Government and Politics - Australia
Articles and resources about Australian egovernment initiatives relating to government and politics issues.
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Australian Government Guide for Public Servants Participating Online
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The Australian Public Service Commission has updated its APS Values and Code of Conduct in practice to assist public servants who wish to participate online. Guidance is available under Chapter 3 - Managing official information, and Chapter 15 - APS employees as citizens.
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Federated Services Finder (FSF)
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The Federated Service Finder (FSF) is the first project developed under the auspices of the..
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Government and Politics - Australia
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Articles and resources about Australian government initiatives relating to government and politics issues.
- Government as a social media hub?
- by Francis Walsh. Canberra Times, April 3, 2012. "Public servants must move beyond 20th-century letter-writing and learn to engage informally...
Ministerial correspondence is a load-bearing axel that now creaks and groans under the new pressures. The old wooden wheel is now turning into a social hub.
So what is ministerial correspondence about? People from all areas of Australia write letters of complaint (many) and praise (few) to government ministers. Staff in departments and agencies draft responses. They email that draft to their supervisor who redrafts it and emails them to their supervisor, and so on (with some rather irritating back-and-forth for quibbles and scribbles). Sometimes, the process works well; sometimes, it's confusing and confused; sometimes, no one's in the know..."
- Australia Post Digital MailBox
- "Australia Post Digital MailBox is a free personal management app to help you stay on top of things. It brings together 3 powerful functions into one easy-to-use app:
- Receive: Your own digital mailbox to securely receive important mail
- Pay: Easy payment of your bills
- Store: Private and secure storage for your important documents..."
- Australia Post Delivers New Superstores and a Digital MailBox for All Australians
- Australia Post, Monday, 26 March 2012. "In response to record numbers of Australians moving their lives online, Australia Post today announced a free Australia Post Digital MailBox for every Australian will be launched this year, in addition to opening 30 superstores across the country.
"The Australia Post Digital MailBox will allow businesses, government entities and customers to communicate through a secure online portal that can be accessed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, wherever they are," said Australia Post Chairman, David Mortimer..."
- The paranoia that will 'shut' government
- By Steve Davies - OzLoop. PS News, Edition Number 255. Updated to Wednesday, 14 March 2012. "Public servants must let go of old, pointless fears if they are to engage the community....
This reflects the risk-averse culture that the APS's taskforce, and other reports, have highlighted.
The predominant approach to open government and APS reform is gradual and measured, administered heavily by corporate areas.
While there is nothing wrong with this approach to gradual change, societal change is not gradual.
How often do agencies put changes in place only to find they are ineffective, because the world has changed, and the changes no longer meet people's needs?
The same problem bedevils public servants' efforts to innovate.
Most agencies have so many rules and cautions about the internal use of social media it is little wonder that staff are uncertain about engaging online.
Despite so many rules, they remain unclear about which conversations are allowed and which aren't..."
- Parliament .info filter removed
- By Josh Taylor, ZDNet Australia, February 29, 2012. "A filter blocking access to .info top-level domains for senators and departmental staff has been lifted, following complaints from Greens communications spokesperson Scott Ludlam.
It was revealed earlier this month that the block of all .info top-level domains was enacted within the halls of parliament and its offices on the basis of advice from the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD). According to the Department of Parliamentary Services acting secretary David Kenny, a total of 35 million websites, including the .info sites, are filtered from view within the parliament..."
- Spotlight on iPad use in parliament
- An MP has been accused of playing Solitaire on their iPad while Julia Gillard was making a ministerial statement to the house, by AAP. Computerworld, 16 February, 2012. "Not all politicians are keeping abreast of national affairs when they tap away at their iPads during parliament..."
- Hacks delayed parliament website revamp
- By Josh Taylor, ZDNet Australia, February 13, 2012. "Attempted hacks on the Australian Parliament website were partly responsible for a 12-month delay on the $3.1 million overhaul of the website, due to be launched this Friday.
Speaking in a Senate estimates hearing this morning, outgoing Parliamentary Librarian Roxanne Missingham said coding on the new-look website began in November 2010 and was set to launch in the first half of 2011, but was delayed by 12 months due to "added complexity"..."
- Performance lacking in performance measures
- PS News, Edition Number 282, 13 September 2011. "Departments and Agencies continue to have trouble measuring the success or otherwise of their programs according to the Auditor-General who has published an audit report on the use of key performance indicators (KPIs).
