News: أكتوبر 2016

الاثنين، 31 أكتوبر 2016

Second win for jockey Kerrin McEvoy

Almandin has narrowly defeated Heartbreak City to win the 2016 Melbourne Cup.

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ACCC to further investigate horticulture and viticulture

By Andy Young

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has released a report regarding competition and fair trading issues facing the horticulture and viticulture industries.

The report has highlighted a number of areas of concern, particularly regarding the Horticulture Code of Conduct. The ACCC had a series of workshops in Shepparton, Toowoomba, Bunbury, Griffith, Murray Bridge and Devonport, which were led by Deputy Chair Michael Schaper and Commissioner Mick Keogh, in order to speak with the horticulture and viticulture industries.

The key issues raised by stakeholders in those workshops included:

The ineffectiveness of the current Horticulture Code of Conduct
Concerns about late and non-payment of growers by wholesalers
A fear of raising complaints due to concerns about retribution
Uncertainty in contracting practices across both industries

“The report, which follows a series of workshops held around regional Australia, reflects the views of growers and the broader industries. Despite the diversity of markets in horticulture and viticulture, there were a number of common concerns,” Commissioner Keogh said.

Deputy Chair Schaper added: “It is clear that the Horticulture Code is not achieving its aims and we believe that significant changes to the Code are required.

Woolworths in court following ACCC allegations

By Emily Bencic

Woolworths will face court today (Monday) after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) alleged that the company developed a strategy to reduce a $50 million short-fall in its first-half gross profits by demanding more than $60 million cash from suppliers, outside formal trading agreements. The ACCC launched the proceedings in December 2015.

The ACCC proposed the following allegations:

Woolworths developed a strategy, approved by senior management, to urgently reduce expected significant half year gross profit shortfall by 31 December 2014.
Woolworths designed a scheme, referred to as “Mind the Gap” to systematically obtain payments from a group of 821 “Tier B” suppliers.

Ousted Victorian councillor launches broadside at Premier after council elections

Shock exit: Local government champion Bill McArthur

One of Victoria’s longest serving councillors and the former president of the state’s peak body for councils has launched a broadside at Victorian Labor Premier Daniel Andrews after his shock defeat at last week’s local council elections.

Bill Mr McArthur spent 23 years as a Golden Plains councillor and almost eight years as President of Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV) but failed to win a seat on council this time around.

Mr McArthur, who has long been a champion for rural Victorian councils, said the Premier had dealt harshly with local councils by reinstating rate capping and continuing to shift the costs of providing services onto local government, casting councils as the villains when they could no longer continue to provide them.

He said that withdrawing the Country Roads and Bridges Program, which gave smaller rural councils $1 million a year to maintain roads, had been a huge blow as had stopping small grants to small rural councils that had been used to fund community infrastructure.

“They have made it very difficult because rural councils don’t have alternative ways of raising revenue,” Mr McArthur said. “They don’t have parking or opportunities for business units like the big metros do.”

He said he had not even met Mr Andrews since he was elected Premier in November 2014.

“I don’t believe he made the effort to engage with local government and he is the only Premier in my time that didn’t. I never had the opportunity to have a face-to-face meeting with him.”

But Mr McArthur would not be drawn further, “I prefer go out with a bit of dignity. We should let sleeping dogs lie.”

Seventy-eight of the state’s 79 councils went to the polls last weekend, with the exception of Geelong, which is under administration after an Office of Local Government investigation found widespread bullying and intimidation.

Election headlines

Election of anti-mosque campaigner Julie Hoskins in Greater Bendigo
Socialist Alliance candidate Sue Bolton elected in Moreland
Number of female councillors up by 4 per cent on 2012 elections. Fifteen councils now have a female majority
Greens do well in inner Melbourne councils such as Yarra, Port Phillip and Moreland but not so well elsewhere
Melbourne Mayor Robert Doyle wins a record third term
Brimbank council runs elections after an eight-year hiatus following council sacking amid allegations of councillor corruption and misconduct
Two members of the sacked Brimbank Council re-elected: Margaret Guidice and Sam David.
Tony Briffa, reportedly the world’s first intersex mayor, re-elected to Hobsons Bay Council after resigning midterm in 2014
Shock exit of MAV President Bill McArthur

Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV) Chief Executive Officer, Rob Spence said he was pleased that there had been a four per cent increase in women councillors. He said that 38 per cent, or 243 councillors, were women.

“This is a great achievement. While we’ve got a way to go to reach equal gender representation around the councillor table, this is a step in the right direction,” he said.

