Page 2340 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 12 August 2014

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There are other recommendations the government have not answered. It must be a pretty good report because they only disagreed with 12. Forty-two were agreed, 13 were agreed in principle, 11 were part agreed and 60 were noted. So they have noted these things and said, “That is for a future budget.” In fact, they have disagreed with it. And they should have had the courage to say they disagreed with it, but they did not. Again, that is the problem with the lack of leadership in this budget.

There is no vision. There is no plan. There is contradiction after contradiction. There is turmoil in the market as a consequence of what this government has done and will do. As a consequence, we have mounting debt, and it is all paid for through the taxpayer who sees year after year their cost of living going up because this government has been here too long, is out of touch and does not understand how the real people of the ACT live, as evidenced by this budget.

MR DOSZPOT (Molonglo) (4.28): I am continuing with the economic development portfolio aspect and I am talking about the digital Canberra action plan. It will be of no surprise to anyone that, as usual, it is light on detail. With a total cost of this initiative currently budgeted at $3.688 million, this aspirational plan reflects a capital provision of $660,000 for the purchase of infrastructure relating to the Garema Place digital space. This includes the purchase of a digital screen, but what about other issues related to it? What about ongoing maintenance? Again, where is the detail? What about vandalism? This government has enough problems keeping tabs on the little men sculpture in Civic. What security features will be in place to ensure that this screen is not damaged in any way?

The “Don’t worry, we’ve got it covered” motto the government seems to run with does not cut it anymore. You will find no argument from anyone in this place that investing in our digital economy is fundamentally important in ensuring the growth of business, education, employment, health and research. But through lack of detail, the question to be asked is: does the digital Canberra action plan contribute to any of this growth?

Moving on to iConnect, when asked through the estimates process when this platform is likely to be delivered, the response I received from the Chief Minister was as follows:

There will be an iterative rollout of the iConnect platform over the next four years focusing on a series of technology-based investments, to ensure interoperability across various existing and planned ICT systems, improving internal process and enhancing the service experience for the community.

With an answer as full of waffle as that to a simple, straightforward question, you can understand Canberrans are sceptical at best about the delivery of services, their quality and the timeliness with which they will receive them. The Chief Minister went on to say that savings are to be achieved through reduction in the time involved in processing digital transactions in comparison to paper-based transactions, reduced postage, packaging and materials, rework in correcting data errors as data can be validated, and productivity increases. Again, deciphering the information I received, one can only assume that this is code for, “Well, we’ll meet our target of productivity increases and, yes, there will be a reduction in staff as a result. Just trust us.”


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