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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 5 Hansard (2 May) . . Page.. 1369 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

I could get in the time I had to prepare for this discussion. If we are talking $54 million for 17,000 in InTACT to deal with IT and telephones, then I would love to know from the government how much per employee is allocated to maintenance. This package is $300,000, which includes the purchase of PCs. I would hope that Mr Humphries' response is clear on this.

I think most members in this place have been getting constant feedback from the schools that what is happening there is not working; that apparently bridging the digital divide there is causing serious problems, because maintenance is not properly supported. The cost of the maintenance is causing a huge burden on staff and a is very inefficient system.

Ms Burke said that this is the key to empowering people. It is actually the most fundamental key for disempowering people if you cannot make the computer work. Mr Humphries is frowning. If he does not know that from personal experience, I am surprised. If you do not understand what is happening with the PC or the programs you are working with, it is incredibly disempowering, because it requires quite a considerable expertise to deal with the various problems you can get yourself into with a computer. We are finding a burden in the school system because maintenance has not been adequately accounted for.

There has also been a recent study, I understand, of the situation for students who are using PCs and the fact that they have not had adequate ergonomic support. Pre-RSI symptoms are appearing in children across our system. That issue is not going to go away. It is going to become more and more obvious. That is another matter that has to be taken into account when you look at how you support people to bridge the so-called digital divide. You have to look at the whole picture, which I want to be satisfied, and I am sure anyone in this place would want to be satisfied, is being looked at by government when they come up with these sorts of initiatives. If this is just a tokenistic asset, it is not good enough. The consequences are quite negative. It would be almost better not to do it than to do it in a half-hearted way.

I am also interested in the roving trainer idea. I have not been able to get a clear answer on this either. The roving trainer is apparently going around, as I understand it, training community service providers as well as members of the community, the individuals who come into community service organisations to be assisted in learning to access technology. If the roving trainer is going around training community service providers and the community, we would like to know how time is going to be allotted, how many hours per organisation, and how this particular component of the package was decided. Mr Humphries will explain to us how much money he is putting into that training. You would want to see a clear breakdown of how that is going to work.

That leads to the next question. If you are training the community service providers to do the work of training members of the community, you have given a significant new task to community service providers. How well this training is going to equip community service providers to deal with training people is another question. You may already have expertise in the community service; you may have no expertise. There is going to be a varying degree of necessity to assist training these people to assist members of the community. Once again, this can be a major source of frustration and stress if it is not properly done for the community service involved.

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