
Issue No 115		12 October 2001

LaborNET	Ask Neale	Tool of the Week

Interview

Connecting the State

NSW IT minister Kim Yeadon is the man responsible for enabling the people of NSW. Here's how he's doing it.


	Kim Yeadon

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How is the NSW Government managing its IT roll out?

I think very well up to this point in time. The approach that we take is leading edge rather than bleeding edge, so we want to stay right at the forefront. We are conscious of not just simply pouring taxpayers money down the drain, which I have seen some classic examples of in government, and in the private sector too, I might say.

What are your specific priorities at the moment?

Our priorities are to enable ourselves, as a government. That is because we want to provide our services to the citizens of NSW in an efficient way. But the other attribute is that as we enable ourselves, it encourages others, particularly in the business community, to enable themselves, and therefore it takes the whole community forward in this information revolution. Enabling ourselves is doing the best that we can possibly do for our citizens, and at the same time really driving economic activity along that line in NSW as well. So enabling ourselves, and also ensuring that we keep the whole situation as equitable as possible to avoid the digital divide. A lot of our policy component is about ensuring that we don't end up with a digital divide. And that runs on two lines which are primarily socio-economic on the one hand and geographic isolation on the other.

Apart from saving money on the budget bottom line, what are some of the projects you think have actually improved the quality of public service through IT?

I think the sort of transactions - electronic service delivery that we are putting online. We have got about 600 out there now. We will have about 800 to 850 by the end of the year. With more than half of those you will be able to do a full transaction online and I think that is a great thing for citizens. They can access government and to be able to use those services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, regardless of where they are, and that is a great plus to them.

Is the planning of IT in the NSW Government centralised under your Department, or do individual departments come up with their own plans?

It is a dual approach if you like. One of the things about the history of NSW is that it had a very flexible approach - and in fact probably too flexible - to various platforms and technology that was out there. We recognised that in a world of connectivity with the emergence of the world wide web, this was not entirely satisfactory, so we have brought it down in a more specific way as to what departments do and how they go about doing it.

One of the things that we want to stay away from is getting into a direct proprietary type relationship. Unfortunately some governments in Australia are just simply too small to do it any other way and have entered into direct proprietary relationships with the one proprietor and I think that is bad news for governments. We have tried to keep it spread out a bit within the government in terms of our platform.

That being said, agencies go about doing their own service delivery through their own initiatives. They are more the smaller type end projects, but in conjunction with that is a centralised approach where we assist from money that we have within my department to enable larger whole of government projects and the clustering of agencies. Something that is entirely up to the agency itself and doesn't have a wider whole of government - they do it themselves.

What about the debate between contractors or in-house staff? Is there a government policy on that?

We take the view that we don't want to go out and re-invent the wheel. There are a lot of people out there with products and approaches that we can use, but we apply that in individual circumstances and the individual job. We do not have a philosophy of outsourcing. We look at it on a case-by-case basis, but one overriding aspect is that it is imperative that the government retains a level of expertise and integrity over its own systems, and that feeds our policy approach as well.

So, are there job opportunities for IT workers within the public sector at the moment?

Absolutely. There wouldn't be a department within government that doesn't have its own IT unit or department at the present time. So certainly there are IT jobs within government and there will continue to be.

Do you see working within government a different philosophy to web infrastructure in the public sector, compared to the corporate world?

I think there is. In the private sector if you have got a product that is enabled, you can just simply go out into the market and pitch for people that are online. In other words, you are not going to worry about those that are not enabled, because you don't see it as your space. One of the issues that government is going to have to deal with, and is dealing with, that as we move to electronic service delivery, we have still got to maintain other channels if you want to call it that, if you want to use the jargon. Traditional channels for people that want to use that, and that goes all the way down to face to face, over the counter customer interaction.

It is not a technical thing, it is a process human thing if you like, but one of the distinguishers for us is that we have got to maintain services in a whole range of channels, whereas a pure private sector roll out person can just simply look at the enabled environment and concentrate on that. That is all that they are interested in, whereas we have got to provide all citizens with a whole range of approaches.

Looking to the Federal arena. What has the Howard Government done right and what has it done wrong in terms of the Web?

I don't think it has done a lot that is right, and I think that the thing it has done wrong the most is its outsourcing approach to IT. I think the evidence is now in that they really have spent large amounts of money to get very bad results in terms of their IT expenditure and the evidence is out there for that. And I think that is a salient lesson in not allowing ideology to drive this type of area.

Technology is neutral. It depends on how you use it as to whether or not it is good or bad from a range of people's perspectives, and I think the Federal Government has demonstrated how having an ideological approach to these things gives you bad outcomes at the end of the day.

The good thing that they have done? I don't know. Some of the Gatekeeper stuff is starting to develop up OK, although far too slow from our perspective. One view that we do take is that privacy and security and so forth have to be dealt with nationally. It is an international technology. It is an international phenomenon if you like, and it is going to be silly to have various States doing isolated approaches in terms of regulation. I like their leadership in that regard, but would say that it has been too slow, and the worst thing they have done is just wholesale outsourcing.

Speaking of philosophy, are Labor values applicable to the Net?

I think they are. Particularly the empowering aspect for Labor in the broader sense if you like. In both its industrial and political wing I think there is enormous scope there for empowering workers and you can put a human face on what people regard as a threat to their industrial space or their workplace or their work environment. And I think that is going to be the great challenge over the next decade for, not just simply Labor governments, but for all governments, and I think Labor can show the way on how that might be done.

And a role for the IT Workers Alliance working with you in NSW?

Absolutely, and I am delighted to see the Alliance out there and with their virtual union on this site, and I am going to be a very close watcher of it, and see what is occurring there and look forward to working with the people involved in it to see how we can progress these issues.

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  Issue 115 contents

Interview: Connecting the State
NSW IT minister Kim Yeadon is the man responsible for enabling the people of NSW. Here's how he's doing it.

Workplace: The Enemy Within
In the IT industry it's the recruiters who are earning the workers' ire, as our special correspondent explains.

Unions: From the Virtual Coalface
Computer programmer Vince Caughley argues there is a place for unions in the IT industry.

History: Conditions Precedent
Frank Bongiorno writes that the recent events off the coast of Christmas Island recall a story once told by Paul Hasluck.

International: Victims of Terrorism
Repression against trade unionists on the increase world wide, with 209 trade unionists assassinated last year, reveals ICFTU 2001 Survey.

Campaign Diary: Week One: Get Shorty
Labor's first week of campaigning was as an effort to gain attention from a nation rocked by the telvised war on terrorism.

Economics: Global Alliances
Ray Marcelo reports from India that the ILO is arguing that globalisation needs a worker and employer alliance.

Health: The Phantom Menace
Trade unions made an impact this week at an international congress In Melbourne in the global fight against AIDS.

Review: Rings of Confidence
In his study on the 2000 Olympics, Tony Webb argues that the government and unions reached a new level of cooperation.

Satire: Greens 'Quietly Unconfident' of Forming Government
A leaked memo from a senior member of the Greens reveals the party is unconfident of winning government on November 10.

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