Championing Open Government: Right to Know Week 2017 wrap up

In 2017, NSW marked Right to Know Week from 25 September to 1 October.

This year’s theme was ‘Right to Information: Open and accountable government and the media’s role’, where:

• • Open government builds community trust
  • Government transparency strengthens community participation and our democracy
  • Community access to government-held information keeps us accountable and transparent.

This means that:

• • I have a right to access government information
  • I have a responsibility to release government information
  • Communities have the right to know. Governments have a responsibility to share.

The Information and Privacy Commission NSW took the opportunity to spread the message of individual’s right of access to government information and open, transparent governance through a number of key initiatives:

• • Signing up 52 RTKW Champions – an IPC record to date!
  • Participation in the joint Australian/NZ Information Commissioners media release
  • Participation in the Queensland flagship event, the Solomon Lecture with guest presenter, Mr Kerry O’Brien
  • Release of the ‘Monitoring of Agency Disclosure Log Practices Report’ – a report on the IPC and ten principal departments’ disclosure logs, and considerations for all agencies on how to maximise transparency and public access to information in their operational context
  • Blog post with the Department of Finance, Services and Innovation (page no longer available)
  • Blog post and podcast with the State Record Authority of NSW

The IPC also announced an upcoming new resource soon to be available – an e-learning module on Open Data that will offer a great education tool on how to make data open and accessible to your stakeholders and the community, in collaboration with the Department of Finance, Services and Innovation.