“It’s also pleasing to see some fresh faces joining council ranks with 323 new councillors elected, joining 314 re-elected councillors. A total of 152 incumbent councillors were defeated and 138 councillors retired.”

He said that all candidates should be proud of their efforts, even if they did not get elected.

“It takes a lot of courage to put your hand up for a spot on council and it is highly competitive.”

He also paid tribute to outgoing MAV President Mr McArthur, calling him a “dedicated and passionate councillor” and an effective MAV President.

“Bill leaves a long legacy of accomplishments achieved during his time as MAV President. This includes the landmark signing of the Victorian State-Local Government Agreement, the establishment of MAV Procurement and Australia’s first municipal bonds, plus representing the sector at the Bushfires Royal Commission.

“Under Bill’s leadership significant funding wins for the sector were also achieved including restoration of 50:50 funding partnerships for maternal and child health services, and a fairer planning fees regime.”

He said that Mr McArthur had help secure other notable wins for local government, including doubling Roads to Recovery funding from the Commonwealth over several years and working at the national level as Vice President of the Australian Local Government Association.

Meanwhile, the Herald Sun reported that there had been 250 complaints about the Victorian elections, most of them being objections to electoral material but one concerning bribery.

Former Whittlesea Mayor John Fry was dramatically arrested in the lead-up to the elections, accused of defacing election posters in Bundoora. Mr Fry, who had complained about the election material of one of his rivals, Norm Kelly, was not re-elected.

Government News contacted the Victorian Electoral Commission and was told that the number and nature of complaints could not yet been confirmed. The spokesperson said they would be referred for investigation to the Local Government Investigations and Compliance Inspectorate.

Election statistics:

A total of 2135 candidates nominated for 637 vacancies across 78 municipalities (Geelong will not have an election until 2017)

314 of 637 vacancies were filled by incumbent councillors, 323 were new councillors and 152 contesting councillors were defeated

243 or 38.1 per cent of all councillors elected are women, up from 34 per cent in 2012

All 78 councils have women councillors

Fifteen councils have a majority of women councillors: Brimbank (7/11), Corangamite (5/7), Darebin (6/9), Greater Bendigo (5/9), Indigo (4/7), Macedon Ranges (5/9), Manningham (5/9), Maribyrnong (5/7), Melton (5/9), Moonee Valley (5/9), Murrindindi (5/7), Stonnington (5/9), Surf Coast (5/9), Whitehorse (6/10), Yarra (5/9).

47 incumbent mayors were returned, 15 mayors retired, and 14 contesting mayors were defeated.

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Unlocking the benefits of collaboration for government

By Tony Sandberg, Director, Solutions and Industry Marketing Asia Pacific at Polycom.

I had the pleasure of hosting discussions during the OpenGov Leadership Forum in Canberra last month. It was a chance for government departments across a broad range of sectors and geographies to collaborate and share insights on how they are hoping to use technology to ‘do more with less’ – in a bid to become more collaborative, while also transforming their workspaces and culture to create a ‘workplace of the future’ today.

Perhaps this need for change is not all that surprising given the Government’s current innovation agenda. Deloitte Australia also estimates that by simply collaborating more than they do right now, Australian businesses can add up to AUD$9.3 billion per year to the economy¹. If this is the case, then it stands to reason that government will also reap massive rewards if they can successfully adopt a more collaborative culture inside their own departments.

However, in Canberra, it became apparent very quickly that, while there is clear intent to change, there is still work to be done in order to embrace the benefits of using collaboration technologies within all levels of government.

Understanding the Role of Email in the Collaborative Workspace

It’s human nature. We don’t like to change and are often drawn to what’s familiar. The same applies to our technology preferences. For example, the majority of delegates said they still use email as their main collaboration tool because of its familiarity and ability to act as a record keeper of conversations and decisions.

Interestingly, a recent Polycom Workplace of the Future² survey found that, despite 97% of ANZ businesses believing technology-enabled collaboration is key to remaining competitive, most still rely on 20th century technologies such as email and phone.

That said, there did seem to be a genuine desire among the government agencies present to be less dependent on emails in favour of real time communications and face-to-face collaboration.

Effective Collaboration Needs ‘Location Liberation’

It was also encouraging to hear that some departments are already using collaboration tools like video to meet with their own geographically dispersed teams, other agencies, and international stakeholders. These departments already understand the benefits of using face-to-face collaboration technology to improve their service responsiveness, efficiency and productivity. Interestingly, the heavier users of video conferencing had also noticed less emails being sent and less email dependency.

