Wednesday, 14 August 2024

Victoria Government Gazette

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (19:00): (1057) My adjournment matter is for the attention of the Premier, although I am happy for it to be redirected as appropriate. The Government Gazette performs an important function as the central repository of all government statutory actions. On any given week there might be notices published on planning scheme changes, new regulations being adopted, compulsory acquisitions of land and declarations of new roads or major projects. If a person wanted to know what the government was doing, they would not follow the actions in this place; they would read through the Government Gazette.

The website, however, is an absolute mess. It looks like it was designed in the mid-1990s and has not been updated since. Worse than the outdated style is the complete lack of functionality. To search for relevant documents is a tedious process that might take hours of sifting through various irrelevant information to find the documents that you are looking for. None of this should be taken as criticism of the staff, as I am sure they do a decent job and are likely frustrated by the situation also. The gazette is a responsibility of the government to manage, and while they might be meeting their obligation to publish relevant documents, it is hardly managed in a way that promotes transparency. One of my staff is an avid reader of the gazette and wrote to them to complain about the website in late 2022, with staff responding that they were in the planning stages of updating the website in January 2023. My request is for the government to update the functionality of the Government Gazette website.