Cheers,
Pia
Office of Senator Lundy

There is an interesting blog discussion going on at the Museums Australia NING site which relates to the use of of social media in the workplace. This stems from an initial query about some institutions blocking the use of social media for professional purposes.

An insight into some of the benefits (and incumbrances) in embracing new social media technology in the GLAM sector is outlined which may be of interest. A small quote from the transcript of your speech to the GLAM-Wiki conference was cited.

The ensuing comments are quite insightful. Clearly its a passionate debate.

Regards

David

Commonwealth and Military Superannuants – CPI adjustment

Nice to see someone trying to look after Commonwealth and miliray superannuants and giving us a chance to have our say. I sent an Email to two liberal senators, one of whom was a joint sinature in your September letter to Lindsay Tanner. They were Louise Markus and Bob Baldwin
Please keep up the good work
John Griffiths

Hi Bill, thanks very much for your comments. I agree with you that Gov/political websites should be accessible, and creating a view for low bandwidth users is not always taken into account. I’ll do a little more work with our website to make it better in this regard. There has been so much to do in a short time, the website is only a few months old

I have a temporary solution which will also help you and anyone else on slow Internet connectivity with all sites that aren’t brilliant over a slow connection. If you install Firefox as your main web browser, you’ll have an option under the View menu called “Page Style” where you can specify “No Style”. This will turn off the style information of every website you look at which also removes all images/flash and other bandwidth hoggers Hope that helps.

In terms of the infrastructure, I believe the plan is for NBN to buy as much existing infrastructure as possible, however there isn’t much you can do with a Pair Gains connection to improve it, even if you have ADSL2+ capability in the exchange. Senator Conroy gave an interesting interview on this last month http://www.itwire.com/content/view/27755/1231/ (see page 2 for the comments on RIMs and Pair Gains). It will be the case that some parts of Australia will require wireless broadband to replace existing infrastructure that doesn’t deliver quality connectivity, but remember, they’ve committed to a minimum 12Mbps for all Australians, so however they provision areas currently suffering with RIMs and Pair Gains connectivity, you’ll still be a lot better off

Hope that helps you and we’ll keep working as hard as we can on these issues.

Cheers,
Pia Waugh
Office of Senator Kate Lundy

Great – but largely useless for us here – so PLEASE – a text only version for us Telstra “pair-gain” victims here in Queensland.

Recent records and press publicity (the Gold Coast Bulletin) here on the Gold Coast indicate that it is possible that OVER 50% of voters in surrounding areas are stuck with dial-up for the foreseable future unless they pay exorbitant rates for satellite or wireless (GSM 3G etc) connections. Even the ridiculous, yes ridiculous and laughable, Minister Conroy DBCDE statement that equivalent service to metropolitan services is 512K/128Kbits per second and 2GByte download per month with its “broadband guarantee” still means that reasonable monthly fees are up to 5 times – yes 5 times – the equivalent ADSL2 service fees available in the main cities. (Look at that Finish Government proposal that a 1Mbt/sec service be legally designated as a base MANDATORY service for its citizens soon!)

The NBN seems a long way off in Internet time and Gov 2 MUST NOT make the “digital divide”, as carefully described by Barry Jones, a further reality for the next 3-5 years!

So Kate – take the lead – give us a TEXT ONLY version of your site for the time being until we get that URGENT NBN.

Regards
Bill

my apologies, the contact form was out of action for a day or two as the plugin was upgraded. Please go to the contact page and email us through the form there. Thanks!

Cheers,
Pia
Office of Senator Lundy

Thanks for your comment. As an avid gamer myself I understand your concern. I’ll make sure I talk to Senator Lundy about it.

Cheers,
Pia

ICT Policy Advisor
Office of Senator Lundy

“Openness” – ironic considering the plans to filter/block/ban websites deemed unsuitable for a 15 year old child to view.

http://www.inquisitr.com/27288/
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/games/web-filters-to-censor-video-games-20090625-cxrx.html

While I agree that there needs to be more transparency in government practises and that the internet is the best medium for communicating with, and providing transparency to the general public, I find it ironic that Senator Conroy has been so “non-transparent” when it comes to his ideas for the mandatory internet filter.

“Broadband’s losers could vote Labor out”. Senator Conroy’s mandatory internet filter proposal has crept in scope so much that I will be voting Labor out next election, as will the majority of the population over 15 who play games (given the average age of ‘gamer’ in Australia is 30, this is a significant number).

“Government 2.0″, catchy term, unfortunately filtering most of the internet goes against the ideals underpinning Web 2.0 – openness and freedom of information.