We have open Government (or at least a website for it)

The ACT Government has launched its open government website.

It’s not immediately obvious what it does, but hey, it’s the vibe of the thing right?

There is an “What is Open Government?” page, which has this to say:

On June 23 2011, Chief Minister, Katy Gallagher MLA, made a Ministerial Statement on Open Government ‘taking a broad approach to enhance the openness of the way we govern, encompassing transparency, participation, and collaboration’. On the issue of transparency she said ‘I believe that as a first principle information available to the Government should be made available for use by the community.’

The Chief Minister went on to detail a number of practical initiatives supporting an Open Government initiative, one of which was the creation of the Open Government website.

Opening up Government, particularly on the Internet, is an ongoing process that will be undertaken incrementally in a spirit of experimentation tempered by the need to protect citizens’ privacy and security; always having regard to commercial confidentiality and copyright.

Which is a lovely motherhood statement, but doesn’t really tell us much.

Time will tell.

UPDATE: It does have an RSS feed for Cabinet outcomes, which is useful if it works.