Today, most video collaboration within Government is still happening inside traditional meeting rooms. These spaces are often difficult to access as they are heavily booked. To overcome this meeting room bottleneck, some departments have already started using video from their desktops, mobile devices and ‘huddle rooms’ – smaller meeting spaces. For others, the need for “location liberation” was seen as key to allow them to use video more frequently outside the traditional conference room environment.

Rethinking Workspace and Workplace Policies

Government teams across industries and geography shared how they are starting to re-design workspaces and how workplace behaviour is also starting to adapt around them. It was no surprise that improving office design and layout was seen as an important enabler for the effective use of collaboration tools.

While modern government offices have been designed with collaboration spaces in mind, many older buildings still lack the flexibility of being able to access collaboration technology outside the conference room. There was also a call for less bureaucracy and policies surrounding the use of video conferencing to move it out of the boardroom, ensuring greater flexibility and alignment with end user needs.

Education Seen as a Key Driver to Workplace Adoption and Cultural Change

The cultural change of using more real time communication instead of emails was recognised as one of the main hurdles to be overcome. Employee education around the ease of use was identified as a major driver for adoption. Essentially, when people start to use video collaboration and see the benefits it can drive the change in culture. One delegate summed it up by saying “people need to talk more with each other”.

Over time it’s expected this work culture shift will also bring to the fore integrated solutions and workflows for ease of use such as integration with Skype for Business and Office 365.

Five Key Tips for Improving Collaboration in Your Workplace Today

Whether you are just starting out on your collaboration journey or actively planning the future state of your workplace, the tips below should support you on the journey:

Measuring the uptake and utilisation of existing collaboration tools can help you discover quick win opportunities for improved productivity gains, e.g. number of team video conferencing meetings held in a week.
Establish current collaboration usage and combine this with a strategy to address issues (such as the availability and type of tools, adoption programmes or workflows), your teams can improve their collaboration significantly.
Choose a solution that is easy to use. Video collaboration adoption requires systems to be easy to use and manage, and also deliver a consistent, great experience anywhere and on any platform.
Integrate and streamline, again for ease of use and quick adoption. Users need new collaboration technologies to be integrated with popular communication platforms like Microsoft Office 365 and normal day to day workflows. Choose solutions that are interoperable and provide secure access regardless of location, network or device.
Work with your IT Team to update Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies to accommodate the needs of flexible workers and contract staff to ensure they remain productive and connected regardless of location.

Looking to the Future

The Australian government is in many areas ahead of other Governments within Asia Pacific in recognising the importance of collaboration tools. Additionally and perhaps reassuringly, other governments around the world also face similar challenges in regards to cultural workplace changes, adapting policies and promoting ease of access.

For now though, the focus for many Australian government departments is how to take that all-important next step for a connected workplace of the future – where internet, innovation and productivity work in unison. And, they want solutions that will improve workflow, experience and productivity – today.

About the Author: Tony Sandberg, with a background in the telecommunications / IT industry, focusing specifically on Service Providers, Enterprises and Government, is the Director, Industry Solutions and Market Development for Polycom Asia Pacific. He is a leader in collaborative workspaces and interactive videoconferencing. For two decades he has held senior roles in business development, sales and marketing, solutions management and partnerships. He holds a Master’s of Science in Business Administration and Economics from the University of Växjö Sweden.

¹As summarised in their Global Human Capital Trends Report 2016.

²The Polycom Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) Workplace of the Future report captured insights from 1,500 plus employers and employees across ANZ. For many, the focus at OpenGov was on how to take that all important next step in their digital transformation. And they want organisation-focused solutions that will help them to create a true Workplace of the Future by improving workflow, experience, the workspace and ultimately, stakeholder satisfaction.

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National identity card for Australians? Digital government lessons from Estonia

Estonia’s capital, Tallinn.

As Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s digital transformation agenda gathers pace and renewed urgency in the wake of the botched 2016 Census and the new Digital Transformation Agency gets going, the PM would be wise to seek a meeting with government tech heads in Estonia, where 99 per cent of the country’s services are accessible online.

Anna Piperal is the Managing Director of E-Estonia Showroom, a government-funded investment agency that travels the world showcasing Estonia’s digital prowess and its achievements, marking it out as one the most successful e-societies on Earth.

Ms Piperal was recently a keynote speaker at Civica Expo in Sydney but took time out to speak to Government News about how Australia could learn from how Estonia has transformed itself into an exemplar of digital government.

How it happened

The push towards digitalisation in Estonia began in the early 1990s after Estonia regained its independence when the Soviet Union fell in 1991. The breakaway from Communism provided the impetus to create a new government architecture from the ground up, with no legacy systems to tangle with, but hampered by having few resources and a small population.

