OpenAustralia makes democracy easier to find than peak oil

Tintin and Minister Ferguson go looking for more oil

People who are mystified why PM Rudd would send his embarrassing resources Minister Martin Ferguson to OPEC, might try their luck on a new website that offers to open Parliament to the democracy of the interweb.

OpenAustralia is a volunteer-fuelled site which gives Australians a way to search Parliament House information. Crikey today gave the project a great wrap, praying it will make a difference.

I had a quick look on OpenAustralia for the wisdom of the above-mentioned Martin Ferguson and found it hard to find anything interesting.

This is a pity because he has a long history of sabotaging constructive environmentalism which would protect ecology while also creating sustainable jobs. Peter Norton's doctoral thesis shows that back in the early 1990s Ferguson used his ACTU role drove wedges between unions and environmentalists and helped ensure that the Labor Government did nothing genuine to plan for climate change and the switch out of coal.

For every step forward made by greens like Philip Toyne, Ferguson would take two steps back. He always spoke like the great leader of the workers, who would protect them from "red, black and green tape" and swing the economy's pendulum back away from extreme preservationism.

My feeling is that providing information on government like OpenAustralia does is not as powerful as when the information is shaped by an ecological or other critique, such as on Exxon Secrets.

But the project is worthy and just having it exist makes a powerful point; this service should be provided by the Parliament. We should have a foolproof government information service online with language and disability aids, search assistance and a public inquiries facility.

OpenAustralia will put some pressure on the likes of Ferguson do a better job. If he wants to protect his leader from future embarrassment, he needs to catch up on the last twenty years of climate science. Then he can take stock to see whether he really is one of the strong men who have made the world.