OpenAustralia Foundation

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OpenAustralia Foundation - Wikipedia

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OpenAustralia Foundation
Formation	2009
Founders	Matthew Landauer Katherine Szuminska
Type	Non-profit organisation
Legal status	Company limited by guarantee
Purpose	Open government
Website	oaf.org.au

The OpenAustralia Foundation (OAF) is a non-profit organisation aimed at improving government transparency. Its projects include Right to Know, a website allowing users to submit freedom of information requests, and They Vote for You, a parliamentary informatics website.

Structure

OpenAustralia is a registered charity that operates as a company limited by guarantee. It was established in 2009,^[1] co-founded by Matthew Landauer and Katherine Szuminska.^[2]

Projects

One of the foundation's earliest projects was Election Leaflets, a website established in the lead-up to the 2010 federal election that allowed users to upload pamphlets that they receive from political parties. It allowed voters to track if parties were emphasising different policies in different electorates or if candidates were offering policies that differed from party platforms.^[3] Leaflets uploaded to the website were retained on the National Library of Australia's Pandora archive.^[4]

Right to Know

Right to Know, established in 2012, allows users to submit freedom of information (FOI) requests to government bodies under the Freedom of Information Act 1982.^[5]

They Vote For You

They Vote For You, established in 2014, tracks the outcomes of all votes in the House of Representatives and Senate. It displays "voting patterns by politician, when they vote against their own party, and offers descriptions of divisions in plain English".^[6] It received start-up funding from Google.^[7]

Controversy

ATO conflict

In 2016, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) stated it would no longer cooperate with FOI requests received via Right to Know, on the grounds that the organisation had breached the privacy of ATO staff members. In response, Right to Know stated that the privacy breach was due to the failure of the ATO to correctly redact its own documents.^[5]^[8] In 2017, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner ruled that the ATO had breached its obligations under the FOI Act by refusing to process the requests.^[9]

Accusations of bias

In 2021, federal Liberal MPs Andrew Bragg and Dave Sharma accused They Vote for You of distorting their voting records, making formal complaints to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission and the Australian Electoral Commission. The website stated that Bragg had voted against LGBT rights and an Indigenous voice to government, "despite leading a campaign in the Coalition to legalise gay marriage and authoring a book backing the Voice".^[7]

In response, the foundation's director Matthew Landauer stated that it was independent and non-partisan.^[10] He "acknowledged that They Vote for You was constrained to recording only MPs’ formal votes and that MPs could be wedged by motions that supported good aims but also criticised their parties or proposed controversial solutions".^[7]

In March 2022, in the lead-up to the 2022 federal election, Bragg and Sharma began legal action against the foundation on the grounds that it had engaged in "misleading and deceptive conduct".^[10]

References

^ "About". the OpenAustralia Foundation. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
^ "People". the OpenAustralia Foundation. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
^ Edwards, Michael (21 July 2010). "Website to monitor political leaflets". PM. ABC. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
^ "Election Ephemera Collections for 2013 Election". ABC News. 22 April 2013. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
^ ^a ^b Belot, Henry (23 September 2016). "Australian Tax Office claim FOI website Right to Know 'clutters the internet'". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
^ "How is your MP voting on issues you care about?". Guardian Australia. 21 October 2014. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
^ ^a ^b ^c Bonyhady, Nick; Harris, Rob (12 November 2021). "MPs call for 'partisan' political transparency site to lose charity status". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
^ Belot, Henry (30 August 2016). "Australia Tax Office declines freedom of information requests from Right To Know website". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
^ Elvery, Simon (12 May 2017). "ATO's refusal to process Freedom of Information requests ruled invalid". Retrieved 5 April 2022.
^ ^a ^b Crowe, David (23 March 2022). "'Pack of lies': Liberals take legal action over They Vote For You site". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 5 April 2022.

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