The internet had recently arrived and Estonia’s leaders made a conscious decision to use it to build a more open, e-society and attempt to secure the nation’s future. Project Tiger Leap began in 1996, prioritising computers and the internet in schools and other educational institutions and teaching the population IT skills. Legislation followed to create a national ID card and the X-Road, a system linking databases together.

The country has since gone from strength to strength and has achieved some remarkable things.

For example, a foreigner can get a digital identity and open a bank account in Estonia and then register their own company online in 18 minutes, including all background checks. Health records are all electronic; 96 per cent of the population pay their taxes online in less than three minutes; prescriptions are digital and one-third of voting is done online. In fact, Estonia was the first country to use e-voting for parliamentary elections in 2007.

One of the cornerstones of the system is the compulsory national identity card, which was introduced in 2001 for all Estonians over 15 years old, and serves as the digital access card for all of Estonia’s e-services.

Ms Piperal says the identity card has an encrypted chip and is a non-hackable system that everybody can use.

The ID card has an impressive array of functions, for example it can be used as:

A driving licence
A virtual ticket on public transport in some parts of Estonia
A travel document around the European Union
To vote electronically from anywhere in the world
A health insurance card
For digital signatures
To pick up e-prescriptions
To access government databases, e.g. health records and taxes
To verify your identity when dealing with banks, e.g. when applying for a loan

To head off resistance, banks and the government made the idea of a national identity card more palatable to Estonians by offering incentives.

For example, local government in Tallinn – Estonia’s capital – gave people 30 per cent off public transport fares if they used their ID card as virtual tickets and banks offered attractive rates. This built public confidence in the card.

But it’s a different story in Australia, where the idea of a national identity cards has generated a storm of protest. The Australia Card was abandoned 1987 and the Access Card, ostensibly to be used to access Medicare and welfare payments, was dropped in 2007.

Ms Piperal argues that having a national identity card is no more an invasion of privacy than not having one. “It doesn’t mean they [the government] won’t have data about you,” she says. “It’s just that people don’t know the data they might have.”

Some Estonians are now choosing to have digital ID contained in their smartphone SIM cards so they have mobile ID.

The X-Road

At the heart of Estonia’s success as a digital nation is the X-Road: a secure highway for data traffic, which connects both public and private databases. The X-Road allows people, government and companies to exchange standardised data securely and to regulate access to that data.

The X-Road benefits from a complex security system with authentication, multi-level authorisation, a high-level log processing system and encrypted data traffic with time stamps.

Databases are decentralised, so there is no single owner or controller and X-Road can write to multiple databases, transmit large data sets and search across several databases.

Ms Piperal says it is the interoperability of the system that is critical to ensuring transparency around data. Government departments and agencies do not have to ask one another for data because it is already available.

“Local government and the private sector can exchange data based on the same rules and laws. For example, population registry, tax registry, social security, e-health and mapping services,” she says. “You can regulate who sees what type of data. The police don’t see medical data, medics don’t see education data, just what they need to do their work.”

E-everything

This enthusiasm to finding a digital solution to social and adminstrative problems pervades every aspect of life in Estonia.

The Tiger Leap project revolutionised the way Estonians viewed technology and digital government. Under Estonia’s education system parents can access information about their children’s grades, timetables, attendance and homework and teachers can plan lessons and send notes to parents and students. Students can also create online portfolios of their best work.

You can apply for university online and exam results are instant and by SMS.

Ms Piperal says: The government’s mission is to make sure “services are running and available to people and that they are happy about them”.

Digital lessons for Australia

The e-Estonia Showroom has a useful list of do’s and don’ts to replicate Estonia’s success:

Do – Create a decentralised, distributed system so that all existing components can be linked and new ones can be added, no matter what platform they use
Don’t – Try to force everyone to use a centralised database or system, which won’t meet their needs and will be seen as a burden rather than a benefit
Do – Be a smart purchaser, buying the most appropriate systems developed by the private sector
Don’t – Waste millions contracting large, slow development projects that result in inflexible systems
Do – Find systems that are already working, allowing for faster implementation
Don’t – Rely on pie-in-the-sky solutions that take time to develop and may not work

Of course, it may not be that simple to translate Estonia’s road to digital stardom to Australia. Estonia is much smaller geographically than Australia, being roughly the size of Denmark, and it is less populous, with around 1.3 million people to Australia’s 23 million, but it is also far less resource-rich than Australia and the country faced a tough time rebuilding and striking out alone after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Whatever the differences between the two countries it is clear that Australia can learn valuable lessons from Estonia.

