The Australian Government has released an official consultation (white) paper on whether it should launch a “consultation blog.”
According to the paper, the Special Minister of State the Hon. Gary Nairn states that the purpose of the paper is to discuss the provision of the consultation blog and “sets out to balance the opportunities provided by the new online environment against the challenges and very real threats emerging to the identity and privacy of individuals.” The blog itself “is
envisaged as a website that lists consultations and allows people to post responses, comments and feedback against each consultation.”
Now whilst it’s great to see a sovereign nation officially consider a blogging strategy, I want what ever it is the soon-to-be former Government is smoking; the irony of launching a consultation paper on a consultation blog seems lost on them. Certainly deciding to run a blog based on a lengthy consultation process by itself seems to me to prove that they shouldn’t be blogging at all; after all, if the purpose of having a consultation blog is to gain feedback from the public, wouldn’t they just be better off launching the blog and taking feedback from the public via the blog rather than launching a consultation paper that probably cost six figures to come up with by a committee of high paid public servants who love nothing more than creating papers like this as a means to avoid real exposure to the will of the public? A little cynical perhaps, but reading a paper that describes blogs like 2002 called again can do that to you.
The PDF in all its glory can be found here.
Disclosure: I’m a former Australian Government staffer.
(via Des Walsh)
Aren’t the politicians worried about clogging the tubes!
Mr Nairn is smoking an election defeat.
His only responsibility since pulling on shorts has been to oversee the Federal Government’s advertising revenue, which is at an historic all time high.
He wouldn’t know blog if it ran over him.
All announcements for the next 8 weeks, from anyone closely related to the current Government, have to be taken in the context of a ruling party that is facing demolition.
The problem’s solution: No government = No stupid, bureauratic government blogging. It’s so easy …
“soon-to-be former” - calling the election so early Duncan? It’d seem you already are smoking the drugs you’re so keen to lay your hands on. Which could explain your second paragraph, as a Crown servant it seems you certainly have learnt the art of waffling.
I think I speak for a lot of TechCrunch readers when I say that, honestly, I couldn’t care less about the Australian government. Perhaps time to launch TechOz?
From the government’s point of view, the issue is more complex. First of all, there is most likely a legal requirement in this case to operate a consultation process about this kind of issue, one with start and close dates, regulatory impact assessment, etc. That’s why they need a consultation paper to propose this. Secondly, they’re going to need some kind of legal instrument for introducing a “consultation blog” as it’d be hard to leave it up to civil servants when the blog is used and when not. Depending on what legal instrument is used, all kinds of complexities will ensue.
the irony of launching a consultation paper on a consultation blog
Huh? Isn’t this just a silly slam? It seems to me to be 100% logically consistent and you’re just pounding them for not being immediate Kool-Aid drinkers.
Government works by consultation papers.
Evangelist proposes blog.
Government has consultation paper about whether it should in the future use blog.
[So far completely consistent, but watch out ...]
Evangelist rants you-don’t-get-it. Government was apparently supposed to *agree* immediately to the new process, since evangelist was self-evidently correct, and using the old process to consider the new process is proof of being wrong. Because that implies the old process has value, and evangelists knows _a priori_ that can’t be true (which you basically say!)
I think the irony is rather the reverse. You’ve just shown one of the major weaknesses of blogs, the incentive to pander in order to get traffic.
Look … governments should be encourage to use technology in all ways possible provided they give a service to the community. So, conducting a study before they jump on it is very appropriate. I applaud them for doing their homework.
Government encouraging technology
http://vidsonly.blogspot.com
The last thing any country needs is for its government to start blogging.
I agree with #5 (sputnick): I don’t want to be bothered with this kind of pseudo news on TechCrunch. Duncan, too many of your articles are similarly irrelevant. Start TechOz or write for Sun, Daily Mirror or Perez Hilton.
Just another proud moment in the (soon to be former) Howard government’s history of complete and utter misunderstanding of exactly what the internet is. Who remembers Richard Alston’s infamous attempts to legislate to ban pornography on the internet?
Duncan, I truly hope you weren’t a staffer for that particular intellectual giant.
Oh btw - Sputnick & Wolke - would it be too much to ask that Australian issues get a run every now and again on TechCrunch or is this a strictly northern hemisphere site? No one is forcing you to (a) read them and certainly (b) not to comment on them.
Here’s an idea - if a story isn’t interesting to you, ignore it. Or do you actually have nothing else to do?
Seriously guys. If you don’t want to read an article about the “Australian Government”, then perhaps you could avoid reading articles whose titles begin with “Australian Government”. Caveat emptor etc.
