Australian Parliament House content goes common

The Australian Parliament House (APH) website is next in line for a Creative Commons licence, according to a spokesperson for the APH.

The wesbite is currently undergoing redevelopment and is due to go live by October this year, with all content falling under a Creative Commons by attribution (CC BY) license. It follows the same license being issued for the 2010/2011 Federal Budget.

Labour Senator Kate Lundy flagged the changes in a recent speech given to the Gov 2.0 Expo in the US. While a spokesperson for the website confirmed that the content would need be available under the Creative Commons licence until it is relaunched later this year, Lundy applauded the movement as "a world first for such an institution".

The increasing use of a Creative Commons by attribution licence on Government projects and data is part of a "pro-disclosure environment" according to Lundy.

"This represents a big change in attitude, culture and practice," she told attendees of the conference. "It means a pro-disclosure approach where the default is to publish.

"Democratising data in this way encourages citizens and industry to contribute to and innovate with government information, adding social and economic value."

In championing the cause for Government 2.0 and open government, Lundy argued that the Internet was a "prime catalyst for the next big step for democracy".

The Government 2.0 Taskforce's report, Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0, recommended the use of a Creative Commons licence across all Government data as a means of opening access to public sector information.

Any content under the licence can be re-used, mashed up or re-purposed for different projects, provided the original source is credited during publication.

Existing government projects under a CC BY licence include all census data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, all data sets on the data.australia.gov.au website and the 2010/2011 Federal Budget.

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