Google leads Sydney MashUp with OpenAustralia

By James Riley
Tuesday, 03 November 2009 04:23

Government Tech Policy

The NSW Government has published an online catalogue of dozens of public sector information (PSI) datasets, just as the Gov 2.0 movement in Australia gathers new momentum.

The data.nsw.gov.au catalogue is the most comprehensive in Australia and is published just in time for the Google-sponsored Mash-Up event being held in Sydney this weekend.

Government 2.0 Taskforce member and Google Australia engineering director Alan Noble says the NSW government has moved from being a laggard in the release of PSI to being a leader.

"NSW has been a bit of a laggard in this area," Government 2.0 Taskforce member and Google Australia engineering director Alan Noble says of the NSW Government. "But they have seen the light more recently, and have released several dozens – maybe even hundreds – of data sets just in recent weeks."

"It's been a blitzkrieg of government data, it's been fantastic."

Google will host the OpenAustralia HackFest MashUp edition is being held at the Sydney Googleplex at Pyrmont over two days this weekend. The event, which aims to encourage new and useful ways of using existing public sector information, is expected to attract 100 to 150 hardcore developers and programmers.

Google has an open interest in the release of PSI, much of which can be incorporated into its applications and tools – from Google Maps to StreetView – through MashUps. But Noble says innovations that result from the release of public data go well beyond Google – and the benefits can be enormous.

"We believe that the default position is that public sector information should be open, should be accessible and ideally should be freely available," Noble told iTWire. "Our very basic view is that by opening up access to information its going to stimulate innovation."

"Put another way, information is much more powerful when its set free than when it's locked up."

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner has lauded a GovHack event held in Canberra last weekend, also conducted in support of the Government 2.0 Taskforce’s MashupAustralia contest.

The winner of the weekend event was LobbyClue, a visualisation application that combines data on contract notices, business names, postcodes and electoral boundaries to produce visual representations of relationships between government organisations and businesses.

Other creations included: It's Buggered Mate, a service to report damaged public facilities,; Know Where You Live, which provides statistics on Sydney suburbs based on their postcodes; and Rate a Loo, a service to identify and appraise public toilets in the ACT.

"The Government 2.0 Taskforce has been tasked with indentifying how we can make public sector information more accessible and usable," Mr Tanner said. "Events such as Govhack allow us to explore the possibilities and help identify barriers to open access."