Page 2821 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 June 2010
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I would also point out, though, that there is one positive thing that InTACT have done in the last year or so. Whereas they were previously leasing the computers that we use and the lease had a three-year turnaround cycle—it meant every three years computers had to be disposed of and purchases made again—they are now buying rather than leasing. I understand that they are aiming at least a four-year life of desktop machines and they are aiming at a proper disposal method, a more environmentally sound disposal. So that is very positive.
InTACT as whole, though, I would have to say, has been somewhat slow to adopt new technologies. Interestingly, in the last week, the government has been very proud of its new fix my street form. And while that is good—it actually uses Google maps—it is not as sophisticated as other jurisdictions who, for instance, use iPhone applications to report faults. They have the geographic information and the picture uploaded directly from an iPhone.
Another Google-related aid, Google transit, which is a version of Google maps, can display bus timetables and routes, and it does not cost anything to use that. All you would have to do to use it would be to provide our information to Google in the format that they want. This would make it a lot easier for people in Canberra who are trying to plan bus travel. They could go to the map, they could see where they were wanting to go, and they could see the timetable. It would all be simple for them.
The other option, if they do not want to use that, I am sure, is that we could work out some friendly relationship with the people in Melbourne and use their bus route planner, which is a really brilliant little planner. They have multi modes. They have buses and trams. It enables you to put in a start and end address and it will tell you where you have to walk, where you catch the bus, what time it is going to be there. It will give you a whole timetable like that for a day. We could do something like that. At present, in Canberra, if you want to catch a bus, which is not your normal bus, if you are going out of your way, you could easily spend 10 or 15 minutes on the ACTION bus site trying to work out when and where you are going to find your bus.
Another issue that InTACT is not looking at is open source. This is government policy but it is policy that InTACT is not implementing. Again, this is an area where we could make significant financial savings. I quote, as an example of InTACT’s lack of interest, Firefox. After the estimates hearings I managed to get Firefox on my computer. But this morning my staff and I found that it had gone again. So it lasted maybe two weeks.
InTACT, it seems, does not really have the energy to lead the ACT government into the things that it could improve. As I have mentioned, power and even issues around open source are being very patchily addressed. Is the issue relentless work pressures, having to do more with less, staff shortages, lack of training, IT no longer being a very attractive employment niche? Is this what is the problem?
IT, I think even in the ACT government, does have a seat at the senior management table but it is not managing to sell a vision effectively. The pressure does seem to be just to get along with minimum budget and not have any embarrassing system failures.
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