With a doctorate in Psycology under her belt, and fifteen years in politics including a stint as Australia's first female Premier, Lawrence has certainly demonstrated she has what it takes in the political arena.
As shadow minister she has been highly critical of the Liberal government's outsourcing policies which saw millions of dollars syphoned out of government departments into the hands of multinational outsourcing companies.
Labor's responses reflect a mixture of support for communications infrastructure, education and local industry. Broadly speaking the policies are in keeping with the Labor party's approach to IT over the last couple of years, and melds nicely with Green and Democrat policy responses.
- Would you support further privatisation of Telstra? How will you promote the rollout and uptake of broadband services in Australia?
- What steps will you take to improve telecommunications access in rural and regional Australia? Since people in low-income urban areas have been identified by recent studies as those most at risk of becoming a technologically illiterate underclass, what steps will you take to improve their access to technology?
- The reasonable minimum expectations of consumers;
- The reasonable cost and impact on industry of achieving higher minimum data speeds; and
- The reasonable period of time needed to make an appropriate minimum data speed available.
- What will you do to support and promote the uptake of distance education? How will you encourage the everyday use of IT in primary and secondary education?
- A National Connectivity Council;
- Regional Communications Infrastructure Partnerships;
- A National Connectivity Audit; and
- A National Connectivity Fund
- Do you support the Australian Broadcasting Authority's regulation of Internet content? Is the cost of the scheme justified given its effect thus far?
- What steps will you take to combat the so-called IT brain drain, and to encourage young educated Australians to remain in Australia?
- Do you believe employees' rights are upheld by recently enacted privacy legislation? Will you support a limitation on electronic surveillance in the workplace?
- What will you do to curb the blow out in Australia's ITC trade deficit, which has grown to $17.73 billion -- triple what it was in 1990-91?
- Will you use government procurement to bolster Australian IT companies?
- align our industry development objectives with the States and Territories to increase coordinated buying and obtain greater leverage;
- set, monitor and enforce industry development targets for Commonwealth agencies;
- adopt electronic procurement across government, in cooperation with the States and Territories to further encourage the take-up of IT by agencies and their suppliers, and
- expand opportunities for SMEs to participate in government purchasing.
- How do you propose to stimulate ITC R&D in Australia? How will you encourage the availability of post-secondary IT training and education?
- How will you approach datacasting legislation given the Government's failed spectrum auction in May 2001?
Labor is committed to the retention of Telstra in majority public ownership.
Australia's national interest is best served by using the Federal Government's majority ownership of Telstra to guarantee the delivery of a world-class telecommunications system to all Australians.
Unlike the Howard-Anderson Government, which doesn't believe that Telstra should be in the business of building telephone networks', Labor will not support the privatisation of parts of Telstra's business like NDC (which builds Telstra's networks), that are central to a modern full service telecommunications company.
Access to reasonable speed dial-up Internet and broadband services is essential if Australia is to become a Knowledge Nation. These technologies will provide Australians, wherever they live, with an increasing range of services that will help to educate our children, improve the quality and accessibility of a wide range of health, government, financial and other commercial services, as well as the latest in entertainment.
Labor will replace the Standard Telephone Service with a new Standard Communications Service requiring a minimum, deliverable and affordable dial-up data speed.
Labor will ensure that the Australian Communications Authority (ACA) conducts regular public consultations to determine the appropriate data speed at which the Standard Communications Service should be set. In doing so, the ACA will examine:
Labor will work with the communications industry, and Telstra in particular, to overcome any infrastructure impediments to the delivery of higher minimum data speeds. In particular, Labor will work with Telstra to examine the availability of the latest technology to further improve data speeds in remote areas and to overcome limitations caused by the use of 'pair gain' systems.
Labor will upgrade the Digital Data Service Obligation so Australians can request reasonable access, where appropriate, to Telstra's broadband cable, xDSL and satellite services, including Telstra's two-satellite service due to be released later this year.
As part of its regular consultations on the Standard Communications Service, the ACA will investigate the level of subsidy needed to ensure reasonable and equitable access for all Australians to these new broadband technologies.
