[LINK] Outsourcing Whitewash Announced

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

<rant>
The reports on the IT outsourcing "review" demonstrate yet again that very
few people fully understand the Federal Government's initiative.

First we had Laura Tingle of the SMH making comments about Groups 1 and 11
without knowing what agencies are involved.

Then there is the report By Sandra Van Dijk of Australian ComputerWorld
"Update: CSC Says Outsourcing Program Is Here to Stay"
<http://computerworld.idg.com.au/CWT1997.nsf/cwtoday/328F959D5CD9D5064A2569910017FC40!OpenDocument>
where she quotes Roger Allen "... current tenders for Group 1 and Group 2
are moving ahead"

My guess is that she spoke to Allen and he refered to Group 11. When she
came to write it up, in her ignorance, she misread 11 as 2. Anybody who has
any interest in government IT outsourcing should know what the current
outstanding tenders are.

Mr Fahey is using this ignorance in the media and other commentators to
fudge the real issues. An example of this is in the number of jobs he
claims are being created as a result of the outsourcing activities. He
regularly makes statements about jobs in his media releases without
clarifying if he is referring to in-scope or out-of-scope employment. This
allows him to boast about the apparent success of the initiative without
having journalists pick him up on his exaggerations.

His other tack is to avoid talking to those journalists who wish to
question him about his claims.
</rant>

-- 
The empiricist ... thinks he believes only what he sees, but he is much
better at believing than at seeing.
-- George Santayana

Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
brd@dynamite.com.au