E-community Networking Association (ECNA), Inc

ABN Pending.

Parliament of Victoria Electronic Democracy Inquiry, 2002

Dear Committee Members

This submission is made on behalf of the E-Community Networking Association Inc (ECNA), a community-based organisation concerned with the use of information and communications technology for community and social capacity building.

Collectively, the membership of ECNA has a long-standing, deep and diverse experience with networked technology initiatives in communities across Australia. This experience reinforces our conviction that these networked technologies, properly applied, have profound potential to enhance citizens engagement with their communities, with all tiers of government and with democratic processes narrowly and broadly conceived.

However, we have also identified a number of significant, systemic barriers and threats to the potential of E-Democracy in Victoria. These include:

• lack of adequate access - both of public access, access for people with disabilities, access for people with non-English speaking backgrounds, and people in rural and remote areas
• lack of adequate community representation and participation in the development of E-democracy initiatives
• the need for more experimentation and openness
• the need to support and work with local government to ensure more even availability of E-Democracy-friendly environments at local government level across the state.
• the need for a more integrated and adequately resourced agency or entity at state government level to ensure that the systemic issues identified above are being adequately dealt with.

Illustrative of the enormous challenge in communication e-democracy processes is the fact that that there is no reference to the E-democracy inquiry on the Parliament of Victoria home page. One needs to be in the know to drill down to the committee then down to the relevant section on the page. And there is nothing on vic.gov.au either.

• ECNA proposes that a Parliamentary Enquiry be established to explore the adequacy of current government structures and responses to the challenges and promises of E-democracy, and the possible need to develop a new agency with adequate resources and an appropriate brief.

Citizen participation is essential to the roll-out of e-democracy

The evolution of the use of technology for e-democracy must proceed with the greatest possible involvement of and consultation with the community. There is a danger that without such consultation and active participation, outcomes and systems will be unnecessarily constrained, fitting political or bureaucratic imperatives to the technology (hardware, software, and consultants preferences) rather than enhancing democracy in the State.

Democracy is an inherently messy and creative process. Because of the ever-changing boundaries of political process, we should to accept that e-democracy will fail in some ways, and brilliantly succeed in others. What those ways are is not yet clear, and there should be the will to experiment with technology, undertake the risks involved with new forms of participation and debate, and learn from this new form of interactivity. Citizens must be involved in this process.

• A code of principles and practices for overseeing the rollout of e-democracy must be developed with the participation with the community at large
• There should be an oversight body or agency - perhaps E-democracy Council, with community representation.

Resourcing e-democracy

As democracy goes online, what resources should be made available to the community at large?

As a case study, consider the current role of the public library network, but the same issues are relevant to other or points of public access, including neighbourhood houses, internet cafes etc.

Public libraries are consistently found to be a key information access resource in the community, but their technology budgets and human resources are extremely limited, notwithstanding increased demand for internet services. Some public libraries (including the State Library) are in fact restricting email use. Other libraries block chat. Many libraries have do not permit the use of audio or video streaming Library staff are already under considerable pressure to provide help in helping users to access government and related web sites.

If a citizen cannot send an email from a public library, take advantage of netcasting, or ask a librarian for assistance then we have a major problem with the reach of e-democracy to all in the community. Recent work by the Centre for Community Networking Research at Monash University indicates that a very high percentage of those using electronic public access in Public Libraries are in the lowest income brackets and have few alternative sources of access. The data suggests that public access in public libraries is one very important part of a safety net for low-income users. · Ensuring that all citizens have the opportunity to participate across all the dimensions of e-democracy, a satisfactory spread of public access provision (machines and people) should be a fundamental priority of government. At present the responsibility for the provision of this access is split across agencies and tiers of government. This requires urgent and significant attention.

Specific Equity Issues

There are at least three areas of content management and development where the commitment to equity is under challenge.

1. Online Services to People with a Disability Victorian government websites, by and large, do not meet internationally recognised standards for accessibility (web design for people with vision, physical, hearing or other impairments). As an example, Parliament's pages are largely inaccessible people with sight disabilities. The Council of Online Ministers made a commitment in 2000 to use international benchmarks such as the World Wide Web Consortium's Accessibility Guidelines, but in our experience, there is little practical adherence to them, even though under the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act, government is leading itself open to complaint. · Any rollout of e-democracy technology needs to be committed to the implementation of accessibility standards.

People of culturally and linguistically-diverse backgrounds Indeed our perception is that there has been inadequate initiative in government to using the internet as a means of communication with non-English-speaking communities, even though a number of initiatives have demonstrated its potential. · There should be targeted innovation directed to e-democracy initiatives in consultation with the migrant services sector.

3. People in non-metropolitan areas. Lack of infrastructure is a major impediment to people in the country. Of particular concern is the cost of bandwidth for people out of Melbourne, and frequently the limitations of bandwidth (ie only narrow-band service is available). In addition, support services are often limited for people to get the skills, knowledge and access to go online. Public access points (eg libraries) need to be funded and resourced to provide free access to their communities. Options such as wireless networks should be investigated for low cost broad-bandwidth options to small communities, as has been the case in rural Sweden, using lower cost open-source technology (http://194.236.84.240/pressrelease/26072001en.html).

Is e-democracy always feasible?

Notwithstanding the excellent proposals or Steven Clift (www.publicus.net) and interest and support for such initiatives in Australia, we know of continuing concerns that e-democracy will only privilege those who are already committed to the public commons. We suggest here that pilot and demonstration projects of such initiatives, with the support of all political parties, need to be set in place. Furthermore, there is a concern about defamation and libel suits through things said on line, whether in public forums, lists, or bulletin boards. Until such time as the right to public comment is legislatively protected, we suggest that there will be a reluctance by government of either persuasion (and in local government) to promote e-democracy. We already know this to be the case.

Privacy

It goes without saying that ECNA believes that privacy rights are paramount, particularly in interactions with government where there are databases of information.

For more information about ECNA, please contact ECNA's Public Officer: m j s k @vicnet.net.au. (remove the spaces before the @ sign -- this is to stop spamming)

Last updated: October, 2002