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With the launch last night of OpenAustralia.org, we now have our very own edition of TheyWorkForYou, thanks to the hard work of a group of local volunteers, plus the good people of mySociety, who build the technology on which the system is based.

OpenAustralia combines Hansard (the official record of Australian parliamentary debates – effectively a transcript of the proceedings of the parliament), with information about our members of parliament, making it much easier to:

• follow a particular debate or theme – eg, climate change
• keep an eye on what your local member is saying and doing
• comment on and debate the issues yourself with other members of the site

Would be great to see a site like this take on something of the energy of Whirlpool for example. That would get them sitting up and listening. Would also be nice to see a project like this get a bit of support from mainstream Australian media. Will we ever see the day where a newspaper urges its readers to “Follow this story at OpenAustralia”?