IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The man heading up Australia's digital government transformation talks to Computer Weekly about the progress his department has made in its first year

They may be small capabilities in the morass that is Australia’s government IT, but the beta releases of several core e-government services in March and April 2016 will mark an important milestone for Paul Shetler, the man hand-picked by the country’s prime minister to drag its public service IT into the digitally focused 21st century.

Australia’s Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) is to undertake a review of the government’s biggest technology projects.

A newly-created Digital Investment Management Office within the DTA has been handed the brief to carry out the review, which is part of an effort by the Commonwealth government to get a handle on its AU$6.2bn (UK£3.8bn or US$4.8bn) annual ICT spend.

FutureGov spoke to Professor John McMillan, Australian Information Commissioner, on how the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) is leveraging Big Data and promoting open government, to bring new opportunities to Government information management.

But you still can’t use a credit card to tap on public transport there.

Extensive investment in digital healthcare, transport, monitoring and other infrastructure has made Melbourne one of the world’s most digitally dependent cities, a new analysis has found even as Victoria’s government deals with yet another problem with its Myki digital ticketing system.

Melbourne ranked 12th in the ZeroBounce ranking, which scores cities based on nine digital infrastructure categories that includes internet speed, public Wi-Fi availability, online maintenance reporting systems, CCTV coverage, smart parking solutions and pollution monitoring.

Australia’s new e-government portal, currently in beta, has proven easy for users to understand, but its design is controversial, according to user feedback released this week.

“People are mostly happy with the ease of finding things and the prioritisation of information, but… the design is a bit polarising with many disliking it,” a new blog on the website revealed.

Australia’s digital competitiveness is in decline, dropping five places to 20th in a ranking of 64 countries, with its key weaknesses being business agility along with digital skills and training.

It is the third year in a row that Australia has fallen in the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking (WDCR) rankings with only Poland and Bulgaria falling harder.

GovCMS hosting plans range from US$8097 to US$108,003, with larger packages available on request.

Australia has made a web site hosting platform, govCMS, available to all agencies, John Sheridan, Government Chief Technology Officer announced.

“The release of the govCMS website today marks the availability of govCMS to all government entities to create and manage cost effective websites, based on best practice, that are compliant with Australian Government standards,” Sheridan wrote in a blog post.

According to the agency, there appears to be virtually limitless opportunities for organised crime to “go virtual”.

John Lawler, Chief Executive of ACC, told FutureGov Asia Pacific that while the cloud offers numerous benefits, there are “significant vulnerabilities” with the technology that could lead to exploitation by organised crime.

"Businesses are realising this system saves them time and money and a third of all Victorian traders have switched to the new on-line service," Lenders said. "The online service is simple and means no travelling, no queues and no extra paperwork."

The ACT Government is trialling a new health information portal designed to deliver personal health information to consumers securely.

Health minister Katy Gallagher launched the 'My eHealth' portal this week with a pilot group of consumers from the Health Care Consumers Association and 40 chronic care patients.

One of three Australian finalists in Smart Cities Awards.

As aspirant towns and cities explore what it takes to be a ‘smart city’, a tech-heavy new ACT suburb has secured a spot as an APAC awards finalist after documenting its smart-city best practices in a repeatable blueprint it will offer to any local government.

Authored by the developers of the PEET/Mirvac-backed Googong development – which will eventually have 18,000 residents in 6500 homes just 16km from Parliament House – the open-source Smart Suburb Blueprint was developed over 18 months at a cost of $2.4m, including a $1.1m federal grant.

Over the past year, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) government has begun efforts to restructure the ACT Public Services (ACTPS) into a single ‘one-government’ organisation. The government has also launched several initiatives in open government and shared services. Mick Chisnall’s talks to FutureGov about the reorganisation and the new services being launched.

Across Australia, state capitals and large cities are undergoing a transformation towards a smart city model. Smart cities aim to be more sustainable, make citizens’ lives easier and safer, and use resources more efficiently.

In Sydney, the multi-billion dollar metro project recently saw the delivery of 22 automated and driverless metro trains alongside eight new stations. Further north in Queensland, the Cairns Regional Council has installed a network of smart environmental sensors that measure and track high nutrient, sediment, and chemical traces in urban waterways. The smart sensors for part of the Reducing Urban Impacts on the Great Barrier Reef project, which aims to right some of the wrongs the marine Park has suffered in the last few decades.

The City of Greater Geelong’s smart city strategic framework is based on seven principles that have been shaped by the community engagement process.

The City of Greater Geelong Council in Victoria, Australia, has adopted a smart city strategic framework to harness emerging technology in a bid to improve liveability for citizens.

“By providing a consolidated, single-point-of-truth to our data, our staff will be able to make better decisions,” said Dale Dickson, CEO of Gold Coast City Council.

“For example, when all the planned changes are fully implemented, work orders will be able to be assigned based on proximity to avoid unnecessary driving time for work crews.

The city of Palmerston in Australia has selected smart city data applications provider Telensa to deploy an intelligent street lighting system.

The deal is part of an LED streetlight upgrade project and will replace 5,000 streetlights with wirelessly connected LEDs.

The LED streetlights will be controlled via a central management system which will be hosted by Amazon Web Services.

Australian coalition promises digital pigeonhole for all Policy document outlines procurement, industry assistance plans Australia's government-in-waiting opposition parties have released their “Policy for E-Government and the Digital Economy”.

The growth of ICT exports needs to be supported with an Australian ICT brand, the Australian Computer Society (ACS) has reported.

The latest Australian ICT Trade Update has found that ICT goods and services are in the top 10 exports for Australia and account for 1.8 per cent of exports. During 2009, ICT exports fell 11 per cent to $4.5 billion.

Adelaide Business Development Analyst Tony Tsaousoglou said the ‘CityChat’ service of the council portal (www.adelaidecitycouncil.com) provided a real-time online communication channel to enable direct access to staff members while the customer remains in their existing channel of preference.

“The City Chat has been of enormous benefit to our customers, particularly those who may be elderly, have a hearing impairment or who may have a physical disability,” he told FutureGov Asia Pacific.

It is seeking data centre suppliers to meet a range of Data Centre Facility Supplies requirements, while providing scalable and flexible arrangements. The data centre ICT infrastructure must be operated by the agencies or their ICT services provider and the data centres must be located within Australia.