[LINK] IT matters of interest in the 2011/2012 Federal Budget

[Alex (Maxious) Sadleir]

On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 9:13 PM, Roger Clarke <Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au> wrote:
> At 8:56 PM +1000 10/5/11, Tom Worthington wrote:
>>Just about every year since the Australian Federal Budget was first put
>>on the web, I have done a quick search though the documents to find
>>matters of interest in information technology:
>><http://www.budget.gov.au/2010-11/>.
>
> Great stuff, as usual, thanks Tom!
>
>
>>5. Education, Employment and Workplace Relations: "In addition,
> funding will be provided to enhance and improve the exchange of
> information between Centrelink and the Department of Education,
> Employment and Workplace Relations' information technology systems. This
> will improve the capacity of employment services providers and
> Centrelink staff to view and use appropriate material from each other."
>
> This is on top of their existing raiding of one another's data, i.e
> the data of their 'clients', and the extraordinary merger of DHS,
> Medicare and Centrelink (itself a funnel for 10 agencies and 100
> benefit schemes).  Roll on the Australia Card Register.  'A few more
> mega-millions and we'll justabout have it in place, and be able to
> drop the Census in favour of real-time personal data-sharing across
> the board'.

The DHS is quite well off for IT in this budget
http://www.budget.gov.au/2011-12/content/bp2/html/bp2_expense-13.htm
373.6million for integrating the three separate ICT bases into one and
157.6 million for a client single sign on/management solution which
includes "a trial to determine the ICT requirements needed to enable
staff to view a consenting customer's accounts. This capability is
designed to provide customers and staff with a complete picture of a
customer's interactions across the portfolio so that services can be
matched to changing customer needs."

Funny you mention the Census, there's some work being done in remote
communities to tell children to encourage their families not to avoid
the census due to fears that other branches of government will get
that information about their living arrangements. The ABS website
clearly distances itself specifically from the Australia Card and DHS:
"There is absolutely no policy in existence or under consideration to
integrate the Census or eCensus with the Department of Human Services
Access Card (i.e. Smartcard).

The ABS would never consider integrating the eCensus with any other system."
http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/D3310114.nsf/home/Census:+Privacy+and+Confidentiality#OTHERGOVERNMENTAGENCIES