The retirement of Steve Waugh from test cricket will mark the end of one the most outstanding contributions to Australian sport we have had the good fortune to witness. As a cricket player Steve Waugh’s career successes speak for themselves; the most capped player in cricketing history, second highest all time run scorer, and second [...]
Yearly Archives: 2003
AUSFTA may be final curtain call for Film Industry
The Howard Government was quick to talk up its commitment to the Australian film and television industry in the House of Representatives today. The reality is that the Howard Government is guilty of having created a crisis in the industry after cutting more than $100 million in funding in just five years between 1996 and [...]
Australian Artists deserve more than poverty
A third of practising Australian Artists are living in poverty, with visual artists and females the most financially disadvantaged, validating Labor’s commitment to introduce a resale royalty scheme for visual artists. A report released this week titled Don’t Give Up Your Day Job surveyed 1063 professionals revealing that 50% of artists earn less than $7,300 [...]
$160 M of Government ICT contracts lost to local industry
The Howard Government’s ICT outsourcing industry development process is a shambles. In Senate Estimates, the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts revealed that over $160 million in Government ICT contracts are not covered by any local industry development requirements, because the existing program, the Strategic Partnership Industry Development Agreement (SPIDA), was abandoned in [...]
Howard Government obfuscates scrutiny of ICT expenditure
The Howard Government is attempting to cover up how much it spends annually on information and communications technology (ICT). In an effort to determine where and how much taxpayers’ money is being spent on ICT I have, over the past year, asked all Government Departments and agencies to provide detailed information about their ICT expenditure [...]
Besley commitment siphoned off to pay for Estens commitment
The Howard Government has cut $35 million from the Building Additional Regional Networks (BARN) fund. BARN was a $70 million fund that was part of the Howard Government’s response to the Besley Inquiry into Regional Telecommunications, but in a cynical exercise the Howard Government has siphoned off half of the fund to flesh out their [...]
Inexplicable security breach leads to rubbish dump hunt as ministerial emails go missing in wheelie bin debacle
A Senate Estimates Committee has heard that public servants and Telstra employees crawled over rubbish tips in search of computer files which included Ministerial emails that were ‘lost’ in a major security breach earlier this year. The computer files were never recovered and are presumed by authorities to have been thrown out after being stored [...]
Victims of Telstra email pain get a measly $12.50
The two-week rebate package Telstra is offering as compensation to victims of its email pain could be worth as little as $12.50 – half the monthly cost of a Telstra BigPond email account. Telstra confirmed that at least 1.2 million BigPond customers and an additional 270,000 broadband customers were directly affected. However, this paltry amount [...]
Arts: Playing Australia
Question to Senator Kemp regarding the Playing Australia debacle Question Time, Senate, Thursday 30 October 2003. Arts: Playing Australia Senator LUNDY (2.22 p.m.)-My question is to Senator Kemp, Minister for the Arts and Sport. My question is about the latest round of funding for Playing Australia, the regional touring program for quality performing arts companies. [...]
Good riddance to a bad minister: Tuckey
Wilson Tuckey has been dumped as Minister for Territories, after using the ACT as his political plaything during his tenure. As Minister, he took Canberra bashing to a new level. His interference in ACT affairs has been both unwelcome and inappropriately partisan and includes the following debacles; Politicisation of the National Capital Authority resulting in [...]
