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 Freedom of information is freedom of a person or people to publish and consume information. Access to information is the ability for an individual to seek, receive and impart information effectively. This sometimes includes "scientific, Indigeno ...

requests, and They Vote for You, a parliamentary informatics website.

Structure

OpenAustralia is a registered charity that operates as a

company limited by guarantee In British, Australian, Bermudian, Hong Kong and Irish company law (and previously New Zealand), a company limited by guarantee (CLG) is a type of corporation used primarily (but not exclusively) for non-profit organisations that require legal pe ...

. It was established in 2009, co-founded by Matthew Landauer and Katherine Szuminska.

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. Leaflets uploaded to the website were retained on the

National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...

's Pandora archive.

Right to Know

Right to Know, established in 2012, allows users to submit

(FOI) requests to government bodies under the ''

Freedom of Information Act 1982 The ''Freedom of Information Act 1982'' (Cth) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia which guarantees freedom of information (FOI) and the rights of access to official documents of the Commonwealth Government and of its agencies to members of ...

''.

They Vote For You

They Vote For You, established in 2014, tracks the outcomes of all votes in the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

and

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the e ...

. It displays "voting patterns by politician, when they vote against their own party, and offers descriptions of divisions in plain English". It received start-up funding from

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

Controversy

ATO conflict

In 2016, the

Australian Tax Office The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is an Australian statutory agency and the principal revenue collection body for the Australian Government. The ATO has responsibility for administering the Australian federal taxation system, superannuatio ...

(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. 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.

Accusations of bias

In 2021, federal Liberal MPs

Andrew Bragg Andrew James Bragg (born 11 July 1984) is an Australian politician who was elected as a Senator for New South Wales at the 2019 federal election. He is a member of the Liberal Party. A member of several committees related to finance and technolo ...

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 The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) is the regulatory authority for charities and not-for-profit organisations within Australia. The Commission was established in December 2012 as part of the ''Australian Chariti ...

and the

Australian Electoral Commission The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is the independent federal agency in charge of organising, conducting and supervising federal Australian elections, by-elections and referendums. Responsibilities The AEC's main responsibility is to ...

. The website stated that Bragg had voted against

LGBT rights Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality. Notably, , ...

and an Indigenous voice to government, "despite leading a campaign in the Coalition to legalise gay marriage and authoring a book backing the Voice". In response, the foundation's director Matthew Landauer stated that it was independent and non-partisan. 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". 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".

References

{{reflist Organizations established in 2009 Open government activists 2009 establishments in Australia Foundations based in Australia Australian political websites