Australia, where the bloody hell are you??

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.