On 19 January 2010 the volunteer that runs TheyWorkForYou.co.nz announced his decision to cease updating the website during 2010.
TheyWorkForYou.co.nz was built to hold power to account by making it easier for you to monitor New Zealand Parliament’s activity. A raft of social tracking features had been planned in 2006. But the process of loading Hansard data from www.parliament.nz each week proved manually intensive, and consumed too much resource to allow new features to be developed.
After yesterday’s announcement the following question was asked by email:
I wonder whether it’s possible to drop the workload by fixing the encoding at the source: namely, to have the Hansard staff encode and upload the information in such a way that they don’t give you buggered up data. I know you’ve been talking to them, and these conversations must have happened. What’s the obstacle to making a smooth TWFYNZ data ingest?
As far as I can determine, the parliament does not have an internal software development team dedicated to their website. They commissioned the development of the software that produces the HTML version of Hansard from a third party.
For the most part their Hansard HTML is structured and imbued with symantic meaning. However it often contains erratic deviations that are inconsistent with the standard structure. These have to be manually corrected before they can be loaded into the TheyWorkForYou.co.nz, partly because the loading software was designed to prevent erroneous content from being allowed through to the public website.
If you are from parliament and are curious about the manual alterations I make, you should look at the commit messages on this respository of HTML from parliament.nz (click each commit message to see details of the change).
TheyWorkForYou.co.nz does report more serious errors (such as omissions) to the Parliament. Wonderful parliament staff do their best to fix these promptly, even though the software causing some of the problems was not written by them. However I’m left feeling that Parliament has neither the will or the financial resource to invest in improving the overall consistency of their Hansard HTML. At present parliament’s budget for new development appears to be going towards a project to make a video archive of parliament debates available to the public.
Tue 19th Jan 2010
At a time when the NZ Government is reviewing its procurement systems, it’s worthwhile for us to look at overseas government experience. USA’s Department of Defence is rethinking build versus buy for government software applications:
“One vendor responded that it would undertake the project for $750,000 and that it would take a year of development time, but could offer no guarantee that the application would be completed. Two members of Nelson’s [inhouse] team built a prototype of the software in six weeks.”
Should the Treasury and Department of Internal Affairs rethink build versus buy for NZ Government software applications?
Mon 5th Oct 2009
The Australian Government 2.0 Taskforce has launched a MashupAustralia contest.
Entrants are invited to help show the taskforce why open access to Australian government information is good for Australia’s economy and society.
Around 59 datasets from the Australian and State and Territory Governments have been released at data.australia.gov.au on license terms and in formats that the taskforce claim permit and enable mashups.
Anyone who is an Australian resident/citizen is eligible for prizes (teams must have at least one Australian resident/citizen as a member). The contest will begin accepting entries on 7 October 2009 and close on 6 November 2009.
Sat 3rd Oct 2009
I’ve just recorded an interview about MP expenses with Jemma Dempsey from RadioLIVE’s World at Noon. When preparing for the interview I noted some comparisons between MP expenses in NZ and the UK.
It seems the UK Parliament already had better disclosure of MP expenses than the NZ Parliament, even before detailed claim receipts were leaked to a UK newspaper last week.
In the UK I can find a breakdown of my MP’s expense claims by category and see the total amount she received. In NZ I couldn’t find online the expense amounts claimed by my MP.
My UK MP, a government backbencher, is paid £63,291 ($161,800), and in 2007/08 received a staffing allowance of £83,106 ($212,456) and £49,284 ($125,992) for other expense allowances. Comparing this amount to other MPs, my MP’s total expenses placed her 506th out of 645 MPs.
My NZ MP, also a government backbencher, is, as far as I could determine, paid $131,000. I couldn’t find the expenses amount claimed by my MP on the www.parliament.nz site. There was some generic information about entitlements but it wasn’t obvious what the maximum amounts were.
Later in the year the UK parliament will require even more transparency from MPs. From July, UK MP’s must include in the Register of Member’s Interests:
- the precise amount of each individual payment for directorships and remunerated employment and
- the nature of the work carried out in return for that payment.
In NZ, the Register of Interests doesn’t require MPs to disclose money received for private sector employment.
Fri 15th May 2009
The NZ government is planning to invest $1.5billion in improving New Zealand’s broadband. The very first step in execution, identifying an appropriate person to run the first stage, is going to a RFP which is open for a week.
Miki Szikszai points out:
The right person for this role will be a kick-ass programme manager who’s only aim in life is to execute programmes brilliantly. That person is not going to be submitting an RFP. You will have to crowbar them out of an existing position. You need to look for these people - they don’t come to you.
