Page 3043 - Week 07 - Thursday, 30 June 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
because you are not creating heat out of the CPU in your air-conditioned area. You are creating the heat more efficiently back in the server farm or the data centre where you can deal with it in a much more efficient manner.
I have concerns, though, through hearing that a five per cent IT saving is projected due to significant innovation and productivity gains in the new building. It is great that we will have gains in the new building, but the new building is six years away. Why are we waiting for six years? Why don’t we make the IT gains as they become available, as technology improves, as ways of working improve? I particularly think this is relevant because InTACT’s current policy is to replace equipment every four years. We will go through, on this basis, a complete equipment refresh before we move into the new building. So waiting until then seems silly.
Moving back to the present, as distinct from six years time, one of the open questions in this portfolio area is how InTACT, or ICTSS, interact with the new government information officer. I am really looking forward to seeing how this happens, how it changes ICT planning and how it leads to a more open government.
There has been a lot of discussion in the past week about open government after the Chief Minister’s bold announcement. Given that, and given the Government 2.0 motion earlier this year, given the JACS committee’s freedom of information report earlier this year, we certainly have a need for a very competent government information officer.
In this vein, I would also note the government’s stated commitment to open-source software. Unfortunately, this seems to be more in principle than in actuality. I have tried to have Firefox and have failed here in the Assembly, and I understand this is the case throughout the ACT government.
I will now move on to procurement. There are a few issues with this. Mr Smyth has touched on some of them, but I will keep talking on the subject. I refer to the mismanagement of the sheds for the Jerrabomberra and Rivers Rural Fire Service brigades. There is the question of why the e-waste contract went to MRI in Sydney rather than Renewable Processes, which is a Canberra-based organisation which employs people who, among others—not all of them, but among others—have mental health issues. And there is the significant public concern about previous waste contracts, with the public accounts committee asking the Auditor-General to consider investigating them as part of the PAC’s report on procurement.
To give some detail on these waste contracts, NOWaste claimed that they want to lead nationally in recycling, and the government has also publicly committed to take social enterprises into consideration in all tenders since June 2010. However, in awarding e-waste contracts to a Singaporean company in 2009 and a Sydney company in 2011, both of which did not process e-waste either locally or sustainably, or have any social procurement aspects, it seems that social and transport environmental impact issues were not taken into account.
Also, a local company, Renewable Processes, which has significantly invested in establishing an e-waste recycling facility to allow local processing and social
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video