Government 2.0 on the web groove train

In June Lindsay Tanner (the Minister for Finance and Deregulation) launched the Govt 2.0 Taskforce. The Taskforce, made up of technical experts, policy experts, and entrepreneurs, is going full steam ahead. It's charged with accelerating Government onto the web groove train and driving open access to publicly funded information. The Taskforce's blog has already generated a lively and intelligent debate around a host of important issues. Alan Noble (our head of engineering) is a member of the Taskforce and his initial aims for the taskforce are here.

At Google we're strong believers that information is more powerful when it's set free. It's great to see the gathering momentum of moves in Australia to free up government-held information and embrace the web.

In July the Taskforce produced an Issues Paper which asks for input from the public on how to build a pro-disclosure culture within Government and how best to approach the greater release of government information. We submitted a response to the Issues Paper which outlined the following points:

We strongly endorse the Paper's proposal to change the policy and culture of Federal Government and its agencies to ensure that Government-held information is made available more easily to everyone; it's a strategic resource, created or collected at the expense of taxpayers. Our view is that this information should be released quickly, in full, in multiple (open) formats and leveraging available technology solutions (e.g. Sitemaps), under permissive and transparent licence terms (such as a Creative Commons licence), and generally for free.

Government-held information should also be released primarily in raw form. Government should not try to add value or create "retail" consumer experiences - "wholesale" release of data will be quicker, cheaper and more effective.

Of course, not all information held by government is appropriate to be released. There must be certain restrictions for protection of national security, privacy, the formulation of policy within Government, and commercial confidentiality.

The Issues Paper raises the idea of creating a central point of entry for accessing Government data (the data.gov model). On this issue we draw on Alan Noble's second Taskforce blog about data.gov lessons from the open source world, which uses an analogy from Eric Raymond on the risks associated with “a huge, ambitious, centralised undertaking” or “cathedral” versus a more decentralised “bazaar” of agency sites that “is flexible and economical and supports evolutionary change". While we believe the two can work together, our view is that Government should not delay releasing data by cathedral building.

Driving this change in how government information is perceived and used will require a significant change of culture within Government. Actually using communication and collaboration tools, being active participants in the online community, and relaxing the rules (and mindsets) to allow this - will certainly help drive this process. We call this the web groove train. We'd like to see Government jump on board.

Posted by Iarla Flynn, Public Policy and Government Affairs