Australia Plan

GOAL

To ask every Australian if they are happy with 'Advance Australia Fair' as their national anthem and in the process establish a national network that allows every Australian either directly using the internet or indirectly via a representative to have their say about, and contribute resources to, any issue that interests them.

DONE

• Rework 'Advance Australia Fair' to create a better national anthem.

• Road Test the new anthem 'Australia' to get feedback from Thor's network of family, friends, acquaintances and colleagues. Revise anthem until the feedback is predominantly positive.

• Register an Internet domain name for 'Anthem Australia'.

• Create the 'Anthem Australia' website to explain and promote the new anthem.

• Register with the Queensland Office of Fair Trading 'Anthem Australia' as a business name to Thor Prohaska.

• Record a digital audio version of 'Australia' and convert it to MP3.

• Enhance the web site to be able to playback MP3 audio files.

• Open a bank account in the name of 'Anthem Australia'. - CLOSED

• Enhance the 'Anthem Australia' web site to support the unrestricted download of anthem related audio, text and image files.

• Set-up anthem.net.au email addresses.

• Open a physical Post Office box. - CLOSED

• Set-up mobile phone. - CLOSED

• Finalise the content of the 'Anthem Australia' web site.

• Identify all email addresses to contact Thor's network of family, friends, acquaintances and colleagues.

• Release 'Australia' into the public domain by distributing an email about 'Australia' via Thor's network of family, friends, acquaintances and colleagues. The email will:
  - State the goal of Anthem Australia;
  - Contain links to relevant parts of the 'Australia' web site;
  - Request to pass the email onto the recipient's own network of family, friends, acquaintances and colleagues.
  

• Set up a Forum to allow Australians to have their say about the Australian National Anthem. Allow for voting on keeping the anthem unchanged or on the various options to improve the anthem. Ensure that votes can be changed or deleted. - CLOSED

ON HOLD

• Contact community radio stations to see if they would like to give either recorded versions of 'Australia' airplay.

IN PROGRESS

• Expand the functionality of the network to support multiple issues in as close to real time as possible. Develop a financial process to allow large numbers of people to make small payments for the lowest possible administration cost to finance the ongoing maintenance of the network and any expansion required to support new and on-going issues. Allow the people who make the payments the option of directing their payment to a specific item of expenditure.

Update: 8/7/2010 - The VoteWrap Method is implementing the above 'IN PROGRESS' item.

TO DO

• Petition the Australian Federal parliament to hold a constitutionally binding referendum to change the Australian National Anthem. If rejected then raise the rejection as an issue to be resolved by all Australian's via the same process used to reach a consensus on the national anthem.

SUPERSEDED BY THE DEVELOPMENT OF VOTEWRAP

• Commence the process of identifying those Australians who wish to support Anthem Australia by becoming representatives.

• Develop a mechanism to verify representatives.

• Use the first funds received via donation to pay back approved out of pocket expenses.

• Enhance the 'Anthem Australia' website to accept donations via credit card.
  

• Once sufficient representatives have been identified register 'Anthem Australia' as a legally incorporated not-for-profit entity and transfer all donated assets into it's name. Note that in Queensland 7 members are required to form an Association.

• Employ a full-time coordinator to manage the implementation of the next phase of Anthem Australia's plan. Then as required and permitted employ on a permanent or contract basis further staff.

• Develop a mechanism to verify voters.

• Enhance Anthem Australia's web site to securely and privately accept the vote of every Australian either directly through the site or indirectly via their representative. Enable voters to change their vote up until a predetermined cut off time. The cut off time for the anthem issue will be when all Australians have been given the chance to vote for or against the new anthem or for any alternative anthem/s that may be proposed AND the majority of Australian's in the majority of states agree on the one anthem.
  
  The following technologies have been identified as having the potential functionality needed to develop an IT infrastructure to meet these requirements:
  
  
  • 'Peer to Peer'
  • 'Freenet'
  • 'Semantic Web'
  • 'MySQL' - Database
  • 'Linux' - Operating System
  • 'Apache' - Web Server
  
  
  Note that software will be developed using the Open Source approach.

• If a competing anthem gains sufficient support then enhance the web site to allow Australian's to be able to vote for more than one anthem. If any changes are proposed to the anthem then the proposer must get the support of at least 10 other Australians for the proposed change before it will be posted onto the Australia web site.

• Enhance the web site to accept the upload of audio files of further recordings of the anthem from any Australian/s. New audio recordings will be moderated to ensure that they only contain the agreed words. Rhythm and tempo can vary.

• Undertake a second wave of contact via representatives canvassing their own network of family, friends, acquaintances and colleagues through whatever medium they have available. Continue this process until the cut off criteria defined above has been reached.

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