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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 2074 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

the government is yet to announce its response to the recommendations of that task force. I understand that it will be doing that shortly.

Mr Speaker, how can the government set aside an amount of money for this important issue when it has not announced that it accepts, rejects or wishes to modify the particular recommendations of the task force and respond accordingly in terms of financial commitment? It seems to me that they have said, "This is our financial commitment to the issue and then we will go on to work out just how extensive the issue is and what we should do about it."

Mr Humphries: That seems sensible to me.

MR CORBELL: The Chief Minister says that that is a sensible way to approach that, as I heard his interjection, but it is not a sensible way. It is like saying, "Here's a million bucks. We will now go and work out what the problem is." That is what they have done with the digital divide. They should have properly assessed the extent and the impact of the digital divide in the ACT community.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.

MR CORBELL: I wish to take my second 10 minutes, Mr Speaker. The government should have properly assessed the extent of the problem before announcing the level of funds that it is going to commit to it. Indeed, how can we be confident that the level of funds it is committing on this issue is adequate to address the issues raised by the task force when the government is already committed to the funding without an assessment of the extent of the problem faced by the community? This is, again, a missed opportunity and I would argue that it is a tokenistic approach to the issue. If the government were serious about addressing digital divide issues, it would have properly assessed, analysed and understood the extent of the issue in the territory and then directed proportionally an appropriate amount of funds to start addressing the problem.

Mr Speaker, this territory has not only a large challenge but also a significant opportunity with digital divide issues and I would say that it should set itself the goal of being the first in the world to bridge that divide. That can be done in the ACT. We have a small, relatively compact community and, unlike large cities with the problems of scale and the numbers of people that raise more complex questions in addressing the issue, we have the capacity to address digital divide issues without facing those problems.

The government really should be setting itself that task and it should have done so in this budget. The priority was to be the first city in the world to bridge the divide. It was open to the government to recognise that it is not just about information technology or an information economy; it is about an information society. It is about how we are being fundamentally changed as a society by the implementation of this new technology which reaches into every aspect of our lives, not just in terms of the economy and not just in terms of the machines and the technology available.

Mr Speaker, those are just a few comments in relation to that initiative. I would like to move onto some other comments raised in the Estimates Committee's report. Again, I have to reject the comments of the government about this report. It has becomes a bit of a ritual for the government every time an Estimates Committee report is brought down to

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