[LINK] Sydney Metro Website Still Available Online

Tom Worthington tom.worthington at tomw.net.au
Mon Mar 22 09:14:49 AEDT 2010


Media reports indicate concern that the website of the abolished Sydney
Metro Authority is no longer publicly available. However, it has been
cached by Google (3 Feb 2010 01:06:28 GMT):
<http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:EJPhTRFxEiIJ:www.sydneymetro.nsw.gov.au/+http://www.sydneymetro.nsw.gov.au/&hl=en&strip=1>.

I suggest the NSW government adopt the practice of some federal 
departments and retain such web pages at their original address, but add 
a header to indicate the material is no longer current: : 
<http://www.google.com/search?q=%22archival+purposes+only%22+site%3Agov.au>

This practice was adopted when there was the first change of government 
after adoption of the web by government (I recall the interdepartmental 
meeting where it was discussed). This practice is also followed by some 
US federal and state agencies: 
<http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&q=%22archival+purposes+only%22+site%3Agov&btnG=Search>.

Obviously details of a failed project which wasted hundreds of millions
of dollars is an embarrassment to the NSW government, but attempting to
suppress the information is unlikely to improve the situation.


---
... Greens transport spokeswoman Lee Rhiannon is concerned the archiving
of Metro-related documents, which is already under way, increases the
risk that important information will disappear from the public record.

''What's not clear is what material will be available to the public now
the website has been taken down. The minister needs to give a clear
public guarantee that the archiving process is being co-ordinated
properly and that all material on the public record will remain on the
public record,'' she said. ...

From: "Call for inquiry over $500m poured into doomed Metro",
DANIELLE TEUTSCH AND MATTHEW BENNS, SMH, March 21, 2010:
<http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/call-for-inquiry-over-500m-poured-into-doomed-metro-20100320-qn7b.html>.

---

-- 
Tom Worthington FACS HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Lecturer, The Australian National University t: 02 61255694
Computer Science http://cs.anu.edu.au/user/3890




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