As noted elsewhere, the RSS feeds for the minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research via the Australian Government Media Announcements feed are particularly useless, so I used the feedback page to express my disappointment and hope that it might leed to improvements.
Text of my feedback to ministry.industry.gov.au is over the fold.
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 way of discovering what (if any) government consultations are happening in Victoria, and what reports from those consultations have been published recently.
My email was to encourage a small step to improve the transparency of the Victorian government, which, since the rise of Kennett, has grown increasingly opaque and prone to awarding contracts for projects with almost no scrutiny of the rationale for the project, with "consultation", if they occur at all, essentially a public relations exercise after decisions have been taken.
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 the Resources page, write a post, or invite you to join The Wonkery
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 of the initiative and the time it will start rolling out into production!
More details at Balneus 2008-05-18.
The Privacy Commissioner has a consultation open about a code for notifying individuals about privacy breaches, with comments due 2008-06-16.
consultation@privacy.gov.auAs noted in the introductory sections of the draft…
The Inquiry into Ready-to-Drink Alcohol Beverages by the Senate Community Affairs Committee, with public submissions due by 2008-05-30.
Hmmm. Are there any alcoholic beverages that are not "ready-to-drink"?
The Senate Finance and Public Administration Committee has announced an Inquiry into the Lobbying Code of Conduct, (you can get the code here) with submissions due 2008-06-10. The inquiry is meant to review if…
DEEWR are after submissions (including "tell us your story" submissions) to help review the National Mental Health and Disability Employment Strategy discussion paper.
It’s a departmental (not parliamentary) inquiry, so it’s a little harder to dig up administrivia, but I’ll point to a Balneus post on this subject, and the links inside it.
Notes/See Also:
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The Senate Economics Committee has announced an Inquiry into the Reserve Bank Amendment (Enhanced Independence) Bill 2008, with submissions due by 2008-05-23.
This bill amends the Reserve Bank Act 1959 by removing the authority of the Treasurer to appoint, suspend and terminate the positions of Governor or Deputy-Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), and placing this authority in the hands of the Governor General. The bill also outlines that, in the case of the termination of the positions of the Governor or the Deputy-Governor of the RBA, the Governor-General exercises this authority at the discretion of the Parliament.
New Senate Inquiries Recent Senate Reports