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E-government engagement

Better Regulation - There's always room for improvement

Lindsay Tanner's picture
Wed, 08/10/2008 - 14:56 — Lindsay Tanner

A bottom up approach - the start of which is simply listening to those who are affected by regulation on a day to day basis - can help limit the costs and improve the effectiveness of regulation.

Thank you for joining me here to discuss better regulation. 

Earlier this year I visited the UK, Netherlands and the OECD to talk to regulators, business leaders and politicians about how they have been tackling regulatory reform. 

I came back to Australia enthused and full of ideas and insights.  But I also came back with the view that these countries are not so far ahead of us that Australia could not also become a pace‑setter in regulatory reform.

To do this will require new ideas and innovations, including better use of information technology and a commitment to continuous improvement of our regulatory systems. 

Continuous improvement means building better regulation from the bottom up. History provides numerous examples of top down regulation imposed with good intentions but little awareness of unintended consequences and costs. A bottom up approach - the start of which is simply listening to those who are affected by regulation on a day to day basis - can help limit the costs and improve the effectiveness of regulation.

The YouTube election that wasn't

Thu, 29/05/2008 - 10:25 — jim.macnamara

Jim Macnamara

Claims that the recent Australian Federal election was the "YouTube election" or an ‘e-election' are greatly exaggerated.

There was a lot of hype about how Web 2.0 technologies allegedly influenced the last Federal Election. However, research shows that much of the claimed impact of YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, blogs and other ‘new' media remains questionable at this stage. 

From July through to November as the election campaign rolled out traditional print and television media were awash with claims that wikis, blogs, vlogs as well as websites like Facebook, and YouTube were changing the way we deal with our politicians, and the way they deal with us.

A study carried out by the Australian Centre for Public Communication at the University of Technology Sydney found that most Web 2.0 type applications used by politicians and political parties failed to take advantage of the interactive ‘conversation'  features this technology provides.