Transparency, Participation, Collaboration: Welcome Everyday Democracy
The National Uniform Solar Power Gross Feed-In Tariff Petition
January 29, 2009A Way To Combat Power Outages In Hellish Heatwaves?
February 2, 2009After Friday’s ‘meltingly successful’ 45.1 degree training day for Community-Wide Study Circle facilitators at Melbourne’s Altona Meadows Library and Learning Centre, I was interested to read follow-up news of the diverse group that had travelled from country Victoria, Canberra and many parts of Melbourne, so I checked the ASCN website.
Top of the Latest News page was the following Barack Obama memorandum, JUST what so many of us are ‘on about’.
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
SUBJECT: Transparency and Open GovernmentMy Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.
GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE TRANSPARENT. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.
GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE PARTICIPATORY. Public engagement enhances the Government’s effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government.
GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE COLLABORATIVE. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector. Executive departments and agencies should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new opportunities for cooperation.
I direct the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services, to coordinate the development by appropriate executive departments and agencies, within 120 days, of recommendations for an Open Government Directive, to be issued by the Director of OMB, that instructs executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing the principles set forth in this memorandum. The independent agencies should comply with the Open Government Directive.
This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
This memorandum shall be published in the Federal Register.
BARACK OBAMA
Welcome Progress In Indigenous Community Conversations
The Indigenous Community News Network http://icnn.com.au/ has published The Australian’s report on how this weekend’s Summit has devised a strict code to battle abuse, alcohol.
“The strategy came as the nation’s top indigenous leaders, men and women, were invited by the Rudd Government to gather in Canberra yesterday to provide urgent solutions to the violence in indigenous communities.”
“Violent indigenous men would be required to sign legally enforceable codes of conduct if they were to remain in their communities, under a plan devised by Aboriginal leaders.
The plan demands stricter alcohol restrictions, more policing, less overcrowding in their houses and more support for successful programs to end violence against indigenous women and children.”
Listen To Everyday Democracy’s Martha McCoy On Study Circles
Martha McCoy the Executive Director of Everyday Democray (USA) spoke with the Centre for Social Impact, Canberra, Australia in November 2008 about the way the Community Wide Study Circle Programs can be used as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmiIGaiBL-Y”>a dialogue for action and change.
Watch A Community Wide Study Circle Orientation Workshop
au.youtube.com/watch?v=kMPi5915yJQ”>This Orientation Workshop was held in Central Victoria, at Maryborough, in September 2008.
Roll on everyday democracy!
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1 Comment
A couple of years ago I attended a series of Study Circle meetings in Mallacoota. As I recall I was the only male there. I am still at some what of a loss at what they are for exactly. Everyone got to talk a great deal and in some of the attendees did some listening.
There was a party at the end and everyone got tiddly and swore undying friendship.
The process while not disagreeable was a trifle mystifying. It took me away for not an inconsiderable amount of time from my family and community work but to what purpose?