[LINK] Government and the Internet

[Roger Clarke]

At 17:14 +1100 10/11/15, Tom Worthington wrote:
>Greetings from Parliament House in Canberra, where the Parliamentary 
>Friends of the Internet Group is holding its first meeting. ...

Second   (:-)} 
The now Prime Minister played lead on the first a few months back.


>There are  MPs and representatives of Internet related organizations (such as Internet Australia)

Unsurprising, given that the group was the brainchild of IA's CEO, Laurie Patton.


> ... as well as some individuals (such as myself). It is 
>twenty years ago that professional and industry representatives 
>appeared before a series of parliamentary inquiries to explain what the 
>Internet was. It is good to see that members of the tech community are 
>still undertaking this important task.

I can remember the famous occasion we explained BBS to Harradine.

Yep, here 'tis - April 1995:
http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/BBSReg.html

Taking them beyond BBS and dial-up, to the Internet, was a bi-i-i-ig stretch for them.

All three of us are still active on link.  But I bet I'm the only one who could still find (HTML'd) copies of his acetate slides!  Well, at least we'd got past the blackboard.


>One topic discussed was innovation, both in terms of business, but also 
>not-for-profits. Wyatt Roy MP, Assistant Minister, Innovation just came 
>into the meeting. He  visited the CBR Innovation Network (CBRIN) on in 
>September. This is a few kilometers from Parliament House and provides a 
>good example of the fostering of the start-up culture.

Meanwhile we've got to get submissions into the Productivity Commission.  We need to prevent IP rights (the legalish one, not the protocol one) being extended even further, thereby empowering ossified corporations, and seriously hindering genuinely innovative start-ups:

Intellectual Property Arrangements
Productivity Commission Inquiry
http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/current/intellectual-property/terms-of-reference
http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/current/intellectual-property/issues


>http://blog.tomw.net.au/2015/11/government-and-internet.html


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			             
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
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Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law            University of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University