Labor will also allow other telecommunications carriers to access Digital Data Service Obligation subsidies to help promote more effective competition for broadband Internet services.
Labor will invest $140 million over five years to create a large scale outreach program to provide basic IT & Internet training to adult Australians who have little experience or confidence with computers. This training will be provided at schools, universities and TAFEs, Adult and Community Education Centres, workplaces, libraries and neighbourhood centers.
The target population are people who have never, or very rarely, used a computer. Recent ABS statistics indicate that 35 per cent of the Australian adult population did not use a computer in the twelve months to February 2000.
The IT Kickstart courses will be introductory courses designed to provide basic computer skills such as getting started with a computer, using email and navigating on the internet.
A key goal of the training will be to find for each person something on the Internet of personal interest to them and to show them how to find information and access government and community services. The face-to-face training will be supported by training software, online advice and access to phone support.
Labor will double the new money available under the Government's response to the Besley Inquiry Report, establishing a $140.5 million National Connectivity Scheme comprising:
Labor will establish an independent National Connectivity Council to provide expert advice to the Federal Government about Australia's communications infrastructure needs and the best mechanisms to ensure the equitable delivery of telecommunications services, including voice, mobile phone, dial-up Internet and broadband services. The Council will be required to consult with local communities to ensure that their wishes are taken into account. As part of its deliberations, itl will be asked to investigate options for making off-peak Government bandwidth available for community, health and education purposes.
The Council will take over the administration of all remaining programs designed to improve communications services in rural and regional Australia. This will ensure that the administration of all programs occurs in a co-ordinated manner.
The National Connectivity Council will be funded from within the existing resources of the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts.
The National Connectivity Council will consult with local communities through Regional Communications Infrastructure Partnerships involving all levels of government, major government, health and education service providers and leading local businesses to identify co-ordinated regional solutions to local problems.
These Partnerships will allow regional communities to prioritise their needs - whether that be increased television, radio or mobile phone coverage or better access to broadband or dial-up Internet services. They will also serve as a forum for local communities to better explore options for demand aggregation.
The National Connectivity Council will work with the Regional Communications Infrastructure Partnerships to develop greater flexibility in the funding provided under existing and new Government programs to better deliver the improvements in communications services that regional communities need.
As the foundation of its future work, the National Connectivity Council will conduct a National Connectivity Audit to provide centralised and coordinated information about the availability of communications infrastructure. The audit will help guide the decisions of the National Connectivity Scheme allowing additional and alternate communications infrastructure opportunities to be identified and better targeting of areas of need.
The National Connectivity Audit will specifically seek to identify convergent or integrated opportunities to address regional and rural communications needs.
A $140.5 million three-year National Connectivity Fund, to commence in 2003-04, will make money available to help ensure more equitable delivery of telecommunications infrastructure, particularly in rural and regional Australia.
The Fund will prioritise communications infrastructure that enables the delivery of multiple and where possible convergent communications needs in particular, through the development of broadband infrastructure and content. It will explore opportunities to enhance the access of rural and regional Australia to television, radio, mobile phone, dial-up Internet and broadband services.
Supporting Tasmania's fibre-optic network: Tasmania has a number of large and exciting infrastructure projects in advanced stages of planning. These are mostly privately funded projects, which have been facilitated by the State Labor Government.
Tasmania does not currently have access to natural gas. The Tasmanian Natural Gas Project (TNGP) offers a unique opportunity to improve the communications services available to Tasmanians at marginal additional cost in the open gas trench. Labor will support the Tasmanian Labor Government's roll out of fibre-optic cable along the open gas trench. This project will provide enormous economic and social benefits for Tasmania, and give it every opportunity to share in the benefits of Australia as a Knowledge Nation.
The benefits to Tasmania include significant increases in data speeds for Internet users, access to applications such as pay television, support for Information Technology and Communications-based industries, and enhanced on-line learning opportunities.
