[@OKau] Kellie Tranter on the OGP

Wed Apr 8 22:17:41 UTC 2015

Hi Steven, 
The comments I made about the Tranter article when first posting it to this list was not really a considered response. If I were to make a considered response it would have to acknowledge Kellie's point about the lack of government engagement with the Open Government Partnership. I just think that Kellie used the wrong argument to support her case when she claimed that this lack of movement reflects a desire to hide information particularly in the realm of budget transparency. 
Having worked on this topic for the past couple of years I can not agree with Kellie as I have seen changes both in the release of federal budget data in usable formats, in the implementation of whole of government approach to the publication of community grants funding and in the extension of consultation in public accounts committees to citizen activists/consultants including but not limited to myself. 
The NSW state budget may also be released in usable formats in the near future.
While I don't know why the government is taking so long to join the Open Government Partnership, I am also unsure that this means the government is not committed to opening data and improving services. The establishment of the Digital Transformation Office would seem to be positive evidence of the government's commitment to improving services through technology- at least most people I interact with in the open data community seem to think so. I don't know much about it personally.
I am not sure what specifically the Open Government Partnership binds the Australian government to and what the concrete outcomes of this would be as opposed to what is already taking place. I'd be interested to hear from people who do have knowledge of this. 
I'm not sure if this answers your question Steven but it gives a fuller account of my response to Kellie's assertions.

Rosie Williams BA (Sociology)________________________________________

 NoFibs.com.au - Open Data Reporter InfoAus.net - Founder and Developer 

Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 15:01:14 +1000
From: steven.decosta at linkdigital.com.au
To: okfn-au at lists.okfn.org
Subject: Re: [@OKau] Kellie Tranter on the OGP

"Another approach is to just let people post what they want and have the official position of the organisation be that it does not necessarily endorse the opinions posted"
That is pretty much what I was thinking too :)
I'm mostly thinking about this from a reporting perspective. I want to be able to get some of this good stuff into the public domain quickly via the OKAU blog.
In the future I think there will be some 'official' views endorsed by OKAU as comments on contemporary issues, but maybe we can worry about that more when we get a little more organised.
Back to your original and informative comment on the spending data though, perhaps it would be enough for those interested to simply ask people like yourself if they are happy to have their comments published on an OKAU blog post. We can then have a few editorially motivated people like myself pick up on opportunities and post these with the author/commentator's approval.
In your case, and in this instance, does that sound ok with you?
Cheers,StevenSTEVEN DE COSTA | EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
www.linkdigital.com.au

On 8 April 2015 at 14:35, Rosie Williams <budgetaus at hotmail.com> wrote:

Hi Steven and Cobi, 
Thanks for your thoughts. I wasn't speaking on behalf of OKAU when I posted to the list. I don't have an official position within the Open Knowledge AU other than as moderator of this list. I know Kellie Tranter supports what I do by the way, I imagine she thought she was speaking in support of what I do. I just wanted to correct statements about the government's attitude toward fiscal transparency as I disagreed with what she said. I did find her link to the Hansard recording John Sheridan's statements about the Open Government Partnership extremely interesting.
I don't know if you can have a consensus position on OKAU when there is no decision making process that requires us all to vote and we'd have to decide what would or would not be subject to decision making. At present there is no official membership so it is also unclear who would get to vote - but it might be one way of getting people to engage if it gives them the right to influence the voice of the organisation. In this the decision making process would have to be able to demonstrate that it is actually reflecting the views of the majority (although you did say consensus) if that is the way decisions will be carried.
Other thoughts are that might be difficult to build consensus in a timely fashion to respond to issues of the day. I can imagine a process like this getting bogged down in debate and bureaucracy.
I'm curious Steven about your concept of what is 'uncontroversial'. I imagine those kinds of value judgements are in the eye of the beholder but what I guess you mean, is opinions should be in line with the organisational objectives and values. Without a decision making process it is hard to imagine how those objectives and values are going to be defined. If they have already been decided by the Board or by the parent organisation in the UK then I suppose that cuts out the need to build a consensus around them for our purposes. 
Another approach is to just let people post what they want and have the official position of the organisation be that it does not necessarily endorse the opinions posted, that they are not the official position of the organisation and are published for the purposes of encouraging discussion and debate. This sounds very low on bureaucracy to me and might encourage people to post their opinions to the blog as it will give them a mouthpiece they might not otherwise have. Controversy is not always a bad thing as it engages people. If people are engaging with blog posts then ensuing discussion can be controversial as well and that might need managing (moderating). 

