Category Archives: Editorial

Melbourne Water inquiry open for submissions (Finally)

2008-07-26 – 15:04:40

(crosspost from this.)
As outlined here (2008-05-28), the Inquiry into Melbourne’s Future Water Supply, which was sent the the ENRC by the Legislative Council on 2007-09-19 has FINALLY let people know where they can send submissions (Details over the fold).
Obviously, all those folk protesting about the DeSal and pipeline plans (?secret memoranda of understandings about contracts?), […]

By Dave Bath | Also posted in Announcement, Vic, Vic: Environment and Natural Resources | Comments (0)

Review: Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment

2008-06-02 – 00:02:00

The Democrat Dissenting Opinion to the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment Bill 2008 Senate Majority Report makes "interesting" reading … it points to considerable differences between the privacy concerns of ALP senators before and after the election.
Go first to sections 1.8, 1.9 and 1.10 of the Democrat opinion, and then scan through the rest.
A less […]

By Dave Bath | Also posted in Federal, Senate: Legal and Constitutional | Comments (0)

Kinda-Open-Thread: Have you spied any inquiries?

2008-05-30 – 21:17:13

Other blogs have “open threads”, so this is the first weekend thread specifically for you to let us know about any inquiries that interest you among the many we haven’t been able to comment on.

By Dave Bath | Comments (4)

A small win…

2008-05-30 – 21:15:14

Whew … a small win in more effective use of IT by the government so people can be informed efficiently by Kim Carr. See this over at Balneus.

By Dave Bath | Also posted in Activities, minister.industry.gov.au | Comments (0)

Survey about Vic Parl Website

2008-05-22 – 14:16:22

The Victorian Parliament Website has a current survey about how good it is.
Personally, I think the Victorian site is far inferior to the federal parliament, the survey is in a particularly closed format, and, what is surprising, is that the survey is not even hosted by government, but by surveymonkey.com.
Anyway, have a look around the […]

By Dave Bath | Also posted in Activities, Announcement, Vic | Comments (0)

New Wonkery Member

2008-05-21 – 11:12:35

Welcome to The Wonkery Patrick!
Others who wish to note government (and departmental) consultations, and/or share thoughts about submissions in their areas of interest can comment on this post, join ozblogistan, and I’ll give you authorship privileges.

By Dave Bath | Comments (1)

Kosky calls for comments - very quietly

2008-05-19 – 17:51:46

Another Clayton’s consultation in Victoria: this time Lyn Kosky, Public Transport Minister, is after comments about "train pain".
Talk about making it difficult to ensure your comments go to the right spot!  It’s almost as if the lack of organization is intentional.  Geeks would say the Minister wants all criticism directed to /dev/null (a.k.a. a black […]

By Dave Bath | Also posted in Announcement, Vic, premier.vic.gov.au, transport.vic.gov.au | Comments (0)

A glimmer of hope - help if you can

2008-05-19 – 12:33:48

There is some encouraging feedback I received, within 24 hours (and only 3 working hours), from a public servant at egov.vic.gov.au, which has the task of improving "citizen access and transformation" to/of government.  My letter and the response are detailed over the fold.
My note to webmaster@egov.vic.gov.au was prompted by trying to search for an easy […]

By Dave Bath | Also posted in Activities, Agency Feedback, Vic, egov.vic.gov.au | Comments (1)

Do you know if…

2008-05-18 – 18:36:24

Does anyone know of other inquiries, state or federal, parliamentary or departmental, that are open and not yet covered in this blog?
Does anyone know of good concise RSS feeds (or web pages) for departmental or state government announcements of inquiries or reports that have just been tabled?
Add a comment here, and I’ll incorporate them into […]

By Dave Bath | Comments (2)

No inquiry for AccessCard: The Next Generation

2008-05-18 – 18:32:52

To be implemented by 2008-07-01 is what seems to be an even more invasive version of AccessCard, without an inquiry (as far as I know), even though the AccessCard had both a departmental and parliamentary inquiry.
Does anyone know of a departmental inquiry on this either mooted or underway?  There’s certainly no time between the announcement […]

By Dave Bath | Also posted in Federal | Comments (0)