The OpenAustralia Foundation (OAF) is a non-profit organisation aimed at improving

government transparency Open government is the governing doctrine which maintains that citizens have the right to access the documents and proceedings of the government to allow for effective public oversight. In its broadest construction, it opposes reason of state a ...

. 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 A company limited by guarantee (CLG) is a type of company where the liability of members in the event the company is wound up is limited to a (typically very small) amount listed in the company's articles or constitution. Most have no share ca ...

. 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 freedom of information (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 ...

''.

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 entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...

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 el ...

. 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 and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

Controversy

ATO conflict

In 2016, the

Australian Taxation 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 Taxation in Australia, Australian federal taxation ...

(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 Australian Senate, Senator for New South Wales at the 2019 Australian federal election, 2019 federal election. He is a member of the Liberal Party of Austral ...

and

Dave Sharma Devanand Noel "Dave" Sharma (born 21 December 1975) is an Australian politician and former public servant and diplomat who has served as Australian Senate, Senator for New South Wales since November 2023. Prior to that, he served as the member ...

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 Charitie ...

and the

Australian Electoral Commission The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is the independent statutory agency of the Australian Government responsible for the management and oversight of Australian federal elections, plebiscites, referendums and some trade union A ...

. The website stated that Bragg had voted against

LGBT rights Rights affecting lesbian, Gay men, gay, Bisexuality, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the Capital punishmen ...

and an

Indigenous voice to government The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, also known as the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, the First Nations Voice or simply the Voice, was a proposed Australian federal advisory body to comprise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island ...

, "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