The Government has offered Australia's three mobile operators, and vividwireless, renewal of their existing spectrum allocated on 15 year licences in the late 90s and early 2000s at set prices, while the Government expects to rake in $3 billion.
While the Government understands that ICT is the primary driver of productivity improvements, it is "somewhat concerning that the predominant view was that this was an issue for agency leadership" as there is a need to engage employees. That is "easy to say, difficult to do," conceded Tanner, who said there was an increasing realisation was that ICT "isn't to be left to the boffins".
Tanner pointed to the strategy arising from the Gershon report, saying "broadly it is on track, certainly in terms of savings" and that the Government will consider investing half the savings in new ICT projects, probably as part of the 2010-2011 budget process.
"We're just trying to deliver better value," he said.
Tanner acknowledged that having some 45 government data centres (excluding those in the Defence Department) was too many, "but it's not a straightforward thing to fix" due to varying organisational needs and priorities. A rationalisation could yield savings of around $1 billion over 15 year according to the Gershon Report, he said.
Another example was the increasing use of teleconferencing by governments. Tanner said it was still in the construction phase partly due to the problems of installing suites in existing premises, but that he expected some to be in use "very soon".
While a cultural change was needed - thousands of people in hundreds of organisations are involved - the elimination of a proportion of travel thanks to teleconferencing would be "hugely beneficial" thanks to the time saving as well as the reduction in spending on air travel. "The amount of hours saved [will be] very substantial," said Tanner.
The government teleconferencing network should be fully operational by the middle of 2010, he said.
Tanner also claimed that the work of a taskforce on the adoption of web 2.0 technologies and the better use of government information was around half complete. The object was to increase the engagement of agencies and regulators with various constituencies, and to improve the accessibility of government information.
David Bass
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