An article which summarises the submission below, by
Andrew Freeman, titled
'Electronic road to democracy' was published in
The Australian, Computer Section, on 22 June 1999, p. 6.
A report of the
House of Representatives Standing Committee on Procedure, titled:
'IT'S YOUR HOUSE: Community
involvement in the procedures and
practices of the House of
Representatives and its committees',
which included consideration of the submission below, was issued in October 1999.
Australian Computer Society (ACS) - Community Affairs
Board (CAB) - Economic, Legal and Social Implications Committee (ELSIC) - Submission to the Parliament of Australia, House of Representatives,
Standing Committee on Procedure, inquiry into
'Community involvement in the procedures and practices of the
House of Representatives and its committees.'
From: Andrew Freeman
Director, Community Affairs Board (CAB)
Australian Computer Society (ACS)
E-mail:
afreeman@pcug.org.au
Generic ACS e-mail address is:
info@acs.org.au
19 May 1999
To: Secretary, House of Representatives Standing Committee on Procedure
E-mail:
Procedure.Committee.Reps@aph.gov.au
ACS CAB ELSIC - Submission to the Parliament of Australia, House of Representatives,
Standing Committee on Procedure, inquiry into
'Community involvement in the procedures and practices of the
House of Representatives and its committees.'
Table of contents
This Web page/submission is divided into the following sections:
- Introduction
- General comments
- Concluding comments/summary recommendations
- Some other information that may be of interest
- Acknowledgments
- Feedback
Introduction
It is understood that on 10 March 1999 the Parliament of Australia, House of Representatives, Standing Committee on Procedure (SCOP) resolved to inquire into the opportunities for individuals and community groups to become involved in the procedures and practices of the House and its committees, with a deadline for submissions to be received by 28 May 1999.
It is noted that the SCOP Web page is at:
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/proc/index.htm
The Australian Computer Society
(ACS),
Community Affairs Board
(CAB),
Economic, Legal and Social Implications Committee
(ELSIC),
has considered the terms of reference of the inquiry into
'Community involvement in the procedures and practices of the
House of Representatives and its committees' by the House of
Representatives Standing Committee on Procedure (SCOP).
This submission is made on behalf of the ACS CAB
ELSIC.
This submission is located at:
http://www.acs.org.au/boards/cab/elsic/procedure-1999-05-hor.html
For information, the ACS is the internationally recognised association for Information Technology professionals in Australia. The ACS is affiliated with the International Federation for Information Processing
(IFIP).
The ACS has over 10,000 members. The CAB is one of the ACS's Boards. The Director of the ACS CAB is both a member of the ACS National Council, and oversights the workings of ELSIC.
General comments
Objectives
The ACS CAB ELSIC believes that the House of Representatives, and its committees more particularly should:
- Aim to be as open as possible to community interaction in their work, and to broaden the options for citizens in Australia to input to the workings of the House of Representatives and its committees beyond those that currently exist.
- Explore new techniques to complement rather than replace current input mechanisms for the community.
- Utilise new technology, as appropriate, to facilitate community liaison.
- In the longer term consider aiming for a model of more direct democracy, whereby the role of politicians changes to more of a facilitatory role for their constituents, and less of a indirect representative role for their constituents. The aim would be to empower constituents more and more to be able to directly put forward their viewpoints to the Parliament, rather than the current model where these viewpoints are in the vast majority of cases put forward via politicians. The role of politicians in this process would in no sense become less important less important than it is at present.
Recommendations
The ACS CAB ELSIC believes that the House of Representatives, and its committees more particularly should, complement the current approaches it/they take to consultation, taking account of the above objectives, should:
Allow e-mail addresses on confidential element of electoral rolls
As an aid to facilitating input, and a number of other initiatives outlined in this submission, and to facilitate confirmation that persons writing are whom they claim to be, allow people to include their current e-mail address on the confidential element of the electoral roll, should they wish to do so.
