[@OKau] Kellie Tranter on the OGP

Thu Apr 9 09:38:30 UTC 2015

Thanks Rosie - the binary question here is, are you happy for me to do a
blog post on this?  I'm happy to get it ready and get your approval on it
before it is posted :)

Cheers,
Steven

*STEVEN DE COSTA *|
*EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR*www.linkdigital.com.au

On 9 April 2015 at 08:17, Rosie Williams <budgetaus at hotmail.com> wrote:

>
> 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 <http://nofibs.com.au> - Open Data Reporter
>  InfoAus.net <http://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,
> Steven
>
> *STEVEN 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 <http://nofibs.com.au> - Open Data Reporter
>  InfoAus.net <http://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 poster
> 2. The broad consensus opinion of OKAU
> 3. 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,
> Steven
>
> *STEVEN 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 <http://nofibs.com.au> - Open Data Reporter
>  InfoAus.net <http://infoaus.net> - Founder and Developer
>
>
>
>
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