Open Australia

OpenAustralia.org is an Australian implementation of the popular UK They Work For You website and software. Like TWFY, the site aims to improve visibility over the actions of our elected rulers. It has some interesting features, particularly the search, which allows you to see, for example, who has used the word ‘muslim‘ most frequently in parliament (it’s Andrew Bartlett, apparently). Jihadist? Well, that’s our former Prime Minister John Howard. Former foreign minister Alexander Downer beats him when it comes to mention of the word ‘Islamist‘ though. Being able to subscribe to RSS alerts when politicians mention particular words is also quite useful.