In my opinion the standard for publishing an opinion is that it can be backed up by evidence and sources rather than that it holds to a particular view. Anyway those are just some thoughts. Do with them what you will. 
regards,

Rosie Williams BA (Sociology)________________________________________

 NoFibs.com.au - Open Data Reporter InfoAus.net - Founder and Developer 

Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 12:37:16 +1000
From: steven.decosta at linkdigital.com.au
To: okfn-au at lists.okfn.org
Subject: Re: [@OKau] Kellie Tranter on the OGP

I agree! Rosie is doing tops stuff :)
Something I'd like to raise with this list is how we enable people to share their insights and opinions via the OKAU blog. It is easy to write something uncontroversial and post it up. Board minutes, news about something in the public domain and updates from meetups are all examples.
However, when putting up something that is in reaction to, or opposition to something in the public domain then the message would need to be one of the following:
1. The opinion of the poster2. The broad consensus opinion of OKAU3. Some other consensus opinion (such as the Melbourne group, or a particular working group area).
So as to enable quick responses on topical issues of the day I think we'd need to go with the default position that all posts are the opinion of the author. However, if we are to truly amplify the message of something then we'd need an agreed mechanism for things to be escalated as the combined voice of OKAU.
We have a similar situation with the response to the metadata sharing contribution that was made by OKAU.
I think we'd easily find consensus on both the metadata comments and the comments on releasing spending data (while also encouraging more), so maybe this is a good time to put the question to the group.
What mechanism are we happy to use to arrive at a position where a public statement can be made as 'the voice of Open Knowledge Australia'?
I ran into this last night when thinking about where to post the following:http://www.linkdigital.com.au/news/2015/04/data-first-a-practical-guide/

It is something that might be relevant for ckan.org or au.okfn.org, but as it is largely an opinion piece I thought it best to not assume anything and check with people later.
Maybe I'm over thinking this and we should aim to simply post interesting and relevant items as they come up (as the opinion of the author). The post comments are then an easy place for further public discussion...
What do others think?

Cheers,StevenSTEVEN DE COSTA | EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
www.linkdigital.com.au

On 8 April 2015 at 12:11, Cobi Alison Smith <cobi.smith at unimelb.edu.au> wrote:

Thanks for sharing Rosie; I hadn't seen this. One of the things Steven and I talked about off-list is how I'd love to see current Open Knowledge campaigns reflected on the agenda
 within Australia:
https://okfn.org/get-involved/campaigns/

you're doing awesome work in this space Rosie - I appreciate it. 

(reminder - I think you'd be a great Shuttleworth fellow! 
https://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/applications/ )

From: okfn-au [okfn-au-bounces at lists.okfn.org] on behalf of Rosie Williams [budgetaus at hotmail.com]

Sent: Wednesday, 8 April 2015 11:21 AM

To: okfn-au at lists.okfn.org

Subject: [@OKau] Kellie Tranter on the OGP

Kellie Tranter has a piece in On Line Opinion today about Australia's participation in the Open Government Partnership. 

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=17233

I'm happy to see people writing about open government and transparency although I disagree with Ms Tranter that the government is not opening data relevant to government spending. Since I've been working with open data, the government has made significant
 inroads into opening spending information and improving the way financial information is published by government. 

In fact, the Audit Commission Report made specific mention of the desire to improve accountability and transparency around spending information, including program evaluation.
http://nofibs.com.au/2014/05/05/17908/

Rosie Williams BA (Sociology)
________________________________________

 NoFibs.com.au - Open Data Reporter
 InfoAus.net - Founder and Developer 

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