ACT Government finally launches a Community Engagement website – only 7.5 years late!
Posted on August 28, 2009 by by jr
Back on 8th February 2002, as president of the then “Gungahlin Equality Party” (which later became the ACT Equality Party), I issued a media release entitled: “Community consultation starts with true accessibility and awareness”
08 February 2002
Community consultation starts with true accessibility and awareness.“The ACT government needs to provide a single, easy to use Internet web site for all advertisements, public notices, and localised letterbox drops from the various ACT Government agencies and departments”, says Party President Jonathon Reynolds.
The Canberra Community is often frustrated in their attempts to locate ACT Government public notices that advise of current issues and topics. Often these notices are published only once in obscure sections of local newspapers. Alternatively, one has to know exactly what to look for and where to look on the existing plethora of ACT Government web sites. Calling the Canberra Connect switchboard seldom results in a simple or direct response as there appears to be no single centralised register.
The Gungahlin Equality Party calls on the Chief Minister to give full accessibility to public notices by instructing the ACT Government administration to create a single centralised web site that gazettes, archives, categorizes or otherwise make readily accessible all such notices.
Having all ACT Government public notices available on-line will make them fully accessible to the whole community, not just those who have purchased or read the newspaper on the relevant day. Additionally given that many of the ACT public libraries now offer free public Internet access, this becomes a cost effective and equitable way of ensuring every member of the community has ample opportunity of being informed.
“True community consultation and information only occurs if the public is aware that the government is actually seeking feedback or advising on particular topics and issues. One has to wonder whether the way that public notices are currently published is a deliberate attempt by the government to minimise community awareness and involvement”, concluded Mr. Reynolds.
A mere 2,758 days later (I guess Hell was about to freeze over… so much for global warming…) it appears that the ACT Government has finally stopped sitting on their hands, heeded my advice and we now appear to have a Government run Community Engagement Online website.
I suppose we should not really have expected any miracles, but rather than actually properly engaging the community in providing a one stop shop where the community might be able to respond to these engagement opportunities, for the most part the site is simply a calendar and consolidated list (typically of links to other sites) that are either “current”, “closing soon” or “closed” community engagement activities.
I guess the community will be patient enough to wait another 7.5 years for the Government bureaucracy to actually finish the job properly!
