The Australian Computer Society (ACS) is once more holding a Federal Election Forum on ICT issues, with the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Senator Stephen Conroy, his Coalition counterpart Tony Smith MP, and The Greens’ spokesperson Senator Scott Ludlam.

As you can see from the photos, Australia’s political diversity is once more represented by a bunch of middle-aged men in dark suits.

When I wrote about the equivalent event in 2007, I noted that the Minster at the time, Liberal Senator Helen Coonan, looked rattled and scored a few own goals. Conroy, by comparison, was alert and scored some sharp political points. And Democrat leader Senator Lyn Allison — remember the Democrats? — was quietly confident.

Labor’s broadband promise was a Fibre to the Node network with a “guaranteed” minimum speed of 12Mb/sec to 98% of Australians, costing $4.7 billion. The Liberals were promising WiMaX through the OPEL consortium. From memory, mandatory internet censorship didn’t even get a mention, as both parties only added that little gem to their agendas after the official campaign period had started.

How times have changed…

This year’s moderator is Sky News political editor, David Speers. An odd choice, I must say. Sure, he has the profile and Sky News Business is the host broadcaster. But wouldn’t it have been better to have someone with a better technical knowledge of the portfolio, rather than a general political news reporter? My worry is that it’ll degenerate into political point-scoring rather than analysing competing policies.

So let’s help out Mr Speers. What are the issues this year, do you think? What questions should he ask?

I think we can take a question or two about internet censorship for granted. Please try to think beyond the obvious indignation du jour.

The Federal Election Forum is next Tuesday 10 August 2010 at the National Press Club in Canberra. The debate starts at 1pm Canberra time and will be broadcast on Sky News Business and possibly ABC News 24. [Update 3pm: The Forum will also be streamed live at YouTube's Australia Votes channel.]

[Photo credits: Stephen Conroy via Wikimedia Commons. Tony Smith via Office of Tony Smith MP. Scott Ludlam via The Greens. This composite image is licensed for re-use under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA-2.0 license.]

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A report from the Australian Computer Society’s Filtering and E-Security Task Force, the drab-named but quite readable Technical Observations on ISP Based Filtering of the Internet, is going to be a handy weapon in Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy’s battle over internet censorship.

Well, so I reckon.

In a backgrounder for ZDNet today, ACS filter report just what Conroy needs, I run through a quick history of Labor’s mandatory Internet filtering policy, and show how Conroy can use the report to kill the project or kill the criticism — depending on what he needs at the time politically.

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[This article was first published in Crikey on Wednesday, based on Senator Conroy's keynote speech to the Digital Economy Forum. See below for updates.]

“The Rudd Government is focused on creating a platform for economic growth and is committed to leading and growing our digital economy,” generalised Senator Stephen Conroy as he opened the Digital Economy Forum in Melbourne [on Wednesday morning].

His keynote speech regurgitated budget promises, generously sprinkled with doubleplusgood words about “encouraging” figures and “driving innovation”.

Uh oh. A “Digital Economy Forum”? Already I’m seeing blokes in suits jostling for room at the trough of government largesse. So who’s at this all-day talkfest? Aha! The CEO of Fairfax Digital; reps from Cisco, Google and Intel; a past president of the Australian Computer Society, the CEO of the Australian Internet Industry Association (which overwhelmingly represents big players); the Research Director for Ovum (presumably representing their big clients)… all the usual suspects.

But if the government is truly committed to supporting innovation and economic growth, where’s the involvement from small business?

As the latest ABS figures remind us, “Most business entries (93%) continued to occur in the micro business population, which comprises non-employing businesses and businesses employing between 1-4 employees.” Despite news stories about “business” being illustrated with images of office towers, factories and coal mines, the median business is actually a sole trader, often working from home, perhaps with a part-time bookkeeper.

The Forum is a follow-up to workshops held in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne.

“A valuable opportunity for Government to hear from a range of stakeholders on the future directions of the digital economy,” Conroy said.

