Category Archives: Announcement

Introducing the biggest Planning Alerts redesign in fourteen years

By Matthew Landauer | Published: June 25, 2024

We originally launched Planning Alerts in October 2009. That feels like a lifetime ago. In that time all sorts of features have been added, there have been visual redesigns, and we’ve introduced many little improvements and fixes. Yet nothing we have done before feels as substantial and meaningful as what we’re launching today.  On the […]

Also posted in PlanningAlerts.org.au | 2 Responses

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has revoked OpenAustralia Foundation’s Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) endorsement

By Kat Szuminska | Published: November 22, 2023

On Thursday November 16 2023, the OpenAustralia Foundation received the following letter from the Australian Taxation Office. In it they said “Based on the information we examined during the review, we have determined that The Foundation is not operating as a public library to be entitled for endorsement as a DGR under items 1 & […]

Also posted in OpenAustralia Foundation | Tagged , , , , | 2 Responses

New! Three easy steps to a better PlanningAlerts

By Matthew Landauer | Published: December 20, 2022

Do you use PlanningAlerts and have an email alert set up? Do you realise you’ve never set a password for an account? Have you ever found unsubscribing from an alert not entirely obvious or needed help to confirm a comment or update your email address for an alert? Good news! From now on you’ll be […]

Also posted in Development, PlanningAlerts.org.au | 12 Responses

A new category has been added to your representative’s voting records!

By Mackay Ash | Published: January 31, 2022

You may have noticed that your MP and senator voting records are looking a bit different.  Voting records are now divided into nine different categories: Voted consistently for Voted almost always for Voted generally for Voted a mixture of for and against Voted generally against Voted almost always against Voted consistently against We can’t say […]

Also posted in They Vote For You | 2 Responses

Right to Know Pro For Journalists, Researchers, Academics, Campaigners, and FOI professionals.

By Kat Szuminska | Published: March 30, 2021

A new way to make FOI requests, for professionals Since we launched Right to Know we’ve regularly heard from journalists, who would love to use Right to Know, but need to keep Freedom of Information (FOI) requests under wraps until a story comes together. We also know it’s not only journalists who need to work […]

Also posted in RightToKnow.org.au | Leave a comment

Thank You for All Your Comments

By Kat Szuminska | Published: January 13, 2021

Today we removed the ability for people to comment on speeches published at openaustralia.org.au We’re taking a pause on letting anyone comment on OpenAustralia because, in our work we want to make it a little easier for people who want to make a difference, to have their voices heard, for their voices to matter in […]

Also posted in OpenAustralia.org | Leave a comment

A new era for morph.io

By James Polley | Published: April 10, 2019

When morph.io was built, we leveraged a lot of awesome existing work already in the open-source ecosystem. In particular, we were able to heavily lean on work down by the Herokuish project had done to create a platform that can run scripts written in a variety of languages. The Herokuish project, in turn, built on […]

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Freedom of Information Amendments proposed

By Kat Szuminska | Published: November 23, 2018

On 23 August 2018 the Senate referred the Freedom of Information Legislation Amendment (Improving Access and Transparency) Bill 2018 to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 30 November 2018. Here is OpenAustralia Foundation’s submission to the Senate in response. Prepared by Ben Fairless, Katherine Szuminska, James Polley, Matthew Landauer SummaryAmends the: Archives […]

Also posted in RightToKnow.org.au | 1 Response

A great win for Right to Know, FOI and transparency

By Ben Fairless | Published: May 11, 2017

Ben Fairless is a volunteer administrator of our Freedom of Information (FOI) request site, Right To Know. When the ATO started to refuse valid FOI requests from people on Right To Know he made a personal complaint to the OAIC about his refused request. He has some good news to share! You may have been […]

Also posted in RightToKnow.org.au | Tagged | 3 Responses

Our first ever Outreachy Internship

By Luke Bacon | Published: May 5, 2017

Today we’re excited to announce that Hisayo Horie will be working with us for the next 3 months in our Outreachy Internship position. Before we introduce Hisayo, and the project we’ll be working on together, let us tell you a little about how the Outreachy application process has gone since our announcement blog post just […]

Also posted in Outreachy, PlanningAlerts.org.au | Tagged , , | 1 Response