Australia, where the bloody hell are you??

This diatribe has been bubbling away inside me for the past few weeks since the announcement late last year that after years of inaction, the government had finally signed onto the Open Government Partnership and begun the process to draft the National Action Plan.

You probably don't know what the Open Government Partnership is and I can hardly blame you for that. The OGP is a multilateral agreement, the kind of legally binding contract multiple countries sign up to that requires them to do certain things to be part of this 'Partnership'.

In the case of the Open Government Partnership, you guessed it, Australia is now required to be more 'open' and accountable. In the case of this agreement, to commit to a plan which is drafted by the public which lists actions the government must take to make our government more open and responsible to you and I.

This agreement is a bit different to most. It is not a plan that is drafted behind the scenes in Senate Committees or Cabinet rooms or in offices with the help of lobbyists. This 'National Action Plan' for Open Government can only be drawn up with the input of the public and this includes a 'live drafting event' where the public and government literally draft this thing live.

Sound unusually open? So why then (unless you follow my account on Twitter) have you so far heard nothing about this awesome opportunity to participate in Australia's first Open Government National Action Plan, I wonder? Input into the 'Commitments' that the government should be bound to closes at the end of this month (March). The wiki which can take your input, comments & feedback has been open since November but so far very few of you have ventured to provide input.

I don't blame people, it took till this week for me, someone who has known about this all along and followed every update to figure out that I could simply put my idea straight onto the wiki. It did take a while for me to figure out what I should suggest, to put aside what I thought the government wanted to hear and just say what I thought would be a useful and concrete idea for improving transparency and accountability while improving policy and provision of services.

I also pointed out to that as a multilateral agreement the OGP should probably be added to the list of treaties dealt with by the Joint Standing Committee On Treaties.

Since the announcement that Malcolm Turnbull signed onto this agreement late in 2015, I've followed this process and been progressively concerned about the lack of effort on the government's part to advise Australian's that this consultation is on and also the lack of interest of the many political and policy networks Australia boasts in drafting this plan.

So disgusted was I with the lack of diversity in the groups who actually knew this consultation was on that I took it upon myself to contact every minor party I could find an email for to advise that this was taking place sending a message similar to this blog post. I received but one reply so I assume most of my emails were considered spam. Fair enough but I wanted people of diverse views to know this consultation is on and that they have a right to participate in it. I didn't bother with the major parties, assuming that surely they must know about such an important political process.

The lack of media around this event goes against the very principles of the OGP which has at its heart the goal to boost engagement and participation in the political system. Thus far it would appear that the only sector aware this consultation is going on is the transparency sector. Absent are the general public, the social services sector, the think tanks and the political parties. Why have you not been told about this event that seeks your input from your political party?? Even GetUp does not seem to know that the NAP is a key opportunity that it can advise its members to participate in as part of their campaign to vote out politicians not committed to transparency.

To date only one submission has been received and a whole 24 people (including yours truly) have signed up to edit the OGP National Action Plan Wiki. Given the social challenges faced by our country I find myself a bit underwhelmed.

Recently, I met with Amelia Loye who has been put in charge of the engagement process by PM&C and has put together a plan to engage with civil society (that's you). During my chat with Amelia I aired my concerns about the lack of diversity of interests involved in the National Action Plan and made some suggestions for engaging people on Twitter who may not be familiar with the term 'open government' (which was being used to identify potential participants). I pointed out the untapped potential in the large numbers of people not likely to use the term 'open government' but passionate about issues central to open government, issues like corruption in politics, business & sport, travel rorts, development applications, whistleblower legislation and FOI.

I could see that if the government and it's engagement strategists were only looking for people who used the word open government then they were going to miss out the larger bulk of people concerned about the issues but not using that term to discuss it. As the weeks have rolled by my concern has not eased. Today the Australia Institute put forward a good suggestion for improved transparency and accountability in policy making- that modelling used by government should be held to a transparency standard. This came out of what passes for political debate in this country about negative gearing where the Liberal government put forward what is considered a highly politicised report modelling a negative gearing scenario which is not considered to meet some basic ethical requirements.

I immediately contacted both the journalist who reported the suggestion and the think tank responsible for it to inform them of the opportunity to add such a requirement to the Open Government Partnership National Action Plan. The National Action Plan requires agencies to come into the fold to implement the reforms agreed upon and provides a working-group intended to represent civil society to evaluate how the plan is being implemented and report it back to the governing body, the Open Government Partnership.

I have to wonder why it is me who, without funding is educating myself about all this, producing information for the public and personally contacting political parties, media, think tanks and Twitter users about such an important opportunity to improve how our country is governed?

I am very glad that the government thinks I am a worthy inclusion in this consultation. Given that I am living in utter poverty with no funding but for the donations I receive (which are unlikely to cover a welfare level income), I appreciate the importance of input from Australia's vulnerable and disadvantaged community.

The lack of input from ACOSS, the unions, the think tanks and political parties troubles me greatly. These organisations are supposed to be representing people like me, yet are missing one of the most important and powerful opportunities to set in place standards, goals and practices for a more responsive, accountable and transparency government to be put forward in recent times. I find this rather distressing.

All these organisations are funded, some receiving funds from the government to contribute to the policy process. Yet apparently they know nothing or care nothing for this important process that began late last year and must conclude for implementation by mid-year. This is simply not good enough.

You don't need to be middle class to contribute to the National Action Plan. You do not need a suit, a tie or a lawyers degree- although no doubt some of the participants might imagine this to be a qualification. This is not the nature of strengthening democracy and increasing engagement. Strengthening democracy is about encouraging a diversity of interests not allowing policy to be dominated by particular interest groups. This can only happen if a wide enough number of organisations and interests know about the process and make the effort to get involved.

To date this has not happened. So this is what I have to say to Australia's many think tanks, NGO's and peak organisations. If you don't care enough to do this for the most humble among us then please participate on behalf of yourselves. Do not let this opportunity go past and then complain that we do not have robust democratic processes to represent the gamut of positions in Australia. The process is here and it is time you got on board.