[LINK] AIIA raises concerns on Tanner and Conroy blog

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

AIIA raises concerns on Tanner and Conroy blog
CEO, Ian Birks, welcomes Government move but raises concerns about the 
potential for manipulation
Trevor Clarke
10 December, 2008 10:45:00
ARN
http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/270391/aiia_raises_concerns_tanner_conroy_blog

The Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) has raised 
concerns about the effectiveness of a new Federal Government digital 
economy blog in policy development.

This week, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital 
Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, and Minister for Finance and 
Deregulation, Lindsay Tanner launched a joint blog to canvass public 
opinion on facets of the Rudd Government’s digital economy push.

AIIA CEO, Ian Birks, welcomed the use of leading-edge technology to help 
with the business of e-government but questioned the ability to garner 
tangible outcomes from an open and unstructured blog process.

“The science of how to convert many hundreds or thousands of free-form 
blog topics into a coherent base for developing specific components of 
public policy is not entirely proven,” Birks wrote in an email. “There 
is quite a lot of potential for input to policy development to be 
influenced and/or manipulated by anonymous contributors whose knowledge 
base and motives may not be entirely transparent.

“From the point of view of AIIA’s own specific dialogue with the 
Australian Government, we would like to see more transparency around the 
whole approach and understand more about how feedback from the online 
policy consultation blogs is intended to drive policy development.”

While existing policy consultation processes will remain, Birks said it 
was unclear how organisations such as the AIIA, which represents around 
500 ICT companies, should work with the blog.

“Should we for example ask our members to write 500 different blog 
contributions as input on a specific policy matter or will an AIIA 
opinion somehow blend in other ways into the melting pot with similar 
effect,” he said.

The blog is open to public comment for two weeks and is one of the first 
trials to be conducted by the Federal Government. It will be monitored 
by the Australian Government Information Management Office.

The Australian Computer Society (ACS) president, Kumar Parakala, and 
head of consulting for analyst firm Intermedium, Kevin Noonan, both 
applauded the move by the government but cautioned its success was 
dependant on open and fair monitoring.

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Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
brd at iimetro.com.au