Page 3646 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 23 August 2011
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work and whether we are missing anything out—before we finalise this new open government website. I urge other members to have a look at that and provide us with feedback as well.
These really are the first steps in rolling out our open government agenda. It is going to be a process of building blocks. We will start, and we have already started, but we will build on that as we go forward. I hope that it will become a useful and collaborative partnership between the government and the community as it rolls out further.
MS PORTER: A supplementary, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Ms Porter.
MS PORTER: Chief Minister, can you please provide an overview of what the response was to the Twitter cabinet that was held in July?
MS GALLAGHER: I thank Ms Porter again for the question. The first virtual community cabinet meeting was a success. I think for one hour over a weekday lunchtime we had contact with approximately 200 members of the community online. It was a bit of an experiment; it was the first time that we had done it. Indeed, I think it was the first time a cabinet had done it in Australia, but we are learning from that experience. I think there was overwhelmingly positive feedback to the forum.
There were some limitations with it which, I think, we all go into with our eyes open, and that is why it is important to have a range of other mechanisms open for the community to connect with their elected representatives. But we know that there were about 450 tweets sent and received over that hour. There was some very fast typing by ministerial colleagues responding to questions as they came in. We were able to answer about 50 per cent of the questions that came in within that hour, and we undertook to answer the rest over the next few days.
In response to being asked what the major issues were, they were around transport, particularly public transport, light rail and ACTION. There were comments around the health services, the community sector and education. There were also comments around planning and also some feedback about better ideas for open government and use of social networking tools.
We are going to have another one. It is going to be held on 30 August at 7 o’clock to try it at a different time of the day. This will be an open theme as well. Following on from this, ministers will hold individual subject-specific Twitter sessions in their portfolio areas at a later date. I think the general and open discussion themes are useful. As I said, we will have our second one at the end of August.
MR COE: A supplementary, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Mr Coe.
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