 Now, I know what you're thinking. The third government-related lightning talk? Gosh, this is gonna be a long, long 40 minutes or so. But don't worry. Straight off the bat, I'd like to tell you what this presentation isn't. I assume you all know why government is wonderful. I assume you all know why democracy is wonderful. So this is just about helping you know more about why a democracy is wonderful and how to use that wonderful democracy. Now, the office of the clerk is a shadowy government institution which runs pretty much everything with parliament on it. Parliament website, parliament radio, parliament TV. Now, my job, I'm going to be telling you about three things. I would like you to leave with knowledge about what this shadowy institution does. The good, the bad, and the future of its work and what you can do with that knowledge. The most ubiquitous, of course, is the broadcasting of the chamber. Debates, question time, you may have heard of this. The usual outlets are through parliament radio which was actually set up, that's where the 81 plus years ago comes from. They were on the cutting edge of technology in 1936 when they started the first in the world parliament regular radio broadcasts. A little more recent is parliament TV. You may recognize this particular slide flicking through channels on free view or maybe you've seen debates in the house. Now, this recently had its 10th year anniversary this July. So happy birthday parliament TV. A little more obscure is parliament's YouTube channels. Now they own two YouTube channels. They have in the house NZ which is an extension of parliament TV. They just archive as much footage as they can. They title it and they just upload it. And then parliament NZ is where they put the more interesting side of things. So the usual, the speaker of the house gives a little update for the day's news and they do special topics like the flag on the beehive. In more recent years, yes, I know, it's thralling. In more recent years, they've taken to social media, mostly putting posts about updates on what they're doing and also nice visitors. Honestly, guess the flag? Genius. Wonderful, I recommend you all go find that now. Excellent pastime and with social media comes connection. Now I was a little surprised when they responded to me with just such a silly question but they will absolutely respond to you too. And that I think is the main takeaway of this. Feel free to go ask some questions, engage, be brilliant. Now, the most obscure part of the Office of the Clerks work comes from the virtual house app. This app is made by parliament. It gives you a map of the, this app gives you a map of the chamber where everyone sits, some contact details for each of the politicians if you want to go and give them some feedback and a streaming site. And finally, the central hub of all things, Office of the Clerks, the New Zealand Parliament website. Now this is an ocean of information on everything and more you could possibly want to know. It's got live streaming, it's got the works and most importantly, it's got how to get involved. So there you have it. Those are the main things that I'd like to bring your attention to and then I'd like to give you a little brief on my take of how this works. I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with archives and having loads of data. So you're very aware that it's really nice having lots of data. You're able to find anything you want. Their strength is particularly having people who can find anything you want and then give it to you. And there are some bad sides. Once again, you've all worked. I'm sure you've all worked in archives and you all have friends who have worked in archives and they will be the first to tell you that information is only as good as how easily you can find it and how easily you can put it in context. Parliament's having a bit of an issue with this. I'm sure there's a stereotype around the government but you get the general idea and they have another problem and that's really publicity. How many of you knew about Parliament Radio or Parliament TV? How many of you knew about their YouTube channel? How many of you knew about that app that they put out? Huh? Yeah. And the future. Of course, I've got two paths. One, they have to clean up what they've got at the moment. Of course, everyone who's done something with archives knows that. And they've also, and they're also trying to address the publicity issue. Luckily, while I was making this presentation, this guy up here also explained his awareness of the attention deficit. His solution, bring Parliament to the people as an active participant through social media rather than this just passive updates. I don't know about Facebook Live in particular. It might be a good idea. I hope you all go look for it. Maybe give your feedback during a select committee meeting. But, and you also saw that I, oh, just the trolls. I can't imagine. But, but I believe in them. And now here's some things that you can all do to influence democracy and make the world a better place. Spend some yarns. Go use their resources. They're paid to answer your questions. And you don't wanna waste those taxpayer dollars, do you? Come on. Make a submission on a bill. This is like the most public part of our democracy. You can have a say in any bill that goes to Parliament and it's so easy. I can show you in the next 10 seconds. Their website, get involved, make a submission. You click on the bill you want. I know this isn't very relevant. Maybe you have a horse in this race, figuratively. You get put in some personal details and finally you just fill in these two boxes and you have influenced democracy. How just, how crazy is that? I think where I come from, you actually have to go somewhere and like sit down. But this is insane. And finally tell your friends, tell your loved ones, all that good stuff. Knowing is half the battle. Thank you. Thank you to the NDF. Thank you to Officer the Clerk for the photos like this one. Thank you all for listening.