Page 4258 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 22 September 2010

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producing information specifically for Google transit. Members may be aware that there are already two RiotACT threads on this subject, one from 2008 and one from 2009, and I have asked a number of questions on this.

A number of cities in Australia already have their information up on Google. I go to Melbourne occasionally. It has a brilliant system where you can work out how to get to somewhere using the trams and the buses. In the ACT we only have buses, but we have a website which is incredibly hard to use.

Looking at planning, members may or may not be aware that there is a service called planning alerts run by the charity Open Australia, which actually sends out to people planning information relevant to their particular locations. That is well above what ACTPLA does. ACTPLA’s other problem is, of course, that many of their documents are so long as to be incomprehensible.

I am going to have to talk very quickly now, because I am now getting on to what I am calling on the government to do: firstly, start measuring its ICT environmental impacts. Without measuring, you cannot do very much. Secondly, expedite the ICT’s sustainability plan, including the life-cycle impacts. I am running out of time, and the government is clearly running out of time. Possibly what the government needs to do is just say—

Mr Smyth: Caroline, you get to speak to the amendment so there is—

MS LE COUTEUR: I will. But I wanted to get to the end. Sorry, you are taking up my time here, Brendan, by distracting me. The commonwealth government has just put out an ICT sustainability plan, which is basically good. I suggest that, if we do not have the resources, the ACT government should just adopt that plan and look at the implementation issues of that. There are things in that around moving to standards in terms of purchasing.

I will leave out comments on energy efficiencies given that I am running out of time. The “quick wins” would be a very quick one to commit to, although I actually suspect the government may already be doing a fair bit of that.

I will come back and talk about telecommuting and teleconferencing in my summing-up or when talking on the amendment that is to be moved. In summary, I would just commend to the Assembly and to the government a much greater consideration of ICT in the ACT.

MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Minister for Transport, Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Land and Property Services, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs and Minister for the Arts and Heritage) (10.53): I am more than pleased to discuss the motion that Ms Le Couteur has moved. It acknowledges in the Assembly this morning the importance of the information and communications technology sector—the ICT sector—and the issues around ICT sustainability.

I do admit that the motion is to me somewhat confused, combining, as it does, a heavy focus on the important issue of clean ICT—that is, issues of efficiency, technical


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