There is a place for the sensible regulation of Internet content, but this is a different proposition from attempting to restrict access to specified types of Internet content. The Coalition's attempts in this regard include the Online Services Act and the Interactive Gambling Act. These examples use different legal mechanisms to achieve a common outcome: to make content that was legal offline, illegal online. Both of these pieces of legislation demonstrate that the operational reality of the Internet is not understood, or has been deliberately ignored by the Coalition.
In both cases. there is no reasonable justification for the aim of restricting access to certain types of content, nor does the method determined in the legislation present a meaningful barrier. In this context, Labor does not support the Coalition approach to the regulation of the Internet and the costs of implementing a law that is ineffective is obviously a waste.
Labor's view is that there is a place for sensible regulation of Internet content. For example, providers of online trading or gambling services. Such license provisions may be state based and have a code of practice with which providers must comply.
Another issue which is vitally important is making sure that end users have the ability and confidence to manage their own content.
The Knowledge Nation vision articulates the relationship between education, innovation, commercialisation and jobs. Understanding these linkages informs Labor how policies need to be constructed to create meaningful opportunities for out best and brightest.
A Beazley Labor Government will tackle the brain drain by doubling the number of research fellowships available to Australian academics and by creating a new category of elite fellowships, valued at $200,000 a year for five years, to bring home some of our leading expatriate researchers.
We will also create a pool of 400 new fully funded HECS-exempt research training places for regional universities. The places will be available on a competitive basis, based on universities' areas of research excellence.
Full details of Labor's higher education policies are available on the ALP website, www.alp.org.au.
Labor criticised the recently-enacted privacy legislation on the basis that it did not make proper provision for the privacy of certain employee records. Labor is committed to review the new privacy rules after they have been in operation for two years. The New South Wales Labor Government has enacted legislation to provide employees with protection against electronic surveillance in the workplace.
Labor rejects the Coalition assertion that it is OK to be a country of IT consumers, as distinct from producers. As consumers, we will only continue to increase the ITC trade deficit. As producers, however, we not only start to offset imports with locally produced hardware, software and digital content, but we can also innovate, commercialise and pursue new export opportunities in ITC to turn the disastrous terms of trade trend in ITC around.
The Knowledge Nation Taskforce Report identified the ITC industry as strategically important because of enabling capability of IT for both emerging and existing industries as well as the importance of the sector itself. Labor will have more to say about how a Labor Government will invest and support the development and growth of this crucial sector.
Yes.
Labor has announced that, if elected, we will adopt a strategic whole-of-government purchasing policy that uses government spending to achieve domestic industry development objectives, particularly in key sectors, such as the information and communications technology sectors.
Under the plan, Labor will:
The Knowledge Nation taskforce report recommended a target of doubling the R&D as a percentage of GDP by 2010, bringing Australia to the top of the OECD tables. Labor recognises that research, development, commercialisation and the ability to create jobs and sustain growth from the creation of wealth is central to our future social and economic success as a nation.
Since the failure of the datacasting spectrum auction in May this year, some in the wider communications, broadcasting and media industries have questioned whether there is still a future for datacasting in Australia. Labor acknowledges these concerns.
Labor will first confirm that there are commercial interests genuinely interested in providing datacasting services. If so, Labor will then amend the Howard Government's datacasting restrictive genre-specific regime to allow maximum flexibility in the provision of datacasting services, while maintaining the ban on de facto broadcasting as agreed by the 1998 Parliamentary framework.
Labor's approach has been strongly supported by independent expert opinion and was consistent with the recommendations made by the Productivity Commission's March 2000 Report on Broadcasting.
Labor will also investigate options for the provision of suitable government services and information using datacasting. Just like the Internet, datacasting provides further opportunities for governments to provide services and information in ways that are more accessible for the users of them.
Greens policies underrated.
I think the Greens' policies are very fair, and provide good solutions to providing fair telephone and internet access to all Australians.
Their policies also address the errors made by Richard Alston on censorship and digital broadcasting.
I was disappointed that the Greens weren't listed in your poll.
The Greens have full policy information at
<URL:http://www.greens.org.au/>.