[LINK] Government 2.0 Taskforce released for public comment

[Stilgherrian]

[The report went online a few minutes ago. Comments open until 16  
December. Stil.]

Media release

7 December 2009

Government 2.0 Taskforce released for public comment

The Government 2.0 taskforce today released a draft report for public  
comment that calls for the government to embrace Web 2.0 tools to  
deepen democracy and engage citizens.

The central recommendation calls for an Open Government Directive from  
the Government to treat government information as a national public  
resource to be as freely and openly available as possible.

  It also recommends that government agencies and public servants use  
Web 2.0 tools like blogs and online forums to engage with citizens,  
each other and likeminded professionals around the world.

The Government 2.0 Taskforce Chair, Dr Nicholas Gruen said: “If  
Government 2.0 is realised, citizens won’t just be consulted by  
government they’ll actively collaborate with government.”

“Government 2.0 can draw all those with the enthusiasm, expertise and  
crucial local knowledge to collaborate in the process of government.

“By using these technologies and effectively inviting the community  
into its workings developing policy and delivering services,  
Government 2.0 lets us improve the myriad ways government activities  
help our society, our economy and our democracy thrive,” said Dr Guen.

Unless there are strong reasons not to do so, the report calls for  
public sector information to be released proactively under ‘creative  
commons’ type licences which invite others to quote, share and  
transform them without seeking government permission.

The Executive Summary and full Draft Report are available at http://gov2.net.au/



About the Government 2.0 Taskforce

The Government 2.0 Taskforce is made up of policy and technical  
experts and entrepreneurs from government, business, academia, and  
cultural institutions. Its work falls into two streams. The first  
relates to increasing the openness of government through making public  
sector information more widely available to promote transparency,  
innovation and value adding to government information. The second  
stream is concerned with encouraging online engagement with the aim of  
drawing in the information, knowledge, perspectives, resources and  
even, where possible, the active collaboration of anyone wishing to  
contribute to public life.

What is Web 2.0 and Government 2.0?
Web 2.0 uses platforms which people can use to connect and  
collaborate. These include Facebook, blogs, wikis and Twitter.  
Typically they are open source and free to use. Government 2.0  
involves the incorporation of Web 2.0 tools and approaches in  
government practice to enable new internal tools to increase  
productivity and efficiency, as well as opening up greater  
collaboration capabilities with citizen. Examples might include the  
release of data on terms of authorising a remix and online  
collaboration by governments in forums like blogs.