Influence without Surveillance

</a>

Features for citizens

Ask a question

Direct a question to a particular MP or committee. Tell them who should have to answer

Upvote or flick past a question

Add metadata to an existing question

Add an explanation or background link, e.g. to a bill or explanatory memorandum

Add a suggestion for who should answer

Add a topic or keyword

Attach a link to Hansard¹

where a question was asked or answered

Search questions

by keyword

Sort questions

by timing or popularity,

Filter questions

by electorate, answer status, committee, MP, etc

Follow another citizen

who may or may not be an MP.

Features for MPs

MPs can do everything that other citizens can do, and also respond to questions, whether those directed to them or to other MPs. There are several ways to respond to a question:

Raise it in Parliament

for example, raise it in Question Time or ask it in a commmittee or other hearing;

Answer a question publicly via RightToAsk,

which generates a notification to the person who asked it;

Comment on a question

or on an answer or comment from another MP;

Raise it in a confidential parliamentary setting

and make a (public) response to say that the matter was raised in a confidential context and will be considered in the committee’s final report;

Answer it privately by DM

generally for private questions only of interest to the individual who asked (see Direct Messages below);

Reject / disavow / re-tag the question

If the question should be asked elsewhere. MPs generally told us that they would value—and respond to—questions only if they

• came from their electorate, or
• related to their portfolios (in the case of ministers) and came from the relevant state (in the case of State MPs), or
• related to their committee responsibilities.

The aim is to streamline this at both ends, both making it easy for MPs to identify relevant questions with high support (including high support within their constituency if relevant) and also easy for citizens to understand how to direct their questions in a way that makes them more likely to have influence.

Accounts and roles

Organisations may also have accounts. These have the privileges of citizens—they can pose and vote on questions, but not answer them. However, the details of their account structure are more like an MPs, in the sense that we seek some evidence that they actually represent their claimed organisation, and allow multiple individuals to speak on their behalf. See Security and Privacy for more details.

Sorting, searching and following features

You can search the contents of questions, follow a person (who may be an MP, organisation or other citizen) or filter by question metadata such as tags and answer status. Every MP, committee and inquiry has standardised tags. MPs and citizens may also generate their own tags.

Questions can be sorted

• by popularity, i.e. the total number of upvotes;
• by proportional popularity, i.e. the total fraction of upvotes per citizen who viewed it;
• by recent popularity, i.e. the number or fraction of upvotes in the last day or hour;
• or by a weighted combinaton of the above.

Subject to privacy requirements (that there is a minimum number of respondents from the electorate), both of these sorts can run within a certain constituency, allowing MPs (and anyone else) to assess the popularity of a question to their own constituents.

Feedback features

The best and most positive kind of feedback will be to have suggested (or voted on) a question that is subsequently asked in a committee or meaningfully answered by the MP. This can be emphasised in several ways.

• A notification if a question you asked is answered or asked in Parliament.
• The same, when you upvoted it. (Note however that this would require local storage of which questions you voted on.)

There are also a number of ways we could offer rewards to those who suggested popular questions.

• Electronic rewards or prizes for asking your first question, getting at least 50 votes on a question, etc.
• Notifications when other people upvote your questions.
• Leaderboards for people who have cast the most votes?

(#subsec:FindMyMPs)

Civics and education features

State and federal electoral commissions and parliaments have online features for helping citizens find their electorate and representatives. However, these can be challenging to navigate for people who are not already familiar with how Australia’s political systems work. RightToAsk provides an accessible way for citizens to look up their representatives. The app then remembers their state and federal representatives.

Possible extra feature: Direct Messages

Right To Ask will incorporate end-to-end encrypted direct messages so that MPs can follow up directly with citizens if needed.

Each participant can set their own policy on whether they wish to receive DMs from

• nobody
• people they have sent a DM to
• people they follow
• their MPs
• (other) MPs
• anybody

1. The Hansard is the report of the proceedings of the Australian parliament and its committees. This includes the Senate, House of Representatives, the Federation Chamber and all parliamentary committees. https://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/hansard ↩