In Memoriam: Paul Shetler
It’s always hard to write about someone you didn’t know particularly well. I didn’t know Paul Shetler much beyond Twitter. We didn’t see eye to eye on many things, not least of which his political views, many of which I opposed. But it was his full-throated roar against disastrous digital policies which first made me notice him. It was that same commitment to speaking up – despite massive personal cost – which finally inspired me to strike up a conversation with him. To be honest I was surprised when Paul maintained the dialogue with me. I suspect we recognised a common enemy: digital policy that sees humans as a problem to solve, an equation to reduce the common denominator to naught
Preserving memory is something we do badly in the digital rights community. Perhaps we don’t want to make heroes out of flawed individuals, which frankly, scratch the surface and all of us are – some more, some less. But preserving public memory is vital. It plants new seeds of action and inspires growth and change. Without etching memory solidly into the ground, the seeds of change wash away. Without the sign-posts of memory, new tendrils of change can’t grasp the stories of the past to take grow from. There’s an imperative to write our own histories, and so I agreed to write something about Paul this week, despite not necessarily feeling qualified to do so.
Paul had the ignoble honour of being the only senior public servant I ever invited into the heart of the Australian digital rights community, nervously adding him to a small, select forum where a bunch of hackers, academics and lawyers occasionally used to congregate.
There’s a need to memorialise Paul’s commitment to good digital policy for. both future generations and current public servants alike. We need people who blaze hard roads and leave tracks for others to explore.
Paul was extraordinary within the Australian Public Service, not just for being the founding CEO of the Digital Transformation Agency: the experience of working for the APS failed to crush his dedication to a set of values that placed him deeply at odds with a bureaucracy opposed to change.
Paul felt that “across most governments worldwide – and Australia is no exception – too many public servants working in back offices are often reduced to human APIs – retyping information from one system to another, and stuck processing the repetitive common cases that shouldn’t need any human intervention at all. This is a waste of their talent and initiative.” And so he pitted himself against that behemoth of bureaucratic inertia, first attempting to change governance processes while working at the Digital Transformation Agency – and then, when his voice was no longer tolerable within the APS, he continued his criticism from outside the tent in the private sector, and via a formidable media presence as well. Perhaps Paul put it best himself: he didn’t “want to take the same approach that didn’t work several times before.”
Paul once said our “problems choose us.” It was with that same backbone he spoke up against the siloing of government digital platforms. He criticised the government’s ‘ethical AI guidelines’, arguing it was broad enough for bureaucrats to drive a tank through. He slammed robodebt, suggesting Centrelink would be shut down for fraud if it was a private company. He condemned MyHealthRecord as “significantly flawed.” And he took deep offence at the Telecommunications Assistance and Access Act, arguing the draconian telecommunications law was a “body blow” for Australia’s technology industry and undermined the start-up sector. He was utterly politically non-partisan in dragging all political entities involved in passing the malfeasant legislation.
Paul was a man who never walked away from engaging with the failures – as well as the successes - of the Australian government’s digital governance policies. What he leaves us with is a legacy of courage to carry on a commitment to place people first in an increasingly digital world.
