Author Archives: Mackay Ash

They Vote For You and the Open Government Partnership (OGP) – Continued

By Mackay Ash | Published: April 7, 2016

Back in mid-March, we announced that They Vote For You was getting into the Open Government Partnership (OGP) action. We started by developing policies related to the Anti-Corruption Working Group: For creating a federal Anti-Corruption Commission For restricting donations to political parties We then looked at the Public Resources Working Group and came up with […]

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They Vote For You and the Open Government Partnership (OGP)

By Mackay Ash | Published: March 16, 2016

In July Australia will submit its first National Action Plan to the Open Government Partnership (OGP). These National Action Plans are lists of concrete commitments to advance open government in an OGP member country over a two year period by improving transparency, participation, and accountability. The commitments are co-created by the government and civil society. […]

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They Vote For You – Finding the real facts about voting

By Mackay Ash | Published: February 4, 2016

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer. – Abraham Lincoln When the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill 2015 went through the House of Representatives, it passed […]

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They Vote For You – Join our summer working bee!

By Mackay Ash | Published: November 13, 2015

Calling all law students and political science enthusiasts! This summer, the OpenAustralia Foundation invites you to put your statutory interpretation skills to work! If you can pick through the Parliamentary jargon and make it clear who’s voting for what from a day’s proceedings then you can help. They Vote For You launched last year to […]

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They Vote For You – There’s something wrong with Andrew Wilkie’s voting record!

By Mackay Ash | Published: November 5, 2015

Since it launched last year, we’ve received a few emails from the offices of Members or Senators that ask us to change their voting record on They Vote For You in some way because they think it’s inaccurate. But when we ask them to tell us what the error is, we don’t hear back from […]

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3 ways to keep They Vote For You tickety boo

By Mackay Ash | Published: January 30, 2015

Keeping They Vote For You up to date can seem a little challenging. So, I’ve prioritised the three most important jobs to make it easier for people to get involved. If these three tasks are done regularly by enough people, the site will remain tickety boo (which is urban slang for ‘useful and current’). 1. […]

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How do you edit division summaries?

By Mackay Ash | Published: December 2, 2014

There are many ways to edit division summaries. Here, I’m going to explain an approach that’s worked well for me. Choose a division First, I choose a division to summarise. I like to choose divisions that are relevant to policies that I’ve created, such as For decreasing availability of welfare payments. This means I often […]

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Parliamentary vote tracker project: A Case Study – Asylum Seeker Policy

By Mackay Ash | Published: April 28, 2014

This post is part of a series on our parliamentary vote tracker project. Read our previous post to learn more about the concept of policies and policy selection. You can also read our previous posts: a technical update and an introduction to what we’re doing and why. Co-authored by Natasha Burrows. Specific wordings of policies have been […]

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