Why we built it
Two friends who vote differently, building a place to disagree well.
We kept having the same argument — not about the facts of a bill, but about whose summary of it to believe. So we built the version we both wished existed.
Most of what reaches us about politics arrives already framed. By the time a bill is in the news, it has been shaped by whichever side reached us first, and the thing itself — the actual text of what Parliament is being asked to pass — has slipped beneath the commentary.
Australia Speaks starts one step earlier. Read the bill, explained plainly and without a slant. Then, if you want them, read three clearly-labelled perspectives — left, independent and right — so you can see how each side would argue it. Then have your say, in a vote that can never be traced back to you.
Made by two people who don’t agree
We’re two friends from opposite sides of politics — Ryan, who builds the product, and Brett, who reviews every summary and every perspective before it’s published, watching for the moment neutrality slips. That disagreement isn’t a problem to manage — it’s the safeguard. It’s much harder for a bias to survive when the two people signing off on it would each notice a thumb on the other’s side of the scale.
Neither of us wants to tell you what to think. We think you’re perfectly capable of deciding for yourself, given the bill in plain English and a fair account of the arguments. Our job is to get you to that starting line honestly — and then get out of the way.
What “on the record” means
A record is something you can go back and check. So we publish our method, link the primary sources on every bill, and keep a permanent corrections log for the times we get it wrong. We take no advertising, no partisan sponsorship and no money from political parties, because the moment someone can buy influence over the content, the record stops being worth anything.
And the vote itself is a record of the considered views of the Australians who chose to show up and weigh in, bill by bill. It’s not a scientific poll, and we’ll never dress it up as one — never “what Australia thinks”. It’s something quieter and, we think, more honest: the people who turned up, on the record, one bill at a time.
Australia Speaks is in early access. We’re building carefully and in the open, because a civic tool only earns its place by being trustworthy first and popular second. If that’s the kind of thing you’ve been waiting for, come and try it.
Read the bill. Hear the arguments. Have your say.
Join the early-access list and be there when Australia Speaks opens.