Just a thought.
Go Maxine!!
Our thanks to sputnick and Wolke Snow for the gracious expression of cultural superiority. Interesting that Marc Benioff of Salesforce commented in an interview that, in Asia, Australia is a bigger opportunity for them right now than China or India. After Japan, “Australia’s definitely second and Singapore’s probably third”. And guess what? Governments are very big spenders on technology. Time to get out more? See the world?
I don’t think the Australian Government can be criticised for putting together a consultation paper on this topic … they have to do this in order to receive comments from the public, it’s simply the way they operate. I think it’s great they’ve got to the point of realising that blogs would be a very good way to have conversations with the general public.
I took a quick look at the PDF. What Duncan didn’t mention is that the public (including organisations) are invited to respond to this paper before 1st December. So if you have something to say about the policy, why don’t you submit a response? If we are unable to engage with pollies on our platform of choice (eg blogs) then we need to engage with them on their platform (white papers) if we want to influence the decision-making process.
Anyway, take a look at http://www.senatoronline.com.au … the Government is falling behind re online conversations with constituents, so the outcome of the white paper is likely a formality. They will have to produce a blog because the Australian public will demand it if they don’t.
PS - no, I’m not a public servant, I simply believe strongly in the citizen’s right to participate in the democratic process
They cannot put up a consultation blog on the subject of consultation blogging until they have consulted the public on the suitability of a consultation blog. I am guessing there was a beauracratic catch 22 - you cannot spend money on a blog platform until you have consulted the public on the technology - even if that consultant costs more than setting up a blog platform.
There was nothing in the paper that suggested the Consultation Blog would resemble a blog. It describes uploaded files and images and a series of forums. No journal or personal communications with comment threads. No series of blog posts on a topic.
I’ve heard that Australia is the most over-bureaucratised country in the world… now I see why. (I’m an Aussie, btw).
Is anyone else thinking of “Yes Minister”?
Duncan, you are waaaaaay off beam here.
The Government is inviting the community to help develop Community Guidelines. If you don’t know what they are, it’s a Code of Conduct. Rules of Engagement. Etiquette Statement.
Now what most community hosts usually do: is basically decide themselves how the community should behave, in a fairly draconian way. Then they figure out they have to lighten up - before it’s too late. That’s not letting the community have ownership.
Another popular tactic: is to have NO code of conduct. And end up with spam-ridden forums like TechCrunch. You guys get a 10/10 for blogging and 0/10 for forums. Seriously. Though I personally found the “how to hack Yahoo AOL password” threads particularly useful.
The third option: community hosts pay a fortune for a social networks strategist like me to come in and help them navigate their way through the quagmire of establishing purpose, place, profiles, roles, leaders, etiquette, events/rituals and swarms. Tax money that could be spent elsewhere while letting the voters decide how they want to be managed.
So in spite of the fact that they are confusing the one-to-many limitations of a blog with a full scale on line community, it’s just semantics at this stage. and having the community establish and agree to the guidelines is going to put them in a good position when the old lovies at MainStreamMedia start screaming that the ‘government blog is full of … (insert pejoratives)’ - tricky to take that stance when you will have a community of a few hundred thousands screaming back that it was the “voters’ decision”
My motto is: I’m lazy, let the community run the community. Now, how much are you going to pay me to get your forums back on track hmmmm?
(I don’t get out of bed for less than a coffee and a sandwich).
Communication is key to any business. With communications technology presenting an ability to easily and inexpensively reach millions of people all over the world… possibly just over a third of the planet currently, it would make sense for ALL world governments to be operating forums and blogs online, and making use of the technology to better communicate with people.
Has anyone ever noticed that the only time you ever see a politician in a public place inviting ‘chat’ is around election times? They all disappear from public malls very quickly
The one thing though that any government it seems can be counted on is for exhaustive red tape and consultative processes which in the end simply equate to the world passing them by
Ha - ha. I love that. A pure piece of government nonsense. Surprised they haven’t launched a consultation about having a cosultation about having a consultation blog.
Blogging should be left to the people not “out of touch” civil servants. Anyway a good blog that I spotted is http://www.secretarialblog.co.uk . It’s the exact opposite of the proposed blog above. Built for a particular community with community involvement.
@sputnick: I think I speak for a lot of people outside the US when I say that, honestly, I couldn’t care less about US politics, but that doesn’t stop us getting reports on it day after day because of how supposedly important it is.
This was a story about blogging. Yes, it happened be about some place outside the US. Deal with it.
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