[LINK] IT matters of interest in the 2007/2008 Federal Budget
Tom Worthington
Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au
Tue May 8 20:50:42 AEST 2007
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. This year I tried
to access the budget web site at 7:40pm, my first two attempts got a
"busy" message, but it worked the third time.
SOME IT HIGHLIGHTS
* ONLINE PREPARED TAX RETURN: The ATO will prepare an default on-line
tax return for everyone who has submitted their return electronically
in the past (either themselves or via an agent). The taxpayer can
accept the on-line return or amend it, or do their own. This sounds a
good idea, but depends on security issues being sorted out.
QUALITY OF THE WEB PAGE
Each year since 1996 the budget web site has got better. But the
2007-08 site <http://www.budget.gov.au/> does not seems to have
improved from last year. The site is HTML 4.01 Transitional, not
XHTML, as used for newer web sites. There is some CSS formatting
embedded in the web page, which appears to have been put in at the
last minute to fix some problems ("backslash hack for IE/Mac v2" for
example). This really should be in the separate CSS files.
The home page passed an automated Level 1 accessibility test and only
failed Level 2 and Level 3 tests on two minor technical issues. The
result is that the budget web page works with graphics turned off,
for people who can't see images or have a very slow link. Even on a
slow link with images it will be reasonably fast: about 27 seconds
on a 14.4 kbps link. However, 34 of the 46 kbyes of the downlaod are
images and the masthead image in particular could be made smaller.
Last year I criticized the web site for having important tables in
the overview as blurry little image files and the PDF versions as
excessively large. The situation seems to have got worse, with
graphics, such as "Major economic parameters" not showing up at all
on the overview web page
<http://www.budget.gov.au/2007-08/overview/html/overview_01.htm>. The
three column layout used is well implemented using CSS, but would be
more readable with one simple column. The web versions of the
documents are also excessively large.
IT IN THE BUDGET
Introduced in 2003, the budget web site has a useful search service,
but it seems a little less useful this year than last. Entering
"Information Technology" took eight seconds to do a search at 8:10pm
and returned 26 results (up from 25 last year). But as last year
almost all these references appear to be in the name of the
Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts.
Some items of interest from the search:
---
Australian Broadband Guarantee - establishment of broadband blackspot
programme <http://www.budget.gov.au/2007-08/bp2/html/expense-05.htm>
The Government will provide $30.1 million in 2006-07 and $112.4
million in 2007-08 to provide subsidised internet access for
Australians currently unable to gain a metropolitan-comparable level
of broadband service at their principal place of residence or small business.
This measure includes the reallocation of $26.9 million in 2006-07
and $18.9 million in 2007-08 from the Metropolitan Broadband Connect programme.
---
Australian Broadcasting Corporation - Regional and Local Programming
initiative - continuation of funding
<http://www.budget.gov.au/2007-08/bp2/html/expense-05.htm>
...
The Government will provide $19.1 million in 2008-09 to the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) to continue base funding
for the Regional and Local Programming initiative. This will align
the funding of this initiative with the ABC's overall triennial
funding arrangements.
The initiative provides funding for regional and local programming in
a range of content categories across radio, television and internet platforms.
Provision for this funding has already been included in the forward estimates.
---
Simplified Superannuation - additional funding for implementation
<http://www.budget.gov.au/2007-08/bp2/html/expense-29.htm>
... The Government will provide additional funding of $78.5 million
over two years for information and communications technology (ICT)
costs for delivering simplified superannuation reform.
The additional funding reflects revised estimates of the ICT costs
associated with implementing the reforms.
---
National Plan for Water Security - improving water information
<http://www.budget.gov.au/2007-08/bp2/html/expense-11.htm>
... The Government will provide $417.2 million over 10 years
(including $235.0 million over six years from 2011-12) to the Bureau
of Meteorology to improve the detail and scope of nationally
available water information, which will allow the Bureau to forecast,
analyse and publicly report on water resource usage.
This funding is conditional on the governance arrangements for the
Murray-Darling Basin being placed on a national footing.
This measure forms part of the Government's $10 billion National Plan
for Water Security.
This component of the National Plan for Water Security has four key elements:
* assisting water data collecting agencies to modernise and
extend their water information and measurement networks;
* maintaining a national database and web-based reporting system
for all water information, including maintaining a national water
account and managing the information collected from the metering,
monitoring and accounting element of the National Plan;
* improving analysis and interpretation of national water
information and forecasting services; and
* commissioning strategic investigations and purchasing data to
address water information needs.
---
A Better Future for Indigenous Australians - continuation of the Cape
York Digital Network <http://www.budget.gov.au/2007-08/bp2/html/expense-16.htm>
The Government will provide $2.2 million over four years to continue
operating six community online access centres in the remote
communities of Hopevale, Napranum, Umagico, Coen, Injinoo and
Lockhart River. These centres provide access to computers and online
services, as well as IT training and support to all community members.
---
Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey (HILDA) -
extension of data collection
<http://www.budget.gov.au/2007-08/bp2/html/expense-16.htm>
The Government will provide $20.9 million over four years to collect
a further four waves of data in the HILDA survey as part of its
long-term commitment to the study. The survey, established in the
1999-2000 Budget, follows the same households over time. It will
continue to provide data necessary for longitudinal analysis of the
effects of policy and other changes on families and household
formation; labour market and education participation; and retirement
and retirement preparation. The data is used by Government
departments in policy development and evaluation and by Australian
and international researchers.
This measure includes $57,000 in capital funding in 2010-11 to
upgrade related computer systems.
---
Influenza pandemic - managing the social and community impacts
<http://www.budget.gov.au/2007-08/bp2/html/expense-16.htm>
The Government will provide $10.5 million over four years to
undertake preparations to manage the social and community impacts in
the event of an influenza pandemic. Preparations will include
developing a pandemic awareness training programme for social
workers, a national volunteer database to match volunteer skills with
opportunities and a framework to maintain critical social services
provided by not-for-profit organisations.
This measure includes funding for Centrelink of $2.9 million in
2007-08, $0.9 million in 2008-09, $0.8 million in 2009-10 and $0.8
million in 2010-11. It also includes capital funding of $2.5 million
in 2007-08 for computer system enhancements.
---
National Illicit Drug Strategy - Australian Federal Police
communications network
<http://www.budget.gov.au/2007-08/bp2/html/expense-04.htm>
The Government will provide $5.2 million over four years to continue
the connection of Australian Federal Police overseas posts to the
national computer system, AFPNet.
This continues an initiative included in the 2003-04 Budget and
involves funding of $1.3 million per annum over four years from
2007-08. Provision for this funding has already been included in the
forward estimates.
---
Comments on previous budgets:
1996 <http://www.anu.edu.au/mail-archives/link/link9608/0096.html>
1997 <http://www.anu.edu.au/mail-archives/link/link9705/0315.html>
1998 <http://www.anu.edu.au/mail-archives/link/link9805/0174.html>
1999 <http://www.anu.edu.au/mail-archives/link/link9905/0265.html>
2000 <http://www.anu.edu.au/mail-archives/link/link0005/0358.html>
2002 <http://www.anu.edu.au/mail-archives/link/link0205/0318.html>
2004 <http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/link/2004-May/056673.html>
2005 <http://www.archivum.info/link@mailman.anu.edu.au/2005-05/msg00035.html>
2006 <http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/link/2006-May/066486.html>
2007
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2007/05/it-matters-of-interest-in-20072008.html>.
Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617 http://www.tomw.net.au/
Visiting Fellow, ANU Blog: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/atom.xml
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