Ms Piperal says Australians should accept that the technological revolution is already here and understand that not keeping up could harm the economy.

“If the government isn’t transforming the way business is then business will either leave to find easier administration or tax systems or less bureaucratic places they can operate from. It’s a global economy.”

She says it is also important that Australian citizens get the benefit from digital government too, partly because this will help to build confidence in e-government and in a national identity card.

“There are so many people in Australia who desire simplicity in dealing with bureaucratic institutions.

“It means that the government is not spending so many resources on administration and processing. That’s old school already. It frees resources for education and social security.

“It can only be done when the service really do work that people are happy about.”

One of the biggest problems for Australians, says Piperal, is when people move, whether its health, education or address data. She says the key is to ensure interoperability between different databases.

She dipped into the MyGov portal during her Australian visit and says the system appears “pretty challenging” for Australians, particularly because they must link different data sets, rather than have the government do it for them, as is the case in Estonia.

“We would be really happy if the DTA had a closer connection with Estonia,” she says. “We are experienced in solutions that really do work and people are happy about.”

It may be a while before Australians declare themselves happy with MyGov but you never know.

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Is this the new queen of tennis?

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English cricketer loses artificial leg midgame, keeps going

English cricketer Liam Thomas kept calm and carried on after losing his artificial leg during the final of a tournament for people with physical disability in Dubai last week.

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How Khalida Popal escaped the Taliban

She's faced death threats, violence and depression, but the former captain of Afghanistan's women's football team Khalida Popal refuses to be silenced.

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Melbourne Cup: The most famous trousers in sport?

Are these the most famous trousers in sport?

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Cyclist given rapturous reception despite TUEs scrutiny

A pair of Belgian cyclists clearly hadn't read the script.

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How 17,000km can become $2.75m

Do you fork out a small fortune and risk flying a horse halfway around the world in an attempt to win millions of dollars, or cash in early and make a tidy profit sitting at home?

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الأحد، 30 أكتوبر 2016

A SOUND SOLUTION FOR A RAIL CORRIDOR

gunnedah_rail_body_600wide

In the last few years Hebel has been involved in a range of utility projects that have required creative problem solving. Here we take a look at a noise control initiative in the Hunter Valley.

During 2012 a problem was identified – to help meet the growing demand of coal producers in the Hunter Valley, rail speed and volume needed to increase along the Gunnedah Railway Corridor. This would increase noise emissions, impacting townships along the rail corridor.

The Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) was looking for a noise mitigation solution that would reduce the noise pollution and transmission caused by increased speed and traffic along the Gunnedah Rail Corridor.

In order to reduce the noise transmission, Hebel SoundBarrier was successfully adopted throughout the Upper Hunter freight corridor. The design, supply and installation of a Hebel noise wall, with Reapor absorbency panels in sections was undertaken.

gunnedah_rail_kangaroos_feature_300x225

The use of Hebel was specified due to its ease and speed of construction as well as its ability to reduce acoustic transmission. This wall formation works both to decrease overall noise level and to decrease high frequency noise emissions.

A key part of the brief was also the use of designs on the barrier. On noise walls three and four, design features sympathetic to the local environment were incorporated into the barrier.

These designs incorporated motifs with meaning to the communities of the upper Hunter Valley and, specifically, the township of Gunnedah.

These Australian motifs seemed especially fitting for the town that inspired Dorothea Mackellar’s classic ode to Australia I Love a Sunburnt Country.

The project was a resounding success. The Hebel product itself is lightweight, easy to handle and fast to install. This enabled the project to be completed in a timely and efficient manner in accordance with the program of works.

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The installation, throughout the Gunnedah Rail Corridor, reduced the noise pollution caused by trains entering and exiting Gunnedah. This significantly eased the impact of the increased volume of traffic on the rails for the people of the surrounding area.

For more information on Hebel products and system, including Hebel SoundBarrier, contact the Hebel Customer Line on 1300 712 896 or email info@hebel.com.au.

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Mexican GP: Hamilton wins to keep F1 title race alive

Lewis Hamilton survived a first corner scare at the Mexican Grand Prix to claim his eighth victory of the season and further eat into the championship lead of his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg.

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Vienna Waltz for No.1 chasing Murray

Another Sunday, another title for Andy Murray as he chases down Novak Djokovic for the top spot in world tennis.

