Chapter 5
Engagement
Community engagement
It is important to ensure that people who use government services, and key stakeholders and community information 'gatekeepers', know who we are, what we do and how to contact us. To get this message to the public is always difficult, but especially so when communicating with audiences outside the main metropolitan areas. Accordingly, getting our message out to people in regional, rural and remote Australia remains a key priority for the office.
In 2008–09 our staff were involved in 219 outreach activities across all states and territories, exceeding our goal to conduct or participate in an average of two focused outreach activities each week during the year. This was a 28% increase on 2007–08, due largely to our outreach work associated with the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER).
Our outreach activities included:
- conducting roundtable discussions with community groups and other special interest groups in all state capital cities
- conducting repeated outreach visits to Indigenous prescribed communities and town camps in the Northern Territory, utilising information and outreach items targeted at informing Indigenous people about the role of the office
- visiting Defence Force establishments to highlight the Defence Force Ombudsman role
- participating in joint activities with Australian Government agencies and other Ombudsman offices such as the Child Support Agency Community Information Sessions, the NSW Good Service Forum, and NAIDOC week
- distributing Commonwealth Ombudsman publications to relevant information outlets.
In the coming year, a strategic priority for our office is to target outreach, relevant publications and communication activities to key stakeholders, particularly in regional Australia. A related priority is to communicate to Indigenous communities through Indigenous media channels about our role as an oversight agency for the NTER.
We are also updating our internet sites to make it easier for the public to use and navigate.
In 2002 the Ombudsman's office established the Australian National University (ANU) Jack Richardson Prize in Administrative Law. The prize recognises the contributions made by the first Commonwealth Ombudsman, who was also a former professor of law at the ANU. The annual prize is for the best essay by an undergraduate student in administrative law. This year's Jack Richardson Prize was awarded to Mr Joshua Neoh.
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