I participated in a panel of speakers at the Microsoft Forum on Politics & Technology earlier this week, along with Antony Green, Joe Hockey, Kate Lundy and Matt Bai. It was an interesting discussion, although I did get a bit irritated that the debate seemed to keep turning inwards into a discussion about how politicians can more cleverly use internet technology to win votes, rather than examining how technology can be used to empower the community to better influence political debate (and thus politicians). Read more »

A website with great potential for opening up the happenings in Parliament has gone online.  The Open Democracy site is just in the beta/testing stage, but it has the potential to serve a really valuable role.  You can sign up to get an email alert every time your local MP speaks in Parliament, or every time a particular topic is mentioned. Read more »

On June 25, during my final sitting week in Parliament, I’ll be speaking at a Politics & Technology conference organised by Microsoft. You can see all the speakers and panellists at this link. The keynote speaker will be US political writer, Matt Bai. Read more »