The other, which I expect to be of interest to regular readers with a law background, is the 2008 Federal Criminal Justice Forum which is calling for nominations for papers, attendees, and submissions, including online submissions.  Significant dates for the Criminal Justice Review process are here.

You might also be interested in the reports from the Review of the Commonwealth Community Legal Services Program - March 2008.

While I’ll be putting something into the eSecurity review, I’ve nowhere near enough jurisprudence to send something on the Federal Criminal Justice system, although I’d love to see comments from any readers to let us know they’ve contributed.

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?), and those worried about water (rural or metropolitan, they are linked), should think seriously about putting in a submission even if it’s "Please do not proceed with the desalination plants and goulburn valley pipeline" should get of their backsides.

Before the details on how to submit, however, let’s just think about the following dates:

• Referred by the Legislative Committee: 2007-09-19
• Open for submissions: 2008-07-22
• Submissions close: 2008-08-29
• Report due: 2008-12-31 (at the latest, and while everybody is on holiday)

While the enrc.vic.gov.au promised (2008-05-26, Message-ID: <OFD2489B06.0CE8BC76-ONCA257454.007C55CE@parliament.vic.gov.au> if anyone at the Vic Parliament wants to verify this) to get back to me when submissions are open, do you think they’ve done it yet?  It’ll be interesting (and given Joh Brumby’s attitude to governance, it’ll probably be disappointing) to see when this promise is realized and something arrives in my gmail.

But think for a moment about those date ranges…

• From referral to reporting: 469 days (100%).
• From referral to submissions open: 307 days (65%)
• Open for submission: 38 days (8%)
• From close to reporting: 124 days max (35%)
• From open to reporting: 162 days (27%)

I remind you… the ENRC promised to let me know when submissions opened: they haven’t yet, probably hoping that I’d miss the opportunity.

It wouldn’t surprise me if reporting is earlier, and the Victorian ALP spin this as "a very long inquiry, and we’ve expedited the report because it is important".

Now, one of the features of typical senate inquiries is that you can read through submissions to clarify and expand your own thinking on the issue before making your own.  This opportunity has been severely restricted, diminishing the quality of submissions that will (I strongly suspect) be mainly against the Vic ALP’s preferred option (apart from submissions by consortia involved in the deals with Joh Brumby).

I wonder how promptly submissions that are received will be posted on the relevant website so that others can use them to develop their own… (e.g. "what he said").

I’ll probably make a short submission, and the first comment will be to critice the various date ranges detailed above.

Making Submissions (taken from here).

The Committee invites written submissions from interested persons and organisations addressing the terms of reference.  All submissions are treated as public documents unless confidentiality is requested and granted.
 
Please send submissions to:
Executive Officer,
Environment and Natural Resources Committee,
Parliament House,
Spring Street
East Melbourne VIC 3002
or enrc@parliament.vic.gov.au...
 
Further information regarding the reference may be obtained from the Committee Secretariat on (03) 8682 2803,
The Hon. John Pandazopoulos, MP,
Chair

See Also/Notes:

• "Sen John and Premier Joh - A tale of two FOIs"

(2008-07-23), which compares and contrasts the efforts of Senator John Faulkner and Premier Joh Brumby as far as open government goes.
 

• Anything by Ken Davidson on the issues, e.g. this, which includes…
  

  If the Victorian Government has secret agreements in place for these two projects, the difference in the cost of water for Melburnians over 25 years would be $20 billion in todays dollars." But if due process has been followed and no contracts have been signed, no damage will have been done to Victorias interests.

• "Water must come from Tasmania" - Peter Martin (2008-07-08), which links to an important Ken Davidson article.
   

This comment on a 2008-07-25 LP post from the guy who did the MelbourneWater.com.au hydrological study has some good excerpts from two reports: this and this  It’s worth going through the entire article and comments.
 

• "A little inquiry of our own" - Jacques Chester at "The Wonkery" (2008-05-28), which asks what makes for a decent government inquiry
   
• "Kosky calls for comments - very quietly" (2008-05-19)
   
• "Joh Brumby" (2008-02-03)
   
• Inquiry pages at Vic parliament website:
  • Announcement
  • Terms of Reference
  • Invitation to make submissions

Details at http://www.ag.gov.au/esecurityreview, with email submissions to e-securityreview@ag.gov.au

Here are snippets from the discussion paper and terms of reference:

… the review encourages you to consider the role of the following key enablers:

• Supporting policies, procedures and technical standards
• Education, training and awareness raising
• Information sharing, including international cooperation
• Ongoing testing, evaluation and exercises
• Research and development
• Legal and law enforcement
• Physical, administrative and personnel security

You do not need to address all the areas listed above in your submission and you may comment on any other issues that you consider relevant to the terms of reference. The following questions may also assist you in writing your submission:

• What do you see as being Australia’s top three e-security priorities?
• What do you believe are the respective roles and responsibilities of government (including State/Territory and local), industry and home users in addressing e-security issues?
• In what ways could Australia better protect itself against e-security threats and vulnerabilities?
• What do you consider to be your role in e-security in Australia?

