[LINK] Forum on high speed bandwidth in Australia

[Pia Waugh]

Hi all,

<quote who="stephen at melbpc.org.au">

> Roger is right .. providing a truly public sphere will be difficult with
> so many communications methods available. But, a backwards compatability  
> should seem important. That is eg, older folk may want snail-mail access 
> and participation, the blind with phone/voice/cassette-tape access, with
> Gen Y happy with twitter participation. My point and Rogers, (i believe)
> is that any and all involvement should be two way, that is, all can hear
> all contributions. 

This is a great goal, and I think that further public consultation about how
to create and execute a more complete public sphere is important. We will be
posting straight after this event asking for feedback on the format and
structure, and hope over the coming events, to fine tune and develop a
really useful process that can be applied to other public consultation
initiatives.
 
> Difficult? sure. Expensive? sure. But probably necessary for any genuine 
> inclusiveness. So, as a trial, many such as myself will-be/are delighted
> with this initiative but also trust that so as to achieve wider adoption
> among sitting members, sufficient planning/funds would be made available
> for access by all to all. That is all participants can access all of the 
> comments, made in any medium, by all the other participants. In that way
> it will *truly* be a public sphere .. a public discussion amongst equals.
> 
> As ever, isn't that our Aussie way :)

Hear hear! :) I think that this is a small part in a bigger discussion
about open and transparent government processes, and we intend on running a
public sphere around exactly that topic, in which tackling exactly these
kinds of ideas and issues. Write once publish everyone is a fantastic way to
cross different platforms and keep everyone in the loop, but it will
certainly require a lot more planning and work to get to that. I see this as
ultimately a community project as it will take a lot of different inputs
aand ideas to get it right.

Cheers,
Pia

-- 
 
     "Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once
     forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all and the earth
                 itself to nobody." - Jean Jacques Rousseau