DEBORAH CAMERON: Now think about a big organisation like the ABC, and the little part of it that 702 is. There's everything, there's the Facebook page, there's, you know, you can tweet us, we blog, you email, you text, we hear you - you're there, right. It's so much more than a mere radio station - it's this great big multi-platform thing. Now the interesting thing is how can that sort of experience, where a community is formed on lots and lots of different levels be applied in, lets say, government, or let's say bureaucracy - places where that kind of familiarity is not something that ministers often want to breed because it can always fuel problems. The Federal Finance Minister, Lindsay Tanner, has written a really interesting opinion piece in today's Sydney Morning Herald, pushing this idea called web 2.0, and the possibilities that it gives to communities to engage with government, and more widely, he raises all sorts of interesting questions as well about companies - everybody these days, it seems, is some sort of a media organisation, and Lindsay Tanner, Federal Finance Minister, joins me now to talk about it. Good morning Minister.
LINDSAY TANNER: Good morning Deborah.
DEBORAH CAMERON: It's very interesting to see the direction that you're pushing in, that Government is in a way becoming a media organisation.
LINDSAY TANNER: Well the examples you cited from the ABC - which of course is obviously primarily a media organisation - just do illustrate the point, that Australians apparently have the highest rate of use of social networking sites of anywhere in the world, and of course these technologies, these opportunities give us the chance to interact much more richly with each other than we previously had. So Government in the past has typically had connections with people, either through broadcasting - where we just send out a big one way message - or one on one communication. And of course if we explain to you via a letter or an email why we're doing something, or we answer specific questions, well you get the answer. But nobody else does. And nobody else can chime in and say well, hang on a second. What about this. What about that. Whereas if it's done, what I call, multilaterally, in a sort of giant public conversation, say, about child care regulation or something, then everybody can join in - and it's a much deeper and more beneficial process.
DEBORAH CAMERON: Now is there evidence to support the idea that the wisdom of crowds - which is what you're talking about unleashing - could actually be funnelled into policy development?
LINDSAY TANNER: Look. We've done a few experiments with this. Child care regulation being one. And the human rights consultation process, we did a bit of this as well. And also digital policy. And they were modestly successful, and of course it's always difficult to measure. But I think the evidence is pretty clear, both internationally and in the private sector as well, that the more brains you get engaged in raising issues, in tackling questions, in posing solutions to problems, the more likely you are to come up with good solutions. And also the people will feel like they've actually had a genuine involvement, and understand what's happening better. So it's not some kind of magic overnight solution, but it's something that is happening all around the world, in parts of our society, and I believe that it will enrich government. Now it's got some challenges, to - so it's not a simple thing. There are some downsides that we have to address, or some difficulties - but I think it will really improve Government.
DEBORAH CAMERON: But what you're up against is a culture which has been hostile to criticism, which is often what these sorts of forums unleash, at least in the first place - you get a fair bit of anger and hostility. But secondly, you're also talking about people in a way being prepared to play second fiddle - and that may even be you, a minister, you know someone who's confident and ideas driven and, you know, occasionally given to great flights of ego - someone…
LINDSAY TANNER: Never.
DEBORAH CAMERON:… might come up with a, someone might come up with a better idea, and you have to fold your tent and go with it.
LINDSAY TANNER: Look, that's right. And that's part of the challenge. There are, kind of, two big challenges, difficulties to overcome, and that's part of one of them, and that is that you, there's a kind of who speaks for Government question here, so that broadly, you want a single message from Government. You don't want people to be confused and have conflicting or different messages coming out about what the position is, what the Government's position on, you know, childcare regulation is. So that's been one of the reasons why you've had a pretty buttoned up kind of secrecy driven hierarchal sort of style of government - not just in this country, but, you know, pretty much all around the world. So that's a challenge, because you don't want complete confusion to emerge. But the Public Service Commission has drafted what I think's a really good set of guidelines for public servants, saying here are the boundaries. By all means participate in blogging in your area of responsibility and expertise. But understand your wider responsibilities. The second big challenge, of course, is resources - that for people to actively participate in these things takes time. And it takes resources. So one of the issues we've got to think about is, well, does this mean, you know, more money having to be spent on these things. That's a bit of a challenge.
DEBORAH CAMERON: The other problem will be the impartiality, the gov… the processes of government. So the idea that bureaucrats, public servants will be able to be engaged in blogs with people who have relevant interests in that policy area. First of all it may expose them to lobbying - you know. You can get right in underneath the guard of what's in the public interest and talk to someone who can actually tweak a lever.
LINDSAY TANNER: Look - I'm not really worried about that. I think one of the most overestimated phenomena in politics is this fear of lobbyists. Like it's something that people get really agitated about, and they think that somehow lobbyists getting in to see ministers, whatever, are you know changing decisions and running the country. Frankly, whether it's us or the Liberals, we're not that silly. The decisions are made by governments, by politicians, by senior public servants, based on a variety of inputs. They're not just blank slates that somebody else comes and writes something on, and sometimes people disagree with those decisions, and sometimes lobbyists bring additional information to the table. But that - what you've just mentioned there, I wouldn't be particularly worried about because the key thing is it will be public. So if you've got a lobbyist putting something onto a blog where there's, say, public servants in the health area participating and pushing their wares, well, it's pretty likely that everybody else who's participating will see that, will understand it. And therefore, if it looks like the Government has got engaged in some dirty dealing with the lobbyist, everybody will know about it.
