[LINK] Coonan vs Conroy: What are the top issues?

[David Lochrin]

On Thursday 27 September 2007 17:52, Stilgherrian wrote:

> Next Friday morning 5 October I'll have the "pleasure" of 
> seeing ICT minister Helen Coonan and her Labor counterpart 
> Stephen Conroy discuss things in front of a bunch of ACS 
> members. 
>
> [...] what do you reckon are the three most important ICT 
> issues in this forthcoming federal election?

   I think it's necessary to begin by describing very clearly why ICT is likely to be important.  My view is that it will be a critical "enabling" element in our response to climate change, which will require lots of distributed access to lots of information and the tools to evaluate it.  This includes something as simple as decent search-engine (Google) response times, taken for granted in the cities, let alone access to complicated graphical information.

>  1. Broadband rollout in the bush
Basic broadband goals (some justified bandwidth such as ~256K or 512K DSL to some justified percentage of the population) is essential.  This should be the first goal, since nothing else is going to work otherwise.

>  2. Protecting children from online predators
Parents should talk to their children, not rely on technology.

>  3. Converting community TV to digital
Nope - see 1.

   My suggestions for (2) & (3) are:

(2)   an integrated, national educational strategy based on remote access;

(3)   not sure...  I'm reluctant to consider automated health tools.

David