Government Alert

Less than a quarter of the Australian Government's regular websites can be considered smartphone or mobile-friendly, according to a survey conducted by iTnews. Of the 22 websites checked using W3C mobileOK and MobilReady test tools, less than five passed basic tests for the way they rendered on mobile devices. The tougher of the two tools, MobilReady, rated only one site - Finance & Deregulation - as providing “fair” accessibility, scoring 2.01 out of a maximum of five.

Who would have thought we’d see a prominent ALP politician speaking out against the debilitating effects of the handout mentality just a week after the welfare blitz of the Gillard Government’s avowed “Labor Budget”? But these are the words of South Australia’s Attorney-General John Rau recorded in a statement to the online news site InDaily.

Australia's top spies will have to wait to move into their grandiose new headquarters if a suspected rental disagreement between their bosses and the Department of Finance and Deregulation is not resolved soon. The government insists there is no dispute over the lease and that all is on track with the $589 million new home for the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation

Improved virtualization security protection and network training are needed if Australian enterprises are to avoid potential attacks via the virtual machine (VM) layer in the future, delegates at the AusCERT 2012 conference on the Gold Coast have heard.  Speaking at the event, which opens today, John Reeman, security and virtualization expert at consultancy VMinformer, told delegates that in countries such as Australia, virtualization layers have become the “bed rock” of IT networks and provide business critical applications and services.

JUST in case the Gillard government thought China had decided to overlook the deployment of 2500 US marines in Darwin, Beijing this week issued advice to the contrary. When the announcement about the marines was made during President Barack Obama's visit to Australia in November, the response by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman was diplomatically phrased: ''It may not be quite appropriate to intensify and expand military alliances and may not be in the interest of countries in the region.''

The Australian Government announced a they will increase the places available in the 2012–13 migration program in order to help fill skills shortages in parts of Australia. "The measured increase of 5000 places—from 185 000 to 190 000—comes in the context of significant skills gaps in both the short and medium term in certain sectors of our patchwork economy," said Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Chris Bowen.

How much more do hardware servers cost in Australia? Quite a lot more than in the US, according to a report by small business technology media outlet BIT, in yet another case of the Australian technology tax striking fear into local wallets. The publication reports on the cost of some gear from HP (we recommend you click through for the full article), quoting local reseller Complete PC on the ProLiant N40L and mid-range ML350 models:

Queensland water-services and waste water-services company Unitywater has outsourced its IT services to CSG for the next three years. The two organisations signed the contract earlier this year in January, sealing Unitywater's choice to move more of its IT services to the cloud. While Unitywater opted not to disclose the sum of the agreement, it told ZDNet Australia that it is performance based, and has scope for extensions.

National Broadband Network is looking to sell its benefits by singing up 61 new telework partners, including big names like RIM – makers of BlackBerry – Westpac, IBM and Microsoft promote teleworking for their Australia enterprises.  This means the big names will let staff work remotely at home or mobile on flexible arrangements using high speed fibre NBN services and other VOIP and video conferencing technology.

The Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper sagas have reignited talk of a code of conduct for MPs, but all parties are playing down its potential to raise the standing of parliament in the eyes of Australian voters. While Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott are open to the idea, Mr Abbott says no member of parliament should need reminding that behaviour such as fraud or sexual harassment is wrong.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says Craig Thomson's explanation of his alleged misuse of union funds isn't believable and is only being maintained as an alibi so Prime Minister Julia Gillard can continue to rely on his support in parliament.  Mr Abbott said Mr Thomson needs to make an absolutely complete and candid explanation to the parliament, to the people of Australia and those agencies investigating "this whole sordid, squalid mess".

Federal Budget measures to continue support for the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records (PCEHR) has been welcomed as a significant step in Australia’s development as a world leader in the delivery of innovative healthcare services, which will drive productivity gains across the health sector. Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Information Industry Association, Suzanne Campbell, said the continued funding of NeHTA would enable it to better utilise the skills and knowledge of Australia’s ICT industry to expedite implementation of personally controlled electronic health records (PCEHRs).

Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has suggested that the 2012-13 Budget would actually blow out to a $12 billion deficit, if the National Broadband Network (NBN) was on the books. In not proceeding with the planned 1 per cent company tax cut, downsizing the public sector workforce by 3000, reforming welfare and tax systems and making $5 billion in cuts to Department of Defence spending, the government is hoping to turn a $44.4 billion budget deficit in 2011-12 into a $1.5 billion surplus for 2012-13.

Job cuts of up to 3,073 full-time equivalent positions have been forecast for the Australian Public Service next year as the APS plays its part in returning the Federal Budget to surplus.   Hardest hit will be the Australian Tax Office (ATO) which is to lose 1,039 positions following internal restructures and efficiency gains while Education, Employment and Workplace relations will farewell 1,145 mainly through transfers to Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education.

Data retention is once again on the media and political agenda, with the government last week (via attorney-general Nicola Roxon) canvassing public input on the topic. The laws which the government proposes amending include those covering interception, telecommunications, and intelligence agencies – all, of course, under that indispensible omnibus for all things spookish, “national security”.

CANBERRA – There was precious little joy for the IT and communications industries in the Budget unveiled last night by Treasurer Wayne Swan, with major delays and cutbacks in defence and other spending, and only a few crumbs in the form of new IT infrastructure and systems – and almost nothing in the form of incentives for developing a strong technology industry in this country.

The Government will transform the current Tax Education Refund into a Schoolkids Bonus paid through the family payments system to provide timely assistance to families. The Schoolkids Bonus will guarantee eligible parents $410 for primary school students and $820 for secondary school students and will be paid in equal instalments at the start of the school semesters in January and July each year commencing from January 2013.

Government funding of $233.6 million for personally controlled electronic health records (PCEHRs), announced yesterday in the 2012 Australian federal Budget, will boost both the health and ICT sectors in Australia, according to the Australian Information Industry of Australia (AIIA). The budget included $161.6 million to continue operation of the PCEHRs, with a further $4.6 million to be used to maintain safeguards for privacy-related aspects of PCEHRs.

HUNTER health experts are glowing with good news about what they say is real and new investment in the sector. They have few complaints other than a cautious rider that the budget fine print will need to be checked closer in coming days. Chief executive of Hunter Urban Medicare Local Mark Foster said he was surprised at the level of new investment. Dr Foster said the most attractive item was the $200million in new funding for electronic health (e-health) records over two years.

Planning and hosting the G20 summit in 2014 is set to cost Australia more than $325 million. The federal government has yet to decide which city will host the prestigious summit of world leaders and its preliminary meetings of ministers and officials. But its 2012/13 budget papers released on Tuesday show, Labor has put aside $24.1 million for the G20 task force planning the event, before a further $78.28 million in 2013/14 and $218.3 million in the host year 2014/15 and $4.6 million the year after. The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet wants the 2014 international gathering to "influence global economic rule setting institutions and outcomes" as well as strengthen Australia's standing in the world.