Mentioning ‘robodebt’ sends shivers down the spine for many people. In a post-robodebt landscape, the Open Government Partnership (OGP) initiative has been put forward as a solution to prevent history from repeating itself.
The OGP is a cooperative effort across the public sector that champions transparency, empowering citizens, fighting corruption, and harnessing new technologies to strengthen governance.
Driven by the Open Government Forum, as part of the initiative, they have developed an ambitious open national action plan (NAP3). The agenda of the NAP3 is to regain trust with Australians inside and outside of government. A recent poll by The Mandarin found that 88.4% of more than 900 public servants had dealt with integrity or ethical considerations in the past year.
The NAP3’s eight commitments align with identified challenges in the Open Government Partnership 2023-2028 Strategy including: access to information, civic space, fiscal openness, public participation, anti-corruption, digital governance, and justice.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said, “We are delivering a significant integrity reform agenda to restore public trust in government and strengthen standards of integrity in the federal public sector, and the OGP objectives of transparency and accountability are key to achieving this.”
For the government to earn the trust of Australians who have been burned by public service bad faith actors is no small feat. A quote from author of Trust Inc, Barbara Brooks Kimmel, goes: “Trust starts with trustworthy leadership. It must be built into the corporate culture.” By aligning our service delivery with best-practice standards, Procurement Australia demonstrates our commitment to transparency and accountability at every turn.
Source: https://www.themandarin.com.au/236708-ogp-promise-commits-to-integrity-honesty-accountability/