Thanks very much. I won’t go through the introductions again. I do thank Senator Lundy and Minister Tanner for allowing me to speak today.
Today’s announcement is important for a number of reasons.
One of the central roles of the Taskforce, as Lindsay has mentioned, will be to advise government on how to make government information more accessible and useable. And I think that’s one of the key interests I have.
And another central role is to establish a pro-disclosure culture around non-sensitive public sector information. I think it’s important to understand that information not only has to be put on the web, but it needs to be accessible and useable in a way the government and the public are comfortable with.
These two goals are central objectives of the Government’s proposed FOI reforms, so they fit neatly within what I will be doing this year for government.
The FOI exposure draft as many of you will know was released on 24 March this year and of course it will be introduced into Parliament shortly.
It provides for the creation of a publication scheme under which agencies will need to identify information in their possession for general release.
The publication scheme is intended to fundamentally transform the way both the public service deals with the information, but also how citizens think about FOI. So it’s a two way street - both the government and public want to be talking about FOI more broadly.
We want to transform it from a reactive model – where you make a request and you receive the information you requested – to a pro-disclosure culture where that information is put on the web so the public doesn’t need to ask for it.
However having vast quantities of information available on the web is not the end point. The end point is also ensuring that the information is useable in a way both government and the public expect it to be. The formats and standards used for publications must really encourage innovation from that type of information.
The Taskforce, in combination with the Government’s FOI reforms, will release the full potential of FOI.
The Taskforces chair and its members represent a significant collection of experience and expertise to be able to assist in this task.
Of course this in itself is a great thing, but I’m optimistic the real value of the Taskforce will be in its ability to tap into the skills and experience of the community itself. And as we can see, as part of the work that you’re doing today on, if I can call it the ‘front bench’, you’re tapping into the community right now.
As the previous Minister for Human Services, I have a great personal interest in the delivery of services to the citizens – becoming more citizen centric about the way we provide information, and the way citizens interact with government.
Over the coming decades the transformation of the Service Delivery network to utilise new and emerging technologies, will be essential if government service delivery is to keep pace with community expectations.
Issues of convenience, access and increasingly complex eligibility criteria are combining to drive customers into the online environment.
And of course the demand on government will be that the information there has to be presented in a way that the community can utilise to its advantage.
Delivering this change in paradigm can not be done within government itself. No matter how dynamic in fact government is, it does require the community and the Taskforce to engage on this.
It must look outside to already developed and accepted platforms, to places people can congregate online and find smarter ways to deal with the complex identification and privacy issues which are inherent in these spaces.
It is clear the taskforce has its work cut out for it. I wish them well and look forward to working with them along the way.
Thank you.
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