Alston's ICT committee comes under renewed fire - News - Communications

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Alston's ICT committee comes under renewed fire

By Andrew Colley, 0
April 02, 2002
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Alston-s-ICT-committee-comes-under-renewed-fire/0,130061791,120264348,00.htm

Minister for Information Technology, Senator Richard Alston's ICT framework steering committee is under fire again.

The Australian Computer Society (ACS) has accused the minister of stacking the committee in favour of the big end of town.

ACS national president Richard Hogg said that the composition of Alston's ICT framework committee, announced last week, indicates that the government is too narrowly focused on the interests of "big business".

"We feel this committee is repeating the same mistake as some past government initiatives by favouring the big end of the town, which is something we cannot afford to do," Hogg said.

Mr Hogg said he applauded the Federal Government for taking a long-term view in formulating IT policy but lamented the lack of representation for small and medium-sized enterprises, educators and youth.

Shadow IT minister, Senator Kate Lundy, shares some of the ACS' concerns. She said that IT skills training and the well-being of SMEs are among the most critical issues that need to be addressed in the Australian ICT sector.

According to Lundy, the Federal Government needs to make greater effort to develop Australia's indigenous IT industry in order to become a technology exporter.

Concerned about the presence of representatives of multinational companies on the eleven-member committee Lundy said: "they [multinationals] don't put the creation of a local industry at the forefront of their awareness".

The eleven-member ICT steering committee is composed of seven representatives from the commercial sector and three from research and academic backgrounds. One place is now open following the death last week of Hewlett-Packard Australia managing director Norman McCann.

Companies named in association with commercial sector representatives include IBM, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ericsson AsiaPacificLab, Siemens, Allen & Buckeridge, and global IT consulting firm Accenture.