Communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull unveiled the initiatives in the Coalition’s Policy for E-Government and the Digital Economy on Monday.
“In this document we set out a range of important policy measures that will super charge Australia’s government role in the digital economy of the 21st century,” Mr Turnbull told a press conference in Melbourne.
While he steered away from discussing the technical details of the national broadband network, Mr Turnbull tried to keep the focus on the initiatives that he said would make Australia more competitive.
He revived a plan for “electronic pigeon holes” first floated in 2005, and again in 2011.
This time Mr Turnbull put a deadline on the plan, wanting businesses and citizens – that chose to adopt it - to have all their government correspondence, including federal, state and local agencies, going to one email address.
He said this would ensure "as far as possible virtually all government interactions with the public are able to be conducted digitally by 2017, using video conference, using the web, using apps, using smartphones… being agnostic about devices, but ensuring Australians can engage with government as efficiently as possible".
“All Australians, individuals and businesses, will have, if they wish, access to a completely free digital mail box, a electronic pigeon hole, … where all government correspondence for you will be sent – it can never be lost, it will always be there, you can configure, forward it on to your accountant, your other email account… for free.
“We want this taken up, this is a huge productivity driver. We will aim to be at a point where a business which is dealing with government all the time, federal, state and local, will know there’s one place for all of that communication, it will be direct, it be there forever, it will be secure, it will be properly encrypted, and of course the savings to government will be gigantic,” Mr Turnbull said.
Dr Kai Riemer, associate professor of business information systems at the University of Sydney business school, said the re-announced policy sounded like a good idea but presented integration, security and access challenges.
“It all sounds good on paper but presents challenges when we talk about integrating it across government agencies, integrating with local and state governments. With all data integration you can get efficiencies but also get challenges to get it up and certain risks as to who has access to all that data.
“Do business actually want to share information across all government agencies?” Dr Riemer asked. “And if everything is in the same place, if the information was to leak, what are the ramifications?”
“I’m very wary. The more information is centralised the more data can be leaked, the more you integrate, the more you create risks, I’d be keen to see if they have actually thought about this,” he said.
Dr Riemer also warned a comprehensive assistance program would be needed to help small businesses deal with governments electronically - “if not, you’d just be increasing the digital divide".
“Raising the bar of IT savviness that you require from business can be a challenge for small business, especially in regional Australia,” he said.
Mr Turnbull said he also wanted to see government agencies making better use of cloud computing and sooner. The Federal Government was criticised for not mandating a "cloud first" approach to government agencies when it launched its National Cloud Computing Strategy in May. It did however say it would require federal agencies to consider cloud services and tasked the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) with providing better guidance to government decision makers on how to evaluate the benefits of cloud. The US and Britain have mandated "cloud first" policies.
Steve Hodgkinson, research director, public sector technology at Ovum, said the cloud-first approach would make Australia fall into line with the US, UK and NZ.
“Essentially it allows for government agencies to put their procurement where their strategic intent is,” he said.
Mr Hogkinson said the policy also appeared to indicate part of AGIMO would be taken out of the Department of Finance and Deregulation and transferred to either the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet or the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.
“It’s not explicit whether it would move to but it’s suggesting more strongly than we’ve seen before that technology leadership should be closer to prime minister and cabinet, certainly not in finance.”
The federal government split the roles of chief information officer and chief technology officer of AGIMO in December. The first would have more strategic, policy responsibilities, the latter would be more involved in services and procurement. Ovum said at the time the strategic role should have been taken out of Finance where the emphasis was on cost savings.
“We are going to drive a very aggressive cloud-first strategy [and] move as much as we can services into the cloud,” Mr Turnbull said.
Mr Tunrbull said Australia had “a shortage of technological imagination” and he proposed to “provide examples of genuine, innovative, imaginative thinking” by bringing overseas examples and the private sector to consult with government. This would be through the creation of an ICT advisory board the policy states would provide AGIMO and the government with senior private sector ICT expertise".
“There’s a lot to be learnt outside of Canberra … Our approach to ICT will be much more open-minded and accepting of new ideas.”
He said he wouldn’t tell businesses what to do but would seek to lead so that businesses wouldn’t be reluctant to “embrace digital platforms”.
“You need to have a constantly open mind and a readiness to accept that technological assumptions of today may not work tomorrow.
“Labour announced their first NBN policy before the launch of the iPhone. Can you imagine a world without an iPhone, a smartphone? We need to be prepared to take an almost revolutionary approach in the way we do business in government and the private sector because the alternative is you just get smashed,” he said.
Australia had slipped down world broadband and “digital economy” rankings, despite Labor being in government for six years and spending “millions on the NBN and so little achieved”, he said.
Minister Assisting for the Digital Economy Kate Lundy released a statement on Monday afternoon criticising the Coalition's policy.
The policy "ignores the true practical benefits of broadband such as cloud computing for small and medium sized businesses, and the use of high definition video conferencing for health, education, aged-care and telework. It is no wonder that a party that puts out a broadband policy with no mention of upload speeds delivers a digital economy policy that ignores the applications that demand fast, reliable uploads."
Ms Lundy said the policy correctly identified South Korea, Denmark, Sweden and Singapore as the most mature and sophisticated digital economies.
"There is good reason for this. South Korea, Denmark, and Sweden are among the four leading OECD countries for the proportion of households connected to fibre-to-the-home. Singapore is not an OECD member, but it has built a full fibre-to-the-home network," she said.
Earlier on Monday Mr Turnbull told ABC Radio in Melbourne the Coalition and Labor NBN were very similar proposals, but the Coalition's would be delivered faster and more cheaply.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Lia Timson
Quelle/Source: The Sydney Morning Herald - itpro, 02.09.2013
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