CHAPTER 6Promoting good administration

Cooperation among Australian Ombudsmen

As described in last year’s annual report, we have a close working relationship with the large number of public and private sector Ombudsman offices in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.

The Ombudsman is a member of the executive of the Australian and New Zealand Ombudsman Association Inc (ANZOA), an association of some industry and public sector Ombudsman offices. During 2006–07 ANZOA projects included identifying and addressing systemic issues, internal review of complaint handling in ombudsman offices, statistical significance of ombudsman complaint data, learning and development programs for ombudsman staff, and liaison with ombudsman associations in other countries. The ANZOA members are organising a national conference, ‘The role of the ombudsman—yesterday, today and tomorrow’, to be held in Melbourne in April 2008.

There was also regular contact and meetings between Ombudsmen and staff of Commonwealth, state and territory Ombudsman offices. An example is a joint project between the offices on dealing with difficult or unreasonable conduct by complainants, discussed in Chapter 5—Challenges in complaint handling.