Tuesday 20 October 2009

Charter for Open Government

A radical and unconventional idea has been floated for Cairns Regional Council to adopt a charter.

Michael Bryan, a supporter of CAFNEC, the Cairns and Far North Environment Centre, is promoting a 'Charter of Open Government' for our council.

Amoung other things, he suggests Council should hold no secrets from the community, with details of contracts and tenders, along with results of decisions, should be made public.

He also wants all meetings open to the public, and a radical idea like a Council-run newspaper, providing a vehicle to promote and tell their own story. Bryan also wants the Council to utilise community radio, to explain its decisions to the ratepayers.

Councillor Rob Pyne is trying to stimulate a discussion to embrace the establishment such guidelines or 'rules', but so far has had little support.

"Maybe we could adopt it as policy and call it our charter," Rob Pyne says. "I'm keen for this to be the focus of a public discussion."

Pyne says that some of the points raised were originally put by Ted Mack in Sydney.

"You would go a long way to find a more honest and ethical man than Ted," Pyne says. "This is a debate worth having!"

Whislt the idea has great merit, it frankly needs a great deal more work. Here's the proposed "charter":

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Just the sort of knee jerk reaction we can expect from Rob Pyne.

What would be the response to these proposals??? .....

Point 1 - they do it already - council agenda publicly available before meetings and minutes available after meetings.
Point 2 - part of council minutes.
Point 3 - already happens, with the exception of matters that must be discussed in confidence such as staffing matters
Point 4 - why?
Point 5 - it is
Point 6 - they do - unfortunately the media doesn't always report it accurately or without bias
Point 7 - why - the local government format is appropriate and more than adequate
Point 8 - it is already

So what is Pyne hoping to achieve - that council states the bleeding obvious. Or perhaps Rob doesn't know what his council already does.


Honestly he really is a wanker.