My initial thoughts are….

• All tenders must explicitly state DSD-ACSI-33 (and the appropriate level) as a requirement.
• DSD to audit requirements documents and be involved in testing for any system nominated as relating to national security, or widely used within government (e.g. databases accessed by more than one agency).
• No system interfacing with critical infrastructure or central authorization/authentication systems to go into production unless DSD gives it a big tick (including things like backup/restore procedures and patch management plans).
• All third-party systems (e.g. those employment services providers that work on behalf of Centrelink) are audited and reviewed just as much as systems running inside government agencies.
• IT security officers within agencies to have the right to veto new systems going into production.

Big hint — keep operating systems and application systems known to have everpresent security problems out of government… (and this will also improve our trade balance, because of all the money we’ll save by avoiding Microsoft products).

The reports (quick review over the fold) cover youth rehabilitation, progress on the CJEP (Criminal Justice Enhancement Program), and reporting by local governments.

Ultrashort summary of the auditor’s opinions…. "Not happy, Jan"!

• Services to young offenders. 
  You could summarize the media release as
  • The agencies try hard
  • They cannot demonstrate they make a difference
  • Need some decent management, especially to develop a decent set of "scorecards" for outcomes
  • A whole-of-government approach, not just the criminal justice system, is needed.
• Implementation of the Criminal Justice Enhancement Program (CJEP) 
  You could summarize the media release as …
  • benefits haven’t been systematically measured… lack of accountability
  • poor management evidenced by significant scope changes (the original requirements documents were woefully inadequate)
  • over time and over budget (from the managers not being able to define what they actually needed - SNAFU)
• Performance Reporting in Local Government 
  This comes with a companion document (Local Government Performance Reporting: Turning Principles into Practice) that provides guidance on how to do things better (why did the auditor feel the need to go to all the trouble of preparing such a document… hmmmmm?).  The media statement says (my bolding)
  

  the councils’ performance statements generally fail key tests of usefulness.  They contain information that is largely irrelevant and inappropriate to users’ needs…. difficult for ratepayers and residents to hold their elected representatives fully accountable…. councils have taken a very narrow view of their performance reporting obligations - treating the minimum mandatory legal requirements as the maximum disclosure standard

More recent reports here.

Go first to sections 1.8, 1.9 and 1.10 of the Democrat opinion, and then scan through the rest.

A less diplomatic version of this post is over at Balneus.

Indices, rankings and league tables are used widely by thinktanks both to promote their own work and provoke discussion into a wide range of topics — corporate governance, press freedom, economic liberty and so forth.

So here’s what I’m interested in hearing from you: what factors should be included in the Wonkery Inquiry Quality Index?

Length of time for submissions? Number of steps required to submit? Availability of email / fax / phone / website contacts? All these and more could be part of it. Let us know your thoughts.

Even though the inquiry is to report by the end of 2008, and was referred by the Legislative Council back in September 2007, it still isn’t "open", as my request for information got this response a couple of days ago from the "Executive Officer" of the staff of the committee.

The inquiry is yet to commence. I will have someone notify you when submissions are invited.

Details of the inquiry over the fold:

• Inquiry Name: Melbourne’s Future Water Supply
• Subject: the relative merits of supplementing Melbourne?s water supply.
• Dates:
  • Referred: 2007-09-19 September 2007
  • Reporting no later than:
• Web Pages:
  • Main page: http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/enrc/inquiries/Water/default.htm
  • Terms of Reference: http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/enrc/inquiries/Water/terms.html
• Contacts:
  • Email: enrc@parliament.vic.gov.au
  • Phone: (03) 8682 2803
  • Fax: (+613) 8682 2805
  • SnailMail: Environment and Natural Resources Committee, Parliament House, Spring Street, Melbourne 3002, Victoria, Australia
• Terms of Reference:
  The Environment and Natural Resources Committee is required to inquire, consider and report no later than 31 December 2008 on the relative merits of supplementing Melbourne?s water supply by some or all of the following means:
  1. further water savings that can be achieved by increased conservation and efficiency efforts;
  2. the collection of stormwater;
  3. the re-use of treated waste water;
  4. the use of groundwater;
  5. small locally based desalination plants;
  6. any other optional water source which appears to the Committee to be appropriate.

  Minutes of the Proceedings of the Legislative Council of Victoria, No. 38 : Wednesday, 19 September 2007

A similar post, but including snarlsthoughts about the delays between referral and opening, is here.

Any thoughts?  Add a comment - or join up and be able to create a post on this subject.