[LINK] 171 Australian ICT Standards to be Withdrawn

Jan Whitaker jwhit at melbpc.org.au
Tue Sep 5 18:46:36 AEST 2006


At 08:33 AM 1/09/2006, Tom Worthington wrote:
>>Are they going to be scanned and made available for free?
>
>Not as far as I know.
>
>But the bigger question is: should ALL Australian standards be available 
>on-line for free? I think they should.

Absolutely!  I found out that they weren't in the early days of the 
e-health record discussion. I was appalled that the people wanting input 
etc to their standards were going to sell them! I asked for copies at least 
in return for participation in their panels, but they wouldn't budge. I 
stopped participating.

I know many think the US is nuts, but when I left (don't know since then) 
anything that was paid for by tax dollars was available to the public at 
reproduction or NO cost. "Public" meant accessible to the public.

How in the world is a small business to comply with standards if they have 
to pay hundreds of dollars to find out what they must comply with? Always 
seemed a bit nuts to me. How can a CONSUMER know if something is not up to 
'standard' if they can't access the measure in order to make the 
determination? Again, a quite insane system.

Jan


Jan Whitaker
JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com
personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/
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'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is 
no plant.' - JW, April 2005
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