THE ACT Government held its first live Twitter Community Cabinet this afternoon.

The Twitter Community Cabinet saw Chief Minister Katy Gallagher and Ministers Andrew Barr, Simon Corbell and Joy Burch  available to answer questions from the community via the #actvcc Twitter feed.

Chief Minister Katy Gallagher said it became clear to the Government that a number of Canberrans use Twitter and although mainstream modes of communication through forums, meetings and events were traditonally used to communicate to Canberrans, this was a new way to engage people.

“It’s just an idea… to use this new technology and see how we can apply it to a cabinet meeting,” she said. “And see how that works I don’t know if it will or if it will have huge amount of interest or whether it’s an effective way of communicating with people but it’s an idea that we’ve got to try and increase the different way we engage of the community.”

Gallagher admits when it comes to social media, she’s “not very good at it” but if the TVCC works today they will keep doing it.

Ministers followed the forum on a large wall screen in the Cabinet room from 12.30pm until 1.30pm, replying to questions and comments from their own laptops.