Newly promoted Special Minister of State Gary Nairn has taken control of federal hi-tech strategy just as the Howard Government prepares a series of landmark projects that will use electronic service delivery to cut costs and improve services.
The eGovernment plan is a set of reforms that will fundamentally change the way citizens interact with public agencies, saving taxpayers millions in the process, Mr Nairn says.
He says 2006 will be the year in which "the rubber hits the road", realising Prime Minister John Howard's ambitions to overhaul the public sector.
It also marks the start of a costly and sustained investment in technology infrastructure, an investment the Government expects to pay dividends.
As Special Minister of State, Mr Nairn takes charge of the Australian Government Information management Office, which sets whole-of-government technical standards.
The office's main role to is make sure taxpayers get value for the $5 billion the Commonwealth spends on hi-tech systems and services each year.
Mr Nairn was a parliamentary secretary in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet before being promoted to the new job last week.
"The eGovernment strategy is really the culmination of at least a couple of years work," Mr Nairn told The Australian.
While unfamiliar with the vast government technology infrastructure, Mr Nairn understands the fundamentals of information technology. A private sector surveyor before entering public life, Mr Nairn built a completely digital office for his small business in 1987, he says.
The pain associated with that project had given him important perspectives on the role of the Information Office in setting preferred technical standards for government, he said.
"This is an area that I'm going to take a great interest in, because as someone who has worked in an area reliant on information technology, I know how big a problem it can be to have inconsistencies of standards.
"The eGovernment strategy in the short term is going to have most of my attention, and that's the way it should be," he said.
Mr Nairn will also chair the Ministerial Council on eGovernment, and will take the Commonwealth plans to the states with the goal of improving the way different levels of government interact.
"Once the Commonwealth has made progress in putting eGovernment programs in place, the next step is to take that interoperability to the next levels of government, so that we can better co-ordinate with state government and local government," Mr Nairn said.
The electronic service delivery initiative carries big risks and even bigger potential rewards.
In taking on this challenge, Mr Nairn has support from the highest level.
Mr Howard flagged after the 2004 election his plan to make electronic government initiatives a hallmark of the new government.
No one in the Government has publicly quantified the potential savings, although outgoing special minister of state Eric Abetz, said the savings would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars in administrative costs alone.
The eGovernment strategy also forms the technical backbone of other technology-based programs targeting welfare cheats and fraud, which are expected to reap further returns of hundreds of millions of dollars.
As Special Minister of State, Mr Nairn also takes responsibility for the Australian Electoral Commission, and says he is keen to investigate whether electronic voting technology has become robust enough to be considered for use in Australian elections.
"You simply can't avoid looking into these sorts of issues, because technology changes so fast," he said.
"We'll be cautious in that, though, because when you're dealing with the electoral process you really have to pay careful attention to the integrity of the system.
"I'm always going to be looking for opportunities where technology can be used to make government more productive, and that goes for the electoral process as well."
Other priority items include a rewrite of standard Government IT Contracts, which are being changed to cap the onerous unlimited liability provisions in the current contracts.
The new standard contract, which will be released by the end of the first quarter, is designed to make it easier for private firms that develop intellectual property to commercialise and sell it to third parties.
Senator Abetz said the standard contracts were more flexible, and had been reworked so they did not discourage departments from buying open-source software.
"These contracts will improve the way the Australian government agencies deal with changing technology and promote the uptake of innovative systems," Senator Abetz said.
"In particular, the review of the contracts highlights the scope for a series of model contracts to be developed that are tailored to to the different elements of IT procurement, such as hardware, software development and licensing (including open source) or managed services," he said.
Mr Nairn will move swiftly to introduce a whole-of-government Smartcard framework.
The Government Information Office has highlighted the need to establish a common set of standards for smartcards so different governments - local, state and federal - don't make the costly mistake of issuing incompatible cards.
Autor: James Riley
Quelle: Australian IT, 31.01.2006
