Budget 2010: Creatively common budget should have used Twitter

Twitter was the main place to get the message the Budget was released on a Creative Commons License

By any standard, the Federal Budget was a boring thing to watch on the ABC last night. And for those, like us journalists, that had to sift through the papers well into the night, it was hard to get the juices flowing.

If it weren’t for Twitter chatter keeping everyone awake, one interesting facet of the whole shebang could have been entirely missed – the fact the Budget was, for the first time ever, released under a Creative Commons license.

The man heading up the Government 2.0 Taskforce, Dr Nicholas Gruen, was joined by a number of others in tweeting what is, in our view, a welcome development.

One of the key recommendations of the Taskforce, accepted in principle by the Government recently, was that public sector information be more easily accessible and searchable, while being released under a Creative Commons BY standard license.

This means anyone can copy, distribute, transmit or remix the content as long as they provide appropriate attribution.

(See more on Creative Commons BY standard)

So it’s great to see the Government actually executing some of the things it said it would do.

We only hope the ABC will now do the same thing with the Budget broadcast next year as it does with its live interactive talk show, Q&A, by introducing a feed of Twitter comments. Now wouldn’t that make the Budget creative (and perhaps subject to classification laws)?

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