Stakeholders. I see blokes in suits again.

Let’s decode the Senator’s speech…

“Most stakeholders agreed about the importance of Government investments in the digital economy — in particular the National Broadband Network and the Digital Education Revolution.”

Translation: Yes, gifts of $4.7B and $1.2B would be nice.

“Participants also agreed that there is a key role to be played by the private sector by collaborating within industry and with the Government.”

Translation: Please give the money to us.

“Many participants argued that ‘industry development issues’ are critical.”

Translation: It’s critical that you give the money to us.

“The shortage of professional ICT skills was also a recurrent theme in all three workshops.”

Translation: We’d also like you to pay to train our staff.

“Ladies and gentlemen — and this is something I’ve been emphasising a lot of late — the Rudd Government hears the industry loud and clear on these issues.”

Translation: Yes, the taxpayers will bend over and you may rifle their pockets.

As we go to press, the forum’s still got half a day to run. But once the big end of town has finished gorging itself, I don’t think there’ll be much left for the 1,171,832 (58%) non-employing businesses, or the 755,758 who employ less than 20 employees but who make up 90% of employers.

Post-Crikey Update

As it turns out, there was some representation from small business.

Crikey commenter George Fong wrote:

A pity you were not there for the workshops. A pity you did not stay for the full event. A pity you did not stay for the discourse and robust exchanges between Dr Geneveive Bell, Greg Stone, Paul Twomey and others and The Minister himself on a one to one debate. And a pity you did not note the number of consumer advocacy organisations represented and contributing in the forum, including ATUG and ISOC-AU.

As a representative from Ballarat in regional/rural Victoria and as a person involved with small regional businesses (most of whom have less than 20 people and a turnover of less than $200,000pa), communities and individuals on both the supply and advocacy sides, I have not in a long time felt so optimistic that we finally have an opportunity to speak, to advocate and to participate meaningfully in the formulation Federal policy in relation to a way forward for the people and organisations we represent.

I agree, it’s a pity I wasn’t at the Forum at all, let alone “all day”. Crikey‘s deadlines for a lunchtime email are such that articles need to be written before noon. I was writing in response to the Minister’s keynote and the promoted list of participants. It’s good to hear that there was discussion related to small business once things got going — and disappointing that only (mostly) big players get mentioned when such forums are promoted. I’d love to hear what the tangible results were.

Ian Birks, CEO of the AIIA, also took exception to my characterisation of his organisation.

Currently more than 300 of our 500 member companies have revenues under $5million — we advocate for the whole ICT industry and not just the big end of town.

I stand corrected, at least with regard to the claimed representation.

Still, a turnover of $5M is still a pretty decent business. My point is that the vast majority of new businesses are in the micro category. They’d be lucky to have a turnover of half a million, let alone ten times that. The AIIA’s members are also folks who are in the internet industry. What I’m interested in how businesses can be supported who are in the myriad other industries.

It unfolded like this:

• I arrive just after Mr IBM started. Room of cubicle droids are astounded by a YouTube video of “Does it blend?” Much polite lolz. Apparently you can upload your own videos to YouTube.
• We’re told there’s a trend away from the desktop. Gosh. Does that explains how I can Twitter from my phone? I notice there’s no pizza left. I don’t want pizza anyway.
• Mr IBM introduces Runescape as an example of a virtual world, and then shows a static screenshot of IBM’s tennis presence in Second Life from the Australian Open. Why not actually demo SL?
• Audience member asks what the most popular site is. Mr IBM says it’s hard to say, probably BigPond in Australia and hard to say globally. Audience member asks if he means “the web or Second Life”. SL, he says. Sheesh, if you don’t know for sure, just tell ‘em it’s the furrysex dungeon and go for lolz, yeah?
• I decide there’s no way I can raid the chocolate biscuits without drawing attention to myself, and I’m not learning anything new.
• Pub.

