Alston, who has been referred to as the World's Biggest Luddite by international media, failed to attend a Telstra function earlier today but released a statement that in light of heavy burdens the portfolio was placing on his family he told Prime Minister John Howard he would be happy to stand down at an upcoming cabinet reshuffle.
"I have been particularly fortunate to be able to serve in an area of policy which I have always regarded as the most exciting and interesting portfolio of all," said Alston, who spent more than eleven years in the communications portfolio and seven and a half years as a Cabinet Minister.
"I take particular pride in the fact that Australia's enthusiastic adoption and effective use of ICT, underpinned by Australia's information industries, has transformed many traditional industry sectors and has played a large part in Australia's achievement of world-leading economic growth and productivity improvements," said Alston.
His replacement, who was recently awarded the Australian Privacy Foundation's Australian Big Brother Award for Lifetime Menace to Privacy, is currently in Geneva attending a series of meetings. However, a statement released by his office said he was "pleased to have been Attorney-General for the last seven and a half years, and was looking forward to the challenge of a new portfolio".
Shadow Minister for Information Technology, Senator Kate Lundy, was unsurprisingly unimpressed with the appointment, telling ZDNet Australia Williams' experience in IT and telecommunications has been regulatory.
"I'm not inspired," said Lundy. "I've been saying Alston has been asleep at the wheel for the last two years, and there's nothing in Daryl Williams' past that I think it's going to be much different. He's seen as a plodder."
"I don't think he brings the dynamism I think the portfolio needs," said Lundy.
Telecommunications analyst Paul Budde told ZDNet Australia he was unfamiliar with Williams' experience in telecommunications, but said he thought he was personally more closely aligned with Prime Minister John Howard and Federal Treasurer Peter Costello on the privatisation of Telstra than Alston had been.
"I think it can't get worse, so that's the good thing," said Budde on the change in Minister. However, he did have some praise for Alston.
"He was the most knowledgeable minister we had around the globe in telecommunications because of his 10 years in the portfolio," said Budde. "His experience was hampered by one issue, the privatisation of Telstra. It dominated his career, and made it impossible to implement telecommunications strategy to see Australia in front [rather than] the back."
"Despite his position as a knowledgable and intellectual person he has not been able to implement [effective telecommunications strategies]," said Budde. "He has very little power towards Howard and Costello who have no interest in telecommunications besides the privatisation of Telstra. It is going to continue to blur the telecommunications policy picture for years to come."
Unsurprisingly, Labor politicians were blunt in their comments about the outgoing minister. "Senator Alston is abandoning ship as his communications portfolio sinks in a series of policy disasters," said Shadow Telecommunications Minister Lindsay Tanner in a statement. "He is leaving behind an uncompetitive telecommunications regime, soaring phone line rental fees, internationally embarrassing broadband take-up rates, a fiasco in digital television and a vicious government war against the ABC."
Lundy said she had "never been impressed with [Alston's] handling of any aspects of his portfolio".
"Australian broadband penetration has slid backwards compared to other countries, this will have a devastating impact on the Australian economy and social potential," said Lundy.
Budde said Australia was at the bottom of the list of OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries in terms of broadband penetration and claimed the gap between the rest of the OECD countries and Australia was growing by the day.
Lundy also criticised the failure of the Framework for the Future. "The IT sector has been left out on a limb by this government," she said. "The Howard government and Alston have continually agreed it's enough [for Australia] to be a consumer of IT. Labor has said we need to be a supplier."
The 'third strike' against Alston, according to Lundy, was his general handling of the Internet content issue, by "moving quickly when it's inappropriate and slowly when something needs to be done, like spam". Although the anti-spam legislation tabled in Parliament earlier this month received support, Lundy claims the issue should have been dealt with along with privacy years ago.
God help the IT sector. We've now gone from a Luddite to a plodder who doesn't know any more about IT Technology or market forces than his dumb predecessor. Someone has put a vacuum cleaner to our wonderfull!! PM's head & he's lost all his grey matter!!! Not that he had much in the 1st place.