In case you know the right person, you might want to point them at a summary of the tender below. If you want the full details the GETS tender link is: https://www.gets.govt.nz/Default.aspx?show=TenderDetail&TenderID=25618 (login required).
| GETS Reference: 25628 |
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Title
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Programme Manager Broadband Investment Programme
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Request for Proposal
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Ministry of Economic Development |
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General Information
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The purpose of this Request for Proposal (RFP) is to seek a sufficiently qualified person to manage the implementation of the government’s Broadband Investment Programme.
Background:
The government has issued a proposal detailing its preferred option for the implementation of its Broadband Investment Policy. The Ministry of Economic Development will be responsible for finalising and then implementing this Policy. This will include analysis of any submissions received on the proposal; finalisation of the policy; and subsequent implementation of the policy through to the establishment of a Crown Investment Agency. The Ministry intends to establish a project team comprising permanent staff supported by consultants. The Programme Manager will lead the project through this initial period.
To access the RFP documentation please download from below under file name
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Respond by Date
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Monday, 20th of April 2009 at 12:00 pm |
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Address Enquiries to
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All communications relating to this RFP, or requests for clarification or further information, should be directed in writing to: [email withheld]
All requests for clarification or further information must be made prior to Noon Monday 13 April 2009. Any requests for clarification or further information received after this time and date may not be responded to at MED’s sole discretion.
Two hard copies of the response and one electronic copy of the response saved in Microsoft Word are to be delivered to: [address withheld]
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To repeat, if you want the full details you’ll need a login to the Government Electronic Tenders Service website, the tender link is: https://www.gets.govt.nz/Default.aspx?show=TenderDetail&TenderID=25618
Wed 8th Apr 2009
TV3 News has shown a clip about Thursday’s demonstration outside of Parliament. The demonstration is part of the campaign against the ‘guilt upon accusation’ copyright law, Section 92A of the Copyright Act.
Bronwyn Holloway-Smith, Director of the Creative Freedom Foundation, gives a good summary of the problem with Section 92A when interviewed:
This law will remove New Zealanders’ fundamental right to being presumed innocent until proven guilty. That’s not something that artists want done in their name.
TWFYNZ on the News
Towards the end of the news clip TV3 show a screenshot of the TheyWorkForYou.co.nz website to show its blackout protest theme … they didn’t get copyright permission to do so.
Thu 19th Feb 2009
Creative Freedom Foundation Press Release about Public Demonstration against Guilt Upon Accusation, Parliament steps, Wellington, 12 Noon, Thurs 19 Feb:
The Creative Freedom Foundation announces that at 12 Noon on Thursday 19 February 2009 a public demonstration will be held on Parliament grounds in Wellington in support of MPs against Guilt Upon Accusation laws in New Zealand – specifically the controversial Section 92A of the Copyright Amendment Act, due to come into effect on 28 February 2009.
S92A reverses New Zealander’s fundamental right to being presumed innocent until proven guilty, punishing internet users with disconnection based accusations of copyright infringement without a trial and without evidence held up to court scrutiny.
Over 10,000 people have now signed the CFF’s petition against Guilt Upon Accusation laws in NZ. At 12.30pm, as part of the demonstration, CFF Director Bronwyn Holloway-Smith will present the petition to the government via Hon Peter Dunne of UnitedFuture.
The CFF call on the Minister responsible Hon Simon Power to immediately repeal S92A or delay its commencement, pending a review of how to best balance the rights and obligations of creators, distributors, and Internet Service Providers with respect to digital materials. Those opposing S92A can email Mr Power on s.power@ministers.govt.nz, respectfully notifying him of their concerns. Holloway-Smith states that “while we understand that New Zealanders are passionate about this issue, letters should be polite.”
Each MP will also be given a copy of a CD featuring the Creative Freedom Foundation’s Guilt Upon Accusation anthem: The Copywrong Song.
The organisers of the protest are asking participants to turn up wearing colourful clothes and with black placards – echoing the Internet Blackout campaign that has seen thousands of internet users “blacking out” their webpages, blogs, and social networking sites to show their opposition to the law.
Download The Copywrong Song and find instructions on how to take part in the blackout campaign can be found on CreativeFreedom.org.nz
I urge all of you who are able to attend this demonstration. Elpie has a good blog post that explains why it is important that New Zealand doesn’t become the first country to allow guilt upon accusation laws.
Please get to the demonstration! Civil servants, if you can’t take political action, go “watch” the demonstration at lunchtime.
Wed 18th Feb 2009
