Binary Polictical Prisoners

I get jealous when I see that other governments are making all their data freely available. I can understand why, in the old economy, it could make sense to have user-pays access to all that data. But these days, it's so much less appropriate to keep that data locked up - political prisoner. I've written to my state Member of Parliament and the relevant minister to ask LNP and Labor positions.

Dear ...
I believe that as much state government information as possible (such as property sales data) should be free. While the government raises some revenue from selling access to such information, I think that making such information publicly available would reduce the bureaucracy.  Most importantly though, it would create an environment that would allow people to create useful innovative services for the public. There are precedents:

• In 2005 Peter Costello made all the Australian Bureau of Statistics information freely available. http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/d3310114.nsf/4a256353001af3ed4b2562bb00121564/83b66e9ffafd6dabca257140007575b5!OpenDocument
• The UK has recently decided to take this path on an even bigger scale. http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/news/public-data-corporation-free-public-data-and-drive-innovation

Does (your party) support such a position?

Best regards,

John.

If I get any answers, I'll put them here.