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As disenchantment with the state of Australian democracy grows, a major development has taken place that has the potential to bring about the biggest, positive changes to our systems of government since Federation.
Very few people are aware of it. Neither the government of the day nor the media have drawn much attention to it. This is unfortunate because its success will depend on serious, long-term involvement by members of the community and the media. 
The Turnbull government confirmed the development on   November 17 last year, when the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet reported it had committed to Australia's participation in the international Open Government Partnership.
What is the partnership? It is "a voluntary, multi-stakeholder, international initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from governments to their citizenry to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption and harness new technologies to strengthen governance" (from the partnership's Articles of Governance).
Its stakeholders are participating governments, civil society and private sector entities that support the partnership's "principles and mission". It was created in 2011 by eight nations - including Britain, the United States and Indonesia - and now has 69 member countries. US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron have been strong supporters. The US and Britain invited Australia to join back in 2011.
Member nations are required to produce a national action plan every two years by consulting within their government/community partnerships. These plans must be "ambitious".
Consultation between government and the community must also take place while each plan is implemented. An independent reporting mechanism reviews each member nation's performance, and reports each year its assessment of the action plan's development and implementation. An international expert panel oversees these reviews. The OGP also has a support unit to help civil society participants.
Australia's involvement has been a drawn-out saga. It began in 2013 when the Gillard government committed Australia to the partnership. Departmental work began on Australia's draft action plan in 2013 and continued after the change of government. But in   October 2014, the then prime minister, Tony Abbott, advised the Accountability Round Table that the government did not want to "rush" the matter. The community was not consulted.
At the same time, the Abbott government introduced legislation to abolish its key, independent, open-government body, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. You may well wonder whether there was a link between that and the lack of action on Australia's commitments to the Open Government Partnership. For how could Australia honour its obligations as a partnership member to open and transparent government while simultaneously seeking to abolish this crucial body?
The creation of the information commissioner's office was a best-practice reform enacted by the Federal Parliament in 2010 to address the then failed state of the freedom of information system. The office was given statutory authority and responsibility to receive and consider complaints, review refusals of access to information, monitor and guide the FOI system (including providing guidelines) and provide independent advice to government.
The Abbott government was unable to pass its abolition bill through the Senate. But the government's 2014-15 budget was passed, and it allocated funding for the office on the assumption that Parliament would abolish it before Christmas. The government left the bill on the Notice Paper and did nothing to restore the resources the office needed to discharge its functions. You may remember the information commissioner, Professor John McMillan, having to close his Canberra office and work from home.
By its actions, the Abbott government returned the FOI system to its failed 2010 state. The Turnbull government has maintained that strategy despite the community, including the International Commission of Jurists, raising serious questions about its constitutionality.
On   February 9 this year, Attorney-General George Brandis told a Senate estimates hearing: "The government's position has not changed." This position cannot be reconciled with Australia's commitments to the partnership. In particular, under the partnership's terms, Australia acknowledged that "governments collect and hold information on behalf of the people, and citizens have a right to seek information about governmental activities", and committed to "promoting increased access to information and disclosure about governmental activities at every level of government" and providing "effective remedies" including "effective oversight of the recourse process".
The government's recent "draft vision statement" for Australia's national action plan expressly committed "to improved democratic practices ... to promote transparency, fight corruption, empower citizens ... to make government more effective and accountable". Brandis'   February statement cannot be reconciled with that commitment nor with Turnbull's letter of   November 24 last year, which advised the partnership that the government would "work with civil society to develop the Australian government's national action plan" and said the "goals of the partnership are directly aligned with Australia's long and proud tradition of open and transparent government".
The reality is that Australia's partnership commitments, and our government's promises, require the withdrawal of the bill to abolish the information commissioner's office, and for that office to be funded adequately to allow it to perform its statutory role in supporting open government.
This should be done now and independently of the national action plan. If it is not, it must be addressed in the plan's development. If we, the government and civil society, fail to act on this, it will be a profound failure on our part and embarrassing for Australia - for we will have no credible way of justifying our membership of the partnership.
Was signing up to the partnership a stuff-up? Perhaps with the ongoing dramas in federal politics and the media's attention elsewhere, the Turnbull government overlooked the obvious and extreme conflict between its publicly stated position on the information commissioner's office and its obligations and commitment, on our behalf, to the Open Government Partnership. Alternatively, since   February 9, it may have decided to correct this matter in the upcoming budget.
Let's hope the Prime Minister, whose ultimate responsibility this is, and the Attorney-General will ensure that this farce is fixed.
Tim Smith, David Harper and Stephen Charles are former justices of the Supreme Court of Victoria, and members of the Accountability Round Table.