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'Pocket Rocket' Cibulkova takes WTA Finals

Slovakia's 'Pocket Rocket' Dominika Cibulkova blasted aside world number one Angelique Kerber to win the WTA Finals title in a stunning upset in Singapore Sunday.

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Cleveland Indians one win away from World Series

If the Chicago Cubs don't do something fast, the long-suffering misery in Chicago will continue.

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السبت، 29 أكتوبر 2016

Hamilton fights for title with pole in Mexico

Lewis Hamilton has qualified in pole position in the Mexico Grand Prix -- reminding his team mate and fierce rival Nico Rosberg that he hasn't given up on retaining the F1 crown.

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Cleveland Indians win Game 3, take a 2-1 World Series lead

An RBI single from Coco Crisp gave the Indians a 1-0 win against the Chicago Cubs.

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Ronaldo hat-trick keeps Real top

Cristiano Ronaldo scored a hat-trick -- and also missed a penalty -- in a 4-1 win over Deportivo Alaves that keeps Real Madrid at the top of La Liga.

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Kerber looks to top sensational season at WTA final

Angelique Kerber is one win away from topping a fantastic season after cruising past Agnieszka Radwanska to make the WTA title match in Singapore.

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Gunners top after inflicting more misery on Sunderland

Arsenal has piled up the pressure on Sunderland with a 4-1 drubbing -- a result that has takes the Gunners top and leaves the Black Cats stranded at the foot of the English Premier League.

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الجمعة، 28 أكتوبر 2016

Video computer game's guide to Brexit

Ever since Britain "Brexited," there's been plenty of sniping from the sidelines that the UK government hadn't sufficiently prepared for what lies ahead.

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Rio 2016: WADA report reveals up to 50% of drug tests had to be aborted

If doping dominated the prelude to the Rio Olympics after the exclusion of a number of Russian athletes, it turns out drug testing protocols undertaken during the Games had "serious failings," according to the World Anti-Doping Agency.

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ESports: As big as the Super Bowl?

Rodger Saffold is a starting offensive lineman for the Los Angeles Rams. Now in his seventh NFL season out of Indiana University, Saffold has expanded his competitive interests into becoming a part-owner of professional eSports team Rise Nation.

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F1 ace gets his race face on

Daniel Ricciardo celebrates the Day of the Dead festival at the Mexican Grand Prix and believes a Red Bull resurrection is just around the corner.

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Wrigley Field hosts first World Series game since 1945

For the first time in 71 years, Wrigley Field will host a World Series game.

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الخميس، 27 أكتوبر 2016

GovHack winners highlight value of spatial innovation

By Anthony Wallace

This year’s GovHack winners were this week announced at the 2016 GovHack Red Carpet Awards held in Adelaide on Saturday 22 October. GovHack is a three day ‘hackathon’ that sees teams from across Australia and New Zealand compete to develop new applications using open government data. The volunteer-run event is sponsored by technology companies, several government departments and a range of high-visibility start-ups and innovators.

Geoscience Australia together with PSMA Australia co-sponsored the Major GovHack prize for the best ‘No Boundaries Data Hack’, which aims to explore government data from multiple states and territories to unlock the value of spatial data.

Latest news from Defence

Welcome to Government News’ round-up of Defence news this week.

Australia’s longest regional security exercise ends

Around 400 Australian troops are on their way home after Australia’s longest regional security joint military exercise ended.

The three-week long Exercise Bersama Lima is the annual gathering for the Five Powers Defence Arrangement (FPDA) nations (Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand and the United Kingdom), and included war games in the contested South China Sea.

The annual joint military exercises, carried out on land, air and sea, are conducted among the five strategic allies and were hosted by Singapore this year amid some allegations that the FPDA was sending a message to China by the location that was chosen.

Commander of the Australian Contingent, Wing Commander Gregory Jervis, said all the Australian Force Elements gained significant training value from the exercise.

“Navy gained enormous benefit from operating in a congested maritime environment with partner navies, and Army and Air Force have come away with valuable outcomes from working within combined Command and Control environments.”

Chief of Joint Operations, Vice Admiral David Johnston said the FPDA exercises helped enhance the ADF’s ability to operate alongside regional and international partners.

“The mix of nations involved in the FPDA, along with variations in equipment and procedures, gives Australian forces an excellent training opportunity to build personal relationships and integrate as part of a multinational force for a wide scope of operations including security and humanitarian aid missions,” he said. “FPDA is a key component of our regional engagement, and we look forward to more training opportunities in 2017.”

Townsville wins Chinook helicopter contract

Townsville’s reputation as a defence hub has been further cemented after Boeing Defence Australia was chosen as the preferred supplier for the maintenance of Army’s new Chinook Foxtrot helicopters.