In his report Development and Implementation of Key Performance Indicators to Support the Outcomes and Programs Framework the Auditor-General, Ian McPhee said the failure meant it was not possible to measure the achievement of many program objectives..."
- Development and Implementation of Key Performance Indicators to Support the Outcomes and Programs Framework
- Australian National Audit Office, 8 September 2011. "... The objective of this audit was to assess how effectively entities had developed and implemented appropriate KPIs to support stated program objectives. To address the audit objective, the ANAO:
- undertook a desktop review of the published effectiveness KPIs for 89 programs across 50 Financial Management and Accountability Act and Commonwealth Authorities and Companies Act entities within the General Government Sector (GGS)[12];
- supplemented this desktop review with more detailed analysis of four entities—the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service (Customs); Fair Work Australia (FWA); the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA); and the Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism (RET)—including the reporting of performance in each entity's annual report; and
- assessed the role of Finance in administering the Outcomes and Programs Framework, including the preparation of guidance material for entities..."
- Life's tweet for KRuddMP
- by AAP. The Age, September 11, 2011. "He may have been ousted as the nation's leader, but Kevin Rudd has become an undisputed king of Twitter.
On Saturday night he reached one million followers on the popular social networking website..."
- Why do good policy ideas turn into porridge? pdf format (535kb)
- (This document requires the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader). A speech by Commonwealth and ACT Ombudsman Allan Asher to the MEAA and Walkley Foundation's 2011 Public Affairs Convention
National Convention Centre, Canberra ACT, Tuesday, 6 September 2011.
"... here are five ways agencies, and government as a whole, can begin to improve the services they deliver:
1. Support a Government-wide plain language initiative
2. Take active steps to reach socially excluded stakeholders
3. Consult with key stakeholder groups before implementation, not afterwards
4. Support better scrutiny of executive schemes. This might be from other sections of an agency or even an inter-departmental review committee that randomly selects and reports on half a dozen schemes a year.
5. Build in better complaint-handling and accountability mechanisms into inter-government agreements.
For any agency, improving service delivery means going back to first principles and asking: are we placing the needs and wellbeing of the Australian community first, and if so does our service delivery reflect this? Are we giving the way we communicate our policies the same attention as the policies themselves?..."
- Why government service delivery often fails
- Commonwealth Ombudsman, 6 September 2011. "In a speech delivered today, Commonwealth Ombudsman Allan Asher stated that to a great extent poor service delivery by government agencies comes down to poor communication. This includes lack of accessibility, poor complaint-handling procedures, lack of community consultation, and language that is unduly complex or bureaucratic.
Mr Asher delivered the speech 'Why do good policy ideas turn into porridge?' at the 2011 Public Affairs Conference in Canberra, held by the Walkley Foundation and the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance.
'Many agencies see the way they communicate as a side issue to the services they provide, whereas the two are inextricably linked or indeed the same thing,' Mr Asher said..."
- Public Sector Innovation Toolkit released
- eGov AU - Craig Thomler's professional blog - eGovernment and Gov 2.0 thoughts and speculations from an Australian perspective, Wednesday, June 29, 2011. "Tonight the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research has released the Public Sector Innovation Toolkit website.
The website is part of the APS-wide innovation agenda, designed to help public servants develop and apply innovative solutions..."
- Public Sector Innovation Toolkit
- Australian Government. "The Toolkit has been developed to assist individual public servants, public sector teams and agencies who want to increase the extent and effectiveness of their innovation efforts. On this website are tools that have been developed to give practical advice on fostering innovation within your agency. While this Toolkit is designed for use by the Australian Public Service, we welcome the use of the tools by other public servants..."
- Public Service 2.0 - reflections on Terry Moran's latest speech
- eGov AU - Craig Thomler's professional blog - eGovernment and Gov 2.0 thoughts and speculations from an Australian perspective, Monday, May 9, 2011. "The Secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Terry Moran, gave a speech last week to the Graduate School of Government, University of Sydney. Titled Surfing the next wave of reform, his speech discussed the public service's critical role in supporting and enabling government reform and good governance, and what would be expected of the APS into the future. Without mentioning Government 2.0, Moran's speech touched on many of its elements. He argued that the public service needed to improve how it engaged with citizens..."
This category last updated: 4 April 2012