DEBORAH CAMERON: My guest this morning is Lindsay Tanner, the Federal Finance Minister, talking about web 2.0, an idea that he is pushing to help engage the community with the wheels of government. Now an interesting thought in the op-ed piece that you've written in today's Herald is that you think that it may be necessary for much freer copyright arrangements to be made concerning government publications. The whole - does it cross over at all with the freedom of information type, sort of concerns?
LINDSAY TANNER: Look, it's parallel. So philosophically it is in the same zone - but it is a different question. Governments produce vast amounts of data. Like huge amounts of data. And sometimes a lot of that data doesn't become available in the public domain - not even necessarily because there is some overt decision to say this is top secret, or whatever, but simply because it's sitting somewhere, it's inaccessible, nobody makes the effort to make it accessible in a usable form. So it's just that people don't think about the potential value for citizens outside the government for that data. Now to its credit, the Howard Government took some early steps on this front, and it made Australian Bureau of Statistics data and Geoscience Australia, which does a lot of the mapping of our land and our resources, the data from those two agencies - most of it was made available, free, and in a usable form. So in other words, if you're a business and you need to find out something about the geology of a particular part of Australia, or you want to use some of the census data or labour-force data that the ABS collects, well, it's available there for you to research and use free. Now that's - I think it was a very positive step. And it indicates the point that rather than government's spending taxpayers money, putting all this data together, and hoarding it, wherever we can we should be trying to make it accessible to the general public so that they can also get value from it. They're ultimately paying for it.
DEBORAH CAMERON: It raises another interesting question - which is to do with the sorts of people that would be interested in working in government-type jobs in the public service, making policy or implementing policy. Increasingly, these are young people who are very engaged with these social media type outlets, very familiar with them, and I wonder whether what you're doing is actually enabling change - because it will happen generationally - but also just encouraging bright young people to think about the government, a government job as being somewhere where you don't walk into the office and disconnect from the world.
LINDSAY TANNER: I think that's spot on Deborah. In fact, one of the things that emerged in this task force examination of these issues, that Dr Nicholas Gruen headed for us, was that there is quite a bit of this stuff happening now with people who are mid levels or more senior public servants in the areas like the Health Department or the Tax Department or whatever where they are actually doing it, and where there's a bit of eyebrow raising going on around the place, and, you know, the kind of wider public service not quite sure how to deal with it. And I look at it, for example in my own department, I was citing an example to somebody the other day. I've got somebody who's a very enthusiastic and dedicated public servant in a particular area that I deal with which is, frankly, very obscure. And there's probably about 100 people around the country who have a specific interest in it, and there are academics and so forth who'd be very interested. And I look at that and think I think it would be a great thing if this bloke was able to, you know, publicly communicate with these people about some of the challenging questions that we face on these issues. I trust him, you know, to not say stupid things. I think that that would be a good thing. And the odds are that it would enhance our work because somebody could come up with an angle or a new idea or a solution to a problem that we haven't thought of.
DEBORAH CAMERON: Now, I can't resist asking you one last question. Very political and of the day. The Opposition is calling on the Prime Minister and the Environment Minister to explain why it's taken so long to address the safety issues with the insulation program. Mr Garrett defended himself this morning. As Finance Minister do you have confidence in Peter Garrett?
LINDSAY TANNER: Of course I have confidence in Peter Garrett. And the answer is that these issues have been addressed and are being addressed. And the problem really that has emerged has been that although last year we banned the metal fasteners, which are at the centre of this problem of electrified roofs and using them for insulation purposes, is what's creating a risk. It would appear that that hasn't been followed in all cases so inevitably there's now a set of challenges for us to actually go further. But I have complete confidence in Peter Garrett in his handling of these things. And it is of course a huge program that has had to be rolled out with speed because it was driven both by the environmental concerns to reduce electricity consumption, but also to get money out there moving, employing people, pushing back against the global recession. So these implementation challenges are always likely to emerge but I have complete confidence in Peter's handling of it. And obviously it's very tragic that we've had some instances of people dying with the insulation of these things. I'm not in a position to comment on what ultimately caused that, who was responsible. I would assume that there usual processes that are in play for addressing those questions. But the process of actually dealing with these challenges has been going for some time, and it's continuing.
DEBORAH CAMERON: Minister, thank you very much for your time his morning.
LINDSAY TANNER: Thank you very much.
DEBORAH CAMERON: You're welcome. Lindsay Tanner is Finance Minister in the Federal Government. And you'll see him up against Barnaby Joyce on Q&A on Monday. Don't miss it.
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