The Minister for Defence Industry Christopher Pyne announced the five-year $20 million contract this week. The contract will begin from January 2017 and create 18 highly skilled jobs in Townsville, making the city the centre of Chinook Foxtrot Helicopter maintenance.

“These specialists will be employed in Townsville to work alongside soldier technicians on Army’s new sophisticated Chinook helicopters,” said Mr Pyne. “The contract integrates defence industry and Australian Defence Force workforces to provide an efficient, flexible and effective maintenance team for Australia’s Chinook helicopter capability.

“This is all part of the Turnbull Government’s commitment to growing defence industry in Australia and using our defence dollar, where possible, locally to create jobs and spur economic growth,” he said.

Next generation night fighting equipment

The Australian Defence Force will have the most up-to-date night fighting equipment available after the Minister for Defence Industry, Christopher Pyne MP and the Minister for Defence, Senator Marise Payne revealed the project has been given the green light.

The first tranche of Night Fighting Equipment will see Australian military supplied with new state of the art night vision goggles, helmet mounts, head harnesses and laser aiming devices.

Contracts worth $307 million were signed with L-3 Oceania, which included the equipment and ongoing support.

Mr Pyne said that the night vision goggles will be provided to Army close combatants, such as Special Forces and Infantry, as well as general combatants, such as drivers, medics and elements of the Royal Australian Navy and Royal Australian Air Force.

“These high tech goggles are leading edge and will give our fighting men and women greater capability in the field,” he said.

Australia does not produce this standard of night vision goggle but they will be maintained locally.

Mr Payne said experience over the last decade highlighted the importance of night vision technology in modern warfare.

“Deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq have proven the importance of being able to effectively fight at night,” Minister Payne said.

“The new equipment will ensure the ADF retains its night fighting edge against the enemy, a critical advantage on the battlefield,” she said.

The post Latest news from Defence appeared first on Government News.

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Census botch: Heads will roll … but whose?

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull promised he would decide “which heads will roll and when” in the aftermath of the Census fiasco and a recent public hearing into what went wrong provides interesting clues as to whose blood could be spilt on the government’s guillotine.

The Prime Minister was given the report examining the Census night imbroglio by his special advisor on Cyber Security Alastair MacGibbon on October 14 and the Senate Economics References Committee is due to release its report on what happened on November 24.

Government News takes a look at who could be in the firing line following Mr MacGibbon’s excoriating evidence delivered at the Senate Committee inquiry on Tuesday this week, which implicated both the ABS and IBM in the embarrassing meltdown of the eCensus and the 40-hour delay getting it back up online.

In his evidence to the inquiry Mr MacGibbon concluded: “In strict terms of service delivery the contract was not delivered upon but the ABS could have done more to ensure it was”, adding that the four small denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks should not have brought the system to its knees.

IBM

IBM has come in for a fair bit of criticism so far during the parliamentary inquiry, particularly around the geo-blocking system the company put in place.

The global tech giant failed to spot the serious flaws inherent in the Bureau’s so-called “Island Australia” back-up plan, which was supposed to protect the system during a DDoS attack.

Island Australia was supposed to block an international attack but this affected IBM’s ability to reset passwords for Australians completing the Census because its password reset facility was hosted offshore.

In addition, IBM had not properly coded a router connecting to Telstra, which meant that the coding “fell out” when it was turned off, turning it into a “dumb unit” that had to be recoded. This meant the system could not be restarted for hours.

A senior engineer from IBM Michael Shallcross revealed during the inquiry that turning the router off and on again could have detected the problem earlier thus avoiding the 40-hour shutdown.

But while the company has accepted some responsibility for what went down on Census night, IBM has also sought to shift some of the blame onto its subcontractors, NextGen Networks and Vocus Communications, claiming they had not properly followed geo-blocking protocols.

Both companies have strongly denied the allegations, laying the blame at IBM’s feet and accusing it of failing to follow their advice to take extra precautions against DDoS.

While the global IT giant “unreservedly apologised” for the stuff ups and IBM Australia director Kerry Purcell said he took full responsibility, he admitted that nobody from IBM had been sacked – or even disciplined – over the debacle.

IBM’s Australia boss Kerry Purcell. Pic: IBM

The eCensus failure is estimated to have cost the government $30 million – more than three times the value of IBM’s eCensus $9.7 million contract – but IBM has also said that it sustained extra costs.

Mr Purcell made it clear that IBM will seek compensation, saying: “We have reached out to the Australian government to seek to resolve the additional costs incurred as part of the Census.”

