The Australian Parliament's first hybrid sitting went okay. I suggest it
be made permanent and online voting be implemented.
In the last few months the barriers which were thought to exist to stop
online working were overcome. There are teachers, judges, lawyers,
doctors, physiologists and other professionals helping their clients
online every day. In some cases Parliaments had to make minor changes to
the law to facilitate this, but mostly there was no law preventing
online working, just some administrative procedures.
There is no law preventing the Parliament meeting online, just a lack of
will to do it. It is time for MPs and Senators to follow the example of
tens of thousands of other Australians and make the minor changes to
their routine to work online. This will have benefits for the nation
beyond the current COVID-19 emergency.
During my term as President of the Australian Computer Society I chaired
the first meeting of the ACS national council by video conference. Even
among computer professionals there was some reluctance to do this, but
it worked fine. At the end of my term in 1997 I suggested electronic
sittings of Parliament with members in their electorate offices:
https://www.tomw.net.au/twcl97c.htm#parliment
--
Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au
+61(0)419496150
TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia
Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation
Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University
https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington
_______________________________________________
Link mailing list
[email protected]
http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
