This document summarizes open government initiatives in Australia. It notes that 73% of Australian government agencies and 77% of politicians use social media. Common uses of social media by government include stakeholder engagement, information campaigns, and responding to comments. All levels of Australian government have undertaken initiatives like online consultations, agency Twitter accounts and blogs, mobile apps, and open data sites. The document provides examples of government agencies using social media for purposes like engagement, information sharing, collaboration, consultation, and empowering citizens with open data.

1. Open government in
Australia
Craig Thomler
Government 2.0 Advocate &
Managing Director, Delib Australia
30 November 2012

2. Australia vs Iceland
Australia:
•Colonised by English in 1788
•Became a nation in 1901
•74x the size of Iceland
•Population: 22 million
•Beer consumed: 4.5L/person
•Democratic freedom: 3rd
•Political freedom: equal 1st
•Press freedom: 18th
6/09/11

3. Australia’s internet use
Source: Sensis Social Media Report May 2012

4. Social media channels used
Source: Sensis Social Media Report May 2012

5. Social media in Australia
Use internet: 98%
Use social media:
•62% of Australians
•73% of Federal
agencies
•77% of Federal
politicians

6. Australian Government social
media use
73% of Australian Government
agencies use social media for official
purposes
However only 25% have social media
policies

7. Why are they using social media?
Answer Response Share
For stakeholder engagement or collaboration 32 54.24%
Operating an information campaign 25 42.37%
Responding to customer enquiries/comments/complaints 25 42.37%
For engaging with journalists and media outlets 24 40.68%
For engagement or collaboration with other government 24 40.68%
agencies
Monitoring citizen, stakeholder and/or lobbyist views and 17 28.81%
activities
For a public consultation process 16 27.12%
For a stakeholder or other restricted access consultation 13 22.03%
Other type of activity (i.e. recruitment, crowdsourcing, staff) 11 18.64%
For policy or services co-design 7 11.86%

8. All levels of Australian government
Over 800 online consultations in last four years
Over 630 Departmental Twitter accounts
Over 180 agency blogs
Over 160 Facebook pages
Over 80 agency mobile apps
Over 40 agency YouTube channels
At least 7 data competitions
Four open data sites

9. Growth in Twitter use

10. Engage https://www.facebook.com/QueenslandPolice?fref=ts

11. Inform http://www.alert.sa.gov.au/

12. Inform http://www.police.act.gov.au/crime-and-safety/crime-statistics.aspx

13. Collaborate http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper?q=

14. Consult http://saplan.org.au/

15. Open data http://data.gov.au

16. Open data http://data.act.gov.au

17. Empower http://http://theopenbudget.org/

18. Empower http://govmonitor.org

19. Open data generations #1

20. Open data generations #2

21. Questions?
Craig Thomler
craig@delib.net
@CraigThomler
http://eGovAU.blogspot.com
www.delib.net/australia/