[LINK] Australian E-government Case Studies

[Tom Worthington]

At 09:04 PM 12/8/2004, rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au wrote:
>Tom Worthington wrote:
>
>>If e-democracy is going to happen it will have to be despite the existing 
>>political processes ...
>
>Why is "in spite of" an imperative, Tom?

The imperative is to make the change. Those in power are unlikely to agree 
to a change which undermines their authority. So if you want to introduce 
e-democracy you have to make "them" comfortable with it, or do it without 
formal authority.

As an example of a change which might be authorized, I suggested in 1997 
that one quarter of the sitting days of Parliament in Canberra be replaced 
with video conference sessions from the members electorate offices 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/TWCL97C.HTM#parliment>. This could be done without 
any changes in law or the Constitution and with a few changes to procedures.

A video conference Parliament would be much like the current face to face 
one and be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. The radical part of the 
proposal was to replace a quarter of the sitting days with store and 
forward text based conference from the electorate offices. That would 
fundamentally change the way the system works.



Tom Worthington FACS     tom.worthington at tomw.net.au  Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd             ABN: 17 088 714 309
http://www.tomw.net.au                 PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617
Visiting Fellow, Computer Science,  Australian National University
Publications Director,  Australian Computer Society