Provide new options in relation to petitions
In relation to petitions, broaden the concept of petitions beyond written support, to also allow people to indicate opposition to them as well. This will be an aid to more direct approaches to democracy than currently exist in relation to submitting petitions to the House of Representatives. It is recommended that SCOP explore options to further facilitate the electronic submission of submissions, and the electronic indication of support, or opposition to, petitions. For example, if a proposal reaches a certain threshold in terms of support, allow a petition Web page on the Parliaments server, which electors could indicate support, and opposition to. This could be done via the Parliament web-site, with instructions included there, and a user friendly interface for proposing petitions, and for indicating support or opposition, together with details of those who have supported or opposed the petition included on the Web page as well.
Such technology could also be used to enable indicative direct voting on a range of issues by the electorate, inexpensively.
MPs might be given the option to include questions they wish to seek input from their constituents on the petition page as well.
Broaden options in relation to electors right to reply to statements about them in Parliament
Facilitate the option of persons having a right of reply to things said about them in Parliament, electronically if they wish to do that.
Information on how they might do this could be publicised via the Parliamentary Web site.
A user friendly right of reply interface might also be included on that site, for those who wish to take advantage of this technology directly, rather than writing via e-mail or such other technology.
Create a moderated aus.gov.aph newsgroup as an aid to more effective networking between the Parliament and the community
Explore the option of creating a moderated aus.gov.aph newsgroup, to facilitate networking between it and the Australian public. There are tens of thousands of newsgroups. These can be created via a democratic vote process, at no charge, and are disseminated around the world via the Internet. This newsgroup could be used to announce new inquiries and such like, and to invite community feedback. To see how a newsgroup works, one can normally put, for example, in relation to the aus.org.acs newsgroup:
news:aus.org.acs
in the browser location field, and see recent postings and reactions to postings, in a newsgroup. In the longer term, government departments could consider setting up similar newsgroups in a similar fashion, for similar purposes.
It is noted, for example, that there are already some newsgroups starting with uk.gov. so this concept is by no means new in a global context.
Start moderated e-mail lists for House of Representative committees
Start moderated e-mail lists for committees. People would subscribe to find out recent developments with the committees. To get a sense of how these work, one can join any of the ACS lists included on the ACS lists subscribe/unsubscribe/information page at Web page:
http://www.acs.org.au/index-lists.htm
Members of the House of Representatives (MHRs) who wish to explore how e-mail lists work are most welcome to subscribe to the ELSIC list, where issues such as those covered in this submission are discussed in more detail.
Use of the World Wide Web as a tool to improve the information available to some committee meetings
Consider using meeting Web pages to enable a wider range of participants to input inexpensively to committee inquiries. To see an example of how this works, SCOP members may wish to look at the Yahoo Chat Web site at:
http://chat.yahoo.com
Web terminals could be placed in committee rooms for politicians to use, and community representatives could attend virtually using their own computers, and/or internet terminals in such places as public libraries, at minimal if any expense to the community representatives.
Parliamentary privilege
As an aid to more forthright discussion, consideration might be given to extending Parliamentary privilege to groups, e-mail lists, and such like, in relation to the interactions they have in preparation of submissions to Parliamentary Committees.
Concluding comments/summary recommendations
The above suggestions are just a few small examples of how information technology might be used by the House of Representatives and its committees to make their work more effective.
It is appreciated that some of the proposals above may be unfamiliar to some SCOP members, and in any event, they are only covered very briefly in this submission.
In that context, the ACS CAB ELSIC would be happy to work with the House of Representatives generally, and SCOP in particular, to explore these, and like options, further, should that be considered useful.
Some other information that may be of interest
Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge the assistance of a wide range of
persons who have assisted with the preparation of this submission, in
particular those on the ACS CAB ELSIC e-mail list. In particular, I would like to thank Bob Bain, Peter Bowditch, Marghanita da Cruz, Professor Marcus Wigan, and Tom Worthington for assistance provided in the preparation of this submission.
Feedback
Andrew Freeman, Director, ACS CAB (1996-1999)
welcomes feedback on this page.
He can be contacted via his e-mail address of
afreeman@pcug.org.au