What the ICT industry wants: The Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA)

The Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) calls on the next Federal Government to deliver the following outcomes:

1. Recognise and support the significant productivity improvement and economic growth roles that ICT plays by creating a new portfolio of Minister for Productivity in the next parliamentary cabinet. This Minister would be focused on achieving national productivity improvement through widespread deployment of ICT across key sectors such as health, education, energy, infrastructure and government service delivery

2. Continue the rapid rollout of ubiquitous high-speed broadband infrastructure for all Australian premises as a nation-building priority of the next Federal Government. AIIA supports the current government’s National Broadband Network approach and is concerned by the lack of any viable alternative policy from the Opposition. AIIA would need an understanding of the Opposition’s broadband enablement plan to be supportive

3. Accelerate the digital economy understanding by investment at two levels; firstly in a broad community and business awareness campaign promoting the value of digital economy applications and services and secondly, by providing a significant projects investment pool similar to the current Infrastructure Australia model, for the development of new digital economy applications that are created in partnership with non-ICT industry partners

4. Take steps to further build confidence in the digital economy and ensure that the public understand the role that all Australians can play in it. AIIA calls on all parties to address key online confidence issues of privacy, security, sophisticated payments and protection from cybercrime and cyber bullying and to promote solutions and strategies for the community to address these issues

5. Recognise the economic and social benefits of revolutionary health reform by rapidly accelerating the uptake of electronic health practices, including addressing and funding related workforce skills requirements

6. Put in place new policy, incentive and investment levers to drive much higher levels of innovation through the adoption of technology by all businesses, large and small

7. Change significant policy positions in order to make Australia a more attractive destination for entrepreneurs, R&D development and ICT-related business investment. This must include changes to current positions on employee share ownership plans, Capital Gains, Intellectual Property treatment, R&D tax policy and foreign investment support

8. Make the issue of a highly capable technology-aware workforce a key priority by implementing a skills mapping review to achieve the full productivity potential of the digital economy

9. Show leadership and innovation in its own use of ICT to deliver progressive citizen services. This must include early engagement with industry to highlight key opportunities for improvement

10. Recognise and promote the substantial potential for widespread reduction of carbon footprints through comprehensive use of ICT across industry, business and the community

11. Provide continued support for the rollout of a national scheme for electronic waste and recycling

12. Commit to support for consistent tracking of Australia’s performance against global metrics for competitiveness, productivity, innovation and more specifically for ICT usage, return on investment and productivity impact – including the impact of the digital economy, productivity improvement through ICT and the environmental benefits of ICT deployment

Read other policy commitment wish lists from the ICT industry

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