They vote for you: How we're taking back politics

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/21/they-vote-for-you-how-were-taking-back-politics

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Everyone should know what their politicians do and say on their behalf in parliament. If they don’t, how can they be held to account? And how can we begin talk to them about what we want them to do?

Trust in politics is at an all time low. Yet we live in a time when technology has the potential to bring us closer than ever to our representatives. It’s time we started using it.

What we see on television or read about parliament focuses on arguments in question time. We see adversarial battles, emotional rhetoric and partisan spin. It can be a distraction. It’s not an accurate view of what goes on in parliament.

We need to look behind what they say and examine how they vote, because the most important things that politicians do in parliament is vote. They vote to make new laws, and update and amend the existing ones. Changes to the law can and do have a profound effect on our society, and the way we go about our daily lives. Yet if we want find out how they voted, we have to roll your sleeves up, trawl through pages and pages of hansard, votes and proceedings and journals of the Senate and try to make sense of it all. This is not an easy task.

Parliament should be easy, and accessible. That is why today the OpenAustralia Foundation is launching a new site – They Vote for You – so you can find out how your representatives in parliament vote on issues you care about.

Our political researchers have been working to accurately summarise votes and connect these with easy to understand policy positions. So now you can see where everyone in parliament stands on issues that you could talk to them about, issues that your member of parliament or senators might vote on again in the near future. Do you agree with them, or not?

How, for instance, has your representative voted on a minerals resource rent tax or decreasing availability of welfare payments?

Or what about increasing surveillance powers, decreasing availability of abortion drugs or increasing restrictions on gambling?

They Vote for You is a small but vital piece of civic infrastructure which help build the roads and bridges that 21st century citizens need to help them get to where they want to go.

You might ask if parliament should be putting all this together. Perhaps, but the machinery of parliament is slow. We’re not though.

In many ways, it’s easier for us to do it than it is for them. That’s why we’re filling the gaps and hopefully in the process, change everyones’ expectations of what democracy looks like in the internet age.

And you can help.

If there is a policy missing that you would like to see you can do your own research and add it, much like Wikipedia. See a mistake? You can fix it yourself. A mistake could be as simple as a spelling error, or as subtle as one word in a description which changes how you interpret the result of a vote.

In our short life as a charity the OpenAustralia Foundation,has already created several other non-partisan pieces of civic infrastructure. OpenAustralia allows you to keep tabs on what politicians say in parliament. With PlanningAlerts you receive an email any time something new is planned to be built or knocked down in your local area. With RightToKnow you can access inside information on what your government is doing by making a freedom of information request easily. With ElectionLeaflets we monitor the leaflets that people receive in the mail during elections. If you live in Victoria, you can even upload election leaflets you get in the mail for the upcoming state election.

The right to know what politicians say in parliament and how they vote on our behalf is one that has been fought for and won by citizens. It’s a right that we must not take for granted.

Now it’s time to bring it bang up to date.