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This article was first published on The Conversation Voters want their governments – local, state, and federal – to clean up their act and put integrity reforms high on the agenda. AAP/Mick Tsikas Danielle Wood , Grattan Institute ; Carmela Chivers , Grattan Institute , and Kate Griffiths , Grattan Institute This week we’re exploring the state of nine different policy areas across Australia’s states, as detailed in Grattan Institute’s State Orange Book 2018 . Read the other articles in the series here . When it comes to cleaning up Australian politics, some states are doing much better than others – and almost all are showing up the Commonwealth government. Grattan Institute’s State Orange Book 2018 , released this week, compares the states and territories on the strength of their political institutions and checks and balances (among other things). Queensland and NSW received an A grade from Grattan for political transparency and accountability. Both...

 Professor David Ben-Tovim , Flinders University The recent jailing of British breast surgeon Ian Paterson after performing multiple unnecessary operations has highlighted the issue of hospital safety. Paterson’s unnecessary surgeries included some performed in private hospitals, which prompted UK doctors to call for private hospitals to report similar patient safety data as public hospitals, including unexpected deaths and serious injuries. This example shows how little we know about patient safety and quality in our private hospitals, not only in the UK, but also in Australia. What do we know about hospital safety and quality? In Australia, one of the best places to look for information on hospital safety and quality is the MyHospitals website, a commonwealth department site run by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare . The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare is provided with data about every patient treated in an Australian hospital, both public and p...

The Prime Minister in conjunction with the resignation of Health minister Sussan Ley has announced a commitment to further changes to the parliamentary entitlements system. The changes go beyond the recommendations in the Conde report already accepted in principle and according to an earlier announcement to be acted upon in the first half of 2017. The PM: "Australians are entitled to expect that politicians spend taxpayers' money carefully, ensuring at all times that their work expenditure represents an efficient, effective and ethical use of public resources," he said. "We should be, as politicians, backbenchers and ministers, we should be as careful and as accountable with taxpayers' money as we possibly can be." Mr Turnbull also announced that a new body overseeing parliamentary expenses would be created. " The Government believes that the work expenses of parliamentarians, including ministers, should be administered and overseen by an independe...

The freedom of information system wouldn't produce anything like the Nauru Files published by Guardian Australia today following a leak of more than 2000 incident reports from the Immigration detention cent re .  After all, when Guardian Australia had a crack at formally obtaining the Detention Logs a couple of years ago, 'smart lawyering' not transparency and accountability prevailed . A nd that was before the issue of exemptions even arose. Hat tip this time to Paul Farrell, Nick Evershed and Helen Davidson and the unknown person or persons risking up to two years imprisonment under Section 42 of the Australian Border Force Act 2015 for secreting this cache out of the system.  There is no defence to the charge of disclosure of protected information (any information obtained in the performance of duties) by an entrusted person ( employee, contractor or consultant) regardless of the significance or insignificance of the information. The reports published "set out ...

How the damning material in videos about the treatment of young boys in the Northern Territory Don Dale Youth Detention Centre came into the hands of ABC Four Corners is not known but with a Royal Commission to investigate the system all may/will be revealed in due course.   The public record includes The NT Children's Commissioner Don Dale Youth Detention Centre Report to Minister September 2015 pdf that provides details of one of the worst instances of mistreatment but not the videos.    Almost certainly the video footage wasn't offered up by those responsible for the system or delivered on a plate via the Information Act 2002.   If someone on the inside thumbed through the Public Interest Disclosure Act beforehand he/she would know it provides protections for reporting through official channels but none for public disclosure to the media or anyone else for any reason, falling short of what is regarded as best practice.     A look further to the...

It's still up in the air as to who governs - and therefore gets to call most of the shots - and perhaps what the successful major party leader will have to agree to in order to form a government.  Then on an ongoing basis, there is uncertainty about the constraints or influences that will apply to the government policy and legislative agendas because of numbers in the House and Senate. T ransparency, accountability, public integrity, citizen participation , all elements of good government , hardly rated a mention on the campaign hustings. But o ne welcome outcome from the current mess is that three major players, Labor, the Greens and NXT have more open, transparent government on their list of priorities.  In contrast to the Coalition which offered nothing in this space during the election campaign other than open data and more digital services. Those new commitments came on top of the Turnbull government decision to join the Open Government Partnership , a decision s...

Predicting the outcome of the Senate election is beyond me but apart from the Coaltion , Labor and The Greens , the Nick Xenophon Team is sure to be part of the new mix. Senator Nick Xenophon has spoken up and often on open transparent government, whistleblower protection and other issues such as a national anti corruption commission, political donations, full timely disclosure of use of parliamentary entitlements.... He is one of the few parliamentarians to even mention the Open Government Partnership. Here is what the NXT has to say prior to the election on Saturday: (Responses awaited to questions asked/commitments sought by Accountability Roundtable , Transparency International Australia and Electronic Frontiers Australia )   We stand for: Honest and accountable government Looking after the national interest - not vested interests. Our core focus is: Predatory Gambling Australian Made & Australian Jobs Government & Corporate Accountability "Every thing we do as a t...

Election Initiatives Digital Rights Commissioner - "an independent Human Rights Commissioner for digital rights, to advocate for the online safety, accessibility, privacy and security of all Australians." Digital Democracy Trial a variety of digital platforms to increase participation in democratic processes. Democratic processes and institutions urgently need rejuvenation. Technology has made it easy for ideas to be widely circulated and debated, and for support and interest to be easily gauged. The ability to directly influence legislation and debate will strengthen participation in the political process and increase the legitimacy of the parliament. Use interactive technology to facilitate public participation in annual government budget-setting to determine priorities for new infrastructure and services as well as revenue raising measures. Strengthen links between the community and the parliament. Ideas can be raised on an online platform, and if enough support is...

It just appears to have chosen not to say much about these issues during the eight week campaign. Australian Labor Party 100 Positive Policies: Greater Budget Transparency   -a bigger more public role for Parliamentary Budget Office. National Information Policy Published in December 2015 includes passing now outdated references to Office of Australian Information Commissioner and Open Government Partnership. Recounts Labor initiatives in government prior to 2013 including Cutler Reportand Gov 2.0 Taskforce that "laid much of the groundwork for Australia’s current data infrastructure (eg data.gov.au)"  In summary: Pursue a new, national reform agenda - National Information Policy - to be pursued through a cross-sector Independent Data Council. Establish an Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) modelled on the data platform in operation in New Zealand that combines anonymised information from a range of organisations (eg health, education, crime data) to offer insights to poli...

Polic y positions of the Liberal National Coalition on open transparent government 1. Open Government Partnership No new policy. Existing Policy Committed to membership - "Goals of the OGP are consistent with Australia's long and proud tradition of open transparent government." OGP National Action Plan a work in progress. Comment: No response from Prime Minister to submission by Australian Open Government Partnership Network Chair Dr David Solomon to take up to four months to broaden discussion of reform commitments and establish a formal process to bring government and non government together in the true spirit of partnership to finalise the plan, monitor implementation, report on progress. 2. Open Data, Digital Services  New policy Better and More Accessible Digital Services  In summary: "The Coalition is investing $50 million to modernise myGov. Build on our ‘tell us once’ policy by providing Australians with greater control of their personal information. ...