Not very secret meeting about parliamentary openness in London

Not secret at all…

Just a really quick one to let you all know. I’ve been invited to attend, representing the OpenAustralia Foundation, a study group meeting of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and Commonwealth representatives of the OpeningParliament.org community. This will be taking place next week in London, UK.

The aim of the study group is to “review and update the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association’s Recommended Benchmarks for Democratic Legislatures. Discussions will focus on the needs for increased parliamentary openness and strong benchmarks for individual parliamentary conduct, ethics and behaviour, in order to strengthen the ability of parliaments to represent citizens in a tech-empowered world.”

I look forward to meeting the other participants, members of parliament and representatives of parliamentary monitoring organisations from across the commonwealth including from NSW, the Hon Jenny Gardiner, MLC, deputy leader of the Nationals in the legislative council.

This is a long way to travel for a two and a half day meeting. So, I am taking the opportunity and extending my trip by a week to work with some of our mySociety colleagues and also take in a one day informal technology conference, OpenTech 2013. OpenTech 2013 is a descendant of a one day technology conference in 2004 which had a big influence on my life, NotCon.

Notcon 2004 is the conference that started it all for me personally. It is where Kat Szuminska and I saw the unveiling of TheyWorkForYou.com from the group that ultimately became mySociety.

Thank you to the National Democratic Institute and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association for inviting me and thanks to the World Bank Institute for sponsoring my flight and NDI for covering my accommodation during the meeting.