The company is understood to be in negotiations with Treasury secretary John Fraser to strike a commercial agreement.

What Mr MacGibbon said

Damningly, Mr MacGibbon said that the four DDoS attacks which helped trigger the 40-hour shutdown were “eminently predictable” and should have been expected.

The attacks were small, at around three gigabits per second, compared with those routinely faced by corporations and government, at around 100 gigabits per second, he said.

“The ABS did call for DDoS protections in its contract, in its tender process with IBM and IBM responded to say that they would put in place DDoS protection,” Mr MacGibbon said. “It’s expected and it should be dealt with. These were eminently small attacks and they should not have degraded the ABS system.”

He said there were better and more logical alternatives to the Island Australia geo-blocking approach, especially when some Australians with Australian-based ISPs may also route in from overseas and passwords might need resetting.

Mr MacGibbon said that DDoS attacks did not themselves take the system offline.

Instead, it was a combination of IBM’s attempts to recommunicate with their data centre (after discovering they had misconfigured the router at the Telstra end) and the misinterpretation of data on a load monitoring system, which was originally interpreted by the ABS as a possible hack.

Verdict: It is hard to believe that everybody from IBM will emerge unscathed from the parliamentary inquiry and Mr MacGibbon’s report.

The ABS

ABS Chief Statistician David Kalisch admitted the Bureau had made some poor judgements and vowed to correct its mistakes before the next Census in 2021, including identifying and mitigating risks and improving communications with the public, particularly around changes to the Census and how long people have to complete their forms.

“We had the capability and we had the capacity for people to complete the Census on the night and the DDoS event just shouldn’t have occurred,” Mr Kalisch told the inquiry earlier this week.

What Mr MacGibbon said

He criticised the ABS for not keeping a closer watch on IBM and said the Bureau could have done more to find out what protections the company had actually put in place and what action would be taken if the attacks occurred.

The Bureau’s contract with IBM also came under scrutiny.

Mr MacGibbon said, “I believe that there was an element of vendor lock-in. There could have been other paths that the ABS had taken but chose not to. I’ve come to some conclusions and recommendations around that.

“They [the ABS} could’ve gone and had more third party testing done. They may have asked more questions of IBM, proof of what they were delivering, the services they were contracted to do, absolutely. The ABS could have done more. Clearly mistakes were made.”

In his written submission to the senate inquiry, Mr MacGibbon said the ABS asked IBM to pull down the site after misinterpreting data which showed unusual traffic patterns, concluding that it could be a “potentially malicious” attack. He said the Bureau later realised the spike in traffic was not a security concern.

However, he told the committee that he agreed with the Bureau’s decision to wait almost two days before reinstating the system.

“The only one thing worse after four DDoS was to get the site back up and have it knocked down again. Quite rightly there was extreme concern about making sure when the site went back up it was robust enough to cope with whatever the internet would throw at it.”

ABS’ David Kalisch. Pic: ParlView.

Verdict: Perhaps the Bureau’s show of contrition may be enough for ABS staff to keep their heads. Instead there could be a tightening of rules around procurement, system testing and contract monitoring, possibly using a third party.

Minister Michael McCormack

The Opposition is particularly keen that if anybody is going to get decapitated it should be Small Business Minister Michael McCormack, the minister responsible for the Census.

Michael McCormack

Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh has blamed a succession of Ministers in the job for failing to scrutinise what was going on at ABS and not engaging with the public about their concerns. He also criticised the government for slashing funding to the ABS and leaving the position of Chief Statistician vacant for nearly a year.

“A strong government would have stepped up and taken responsibility because that’s the tradition of ministerial responsibility in this country,” Mr Leigh said.

“When public servants do good work behind the scenes, Ministers are entitled to stand up and claim credit – whether it is for a trade deal or for a Budget but when things go wrong Ministers also have to accept responsibility under the Westminster system yet what we have seen from the Turnbull Government is less personal responsibility than Donald Trump.”

He said the government was attempting to blame corporations and public servants for their botching of the 2016 Census, “Let’s be clear: you can’t outsource that responsibility.”

Verdict: Unlikely to go. Mr Kalisch has repeatedly stated that responsibility for what happened lies with the ABS, not the Minister.

The post Census botch: Heads will roll … but whose? appeared first on Government News.

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الأربعاء، 26 أكتوبر 2016

Kuznetsova rolls back years at WTA finals

Svetlana Kuznetsova just keeps getting better with age.

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McIlroy's caddy bags $1M prize

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