published: April 7, 2016

Back in mid-March, we announced that They Vote For You was getting into the Open Government Partnership (OGP) action. We started by developing policies related to the Anti-Corruption Working Group: For creating a federal Anti-Corruption Commission For restricting donations to political parties We then looked at the Public Resources Working Group and came up with […]

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OpenAustralia Foundation in residence at Frontyard Projects

By Henare Degan | Published: April 1, 2016

A photo posted by FRONTYARD (@frontyardorg) on Mar 16, 2016 at 5:07am PDT A few weeks ago my partner Lisa and I were checking out the Marrickville Open Studio Trail (MOST). MOST is a wonderful initiative organised by my local council, Marrickville Council, where over 50 local studios and galleries have open days over the […]

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Scrutinising the audience experience of Election Leaflets

By Erietta Sapounakis | Published: March 29, 2016

I relish elections. The political commentary, the placards, the barbeques and the jam stalls on the day. And I love election leaflets. Surprisingly still relevant artefacts of the democratic process that have maintained a unique style of kitsch for as long as I can remember. And so I got involved in OpenAustralia Foundations’ Election Leaflets, […]

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Our submission to the Inquiry into procedures for counting and reporting the vote in a division

By Luke Bacon | Published: March 17, 2016

These are the buttons Ukrainian MPs use to vote *cough* @AboutTheHouse @AuSenate *cough* #auspol #qt #parliament pic.twitter.com/j69R72a248 — Henare Degan (@henaredegan) November 13, 2015 If you follow this blog, or our projects like OpenAustralia.org.au or They Vote For You, you’ll know that we work hard to increase peoples’ access to information about what goes on […]

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They Vote For You and the Open Government Partnership (OGP)

By Mackay Ash | Published: March 16, 2016

In July Australia will submit its first National Action Plan to the Open Government Partnership (OGP). These National Action Plans are lists of concrete commitments to advance open government in an OGP member country over a two year period by improving transparency, participation, and accountability. The commitments are co-created by the government and civil society. […]

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How to make an OGP National Action Plan commitment

By Kat Szuminska | Published: February 23, 2016

Photo by stevendepolo on Flickr (cc by 2.0) Australia has only 5 months to define ambitious open government reforms for its first Open Government Partnership (OGP) National Action Plan. In this time we must gather raw ideas, research, discuss and deliberate them into fully developed, budgeted, and agreed commitments. In July the government must announce […]

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You Saved the Historic Alexandria Hotel – Go You!

By Henare Degan | Published: February 10, 2016
A photo of the current Alexandria Hotel and an artists impression of the proposed development

In June last year a development application was submitted to demolish the Alexandria Hotel, an old pub in inner-Sydney, and replace it with a new apartment block. Hundreds of people in the local community opposed the loss of this historic building and over a quarter of those people used PlanningAlerts [PDF] to have their say. […]

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Another big story from Right To Know, and how you can do it too

By Henare Degan | Published: February 5, 2016

Over recent weeks there’s been lots of interest in a story about Australia’s mandatory data retention regime. In passing these controversial laws last year the government agreed to reign in the number of agencies able to access your data. However, the laws allowed agencies to re-apply for access. Two weeks ago it was discovered that […]

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