The guy from IBM would be wrapping up and chatting with the crowd about now. I’ve already gone to the pub, had a beer and a “Thai” chicken salad, and posted this. That’s Web 2.0.

I’ll be Twittering it at twitter.com/stilgherrian and writing something afterwards. You don’t need a Twitter account to follow what I’ll say. My Twitterings also appear in the sidebar of my website, but only refreshed every 15 minutes or so.

Body language is revealing. At Friday’s breakfast forum, two Senators’ body language showed their confidence in their grasp of Information and Communications Technology issues. Alas, the minister, Senator Helen Coonan (pictured), wasn’t one of them.

Coonan’s opening speech was long on motherhood, short on detail. Her opponents, Labor’s Senator Stephen Conroy and Democrat leader Senator Lyn Allison attacked with confidence — and hard numbers. Coonan looked rattled.

When he wasn’t speaking, Conroy was alert. His eyes scanned the crowd, noting tables for heavyweights Microsoft, IBM, Lenovo, Accenture, Fujitsu, Symantec, Gartner … though Telstra were notably absent.

Allison was relaxed and comfortable, sitting back and waiting for her turn, ready to rattle on about quantum computing, laptops in school, IT literacy, and a global brand for Australian IT innovation — something like Woolmark for wool.

But Coonan frowned and ruffled through her papers as if cramming for an exam, nodding as she recognised something. I’ve been told since that she wouldn’t agree to the debate unless she had all the questions in advance — and her answers were apparently scripted.

Then came the lists. Lists of programs and reports and millions of dollars spent. The Coalition vision, it seems, is based on how much money its spent. Few specific achievement were named.

Conroy repeated Labor’s broadband promise: A Fibre to the Node network with a guaranteed minimum of 12Mb/sec to 98% of Australians. At $4.7B, “this is likely to be the single largest commitment of a Rudd government, we’re that serious about it,” he said.

Coonan tried attacking it, saying FTTN won’t help distant farmers, but came unstuck. She claimed that with her championed technology, the OPEL consortium’s WiMaX, “if you live under a rock you’ll be able to get broadband.” Own Goal #1, Senator: WiMaX can’t penetrate rock.

“You get into trouble when politicians start picking technologies,” Coonan said. “You mean like OPEL,” retorted Conroy. Own Goal #2.

And everyone’s threatening to break up Telstra. But as one journalist asked to resounding applause, “Has anyone got the balls to say you’re actually going to do it?”

“If I tell you now you’d have to kill me,” answered Coonan. Own Goal #3: That “me” should be a “you”, Senator. Unless you really mean …

[Note: This is an edited version of an article originally published in Crikey.]

As mentioned last week, Friday morning I’m having breakfast with the ICT minister Senator Helen Coonan and her ALP counterpart Senator Stephen Conroy — along with some many members of the ACS.

That’s Senator Coonan on the right. In every sense of the word.

While the discussion will be chaired by some bloke from Channel 7, I’m assuming there’ll be a chance for questions. When I asked on Link last week, here’s what popped up. What would you add?

[In no particular order, numbered for reference.]

1. ICT as a critical “enabling” element in our response to climate change, which will require lots of distributed access to lots of information and the tools to evaluate it.
2. Protecting children online.
3. Increased broadband capacity at affordable prices.
4. What happened to the Information Economy? Why are all the information jobs going off shore to India?
5. What is going to happen to the CDMA network?
6. Why does the government continue to behave like they own Telstra?
7. Programming for digital TV.
8. What would each do in government to facilitate remote/teleworking?
9. Reducing Australia’s reliance on monopoly software — particularly in government; promotion of the use of open standards; and the development of a national software industry based on open standards and open source.
10. ICT security — do we want to develop critical ICT infrastructure with (how can I say this diplomatically?) levels of security commonly associated with user platforms?
11. An enforced split of Telstra’s retail and infrastructure divisions

I think I’d pull back to a Big Picture question about teh Internet. In 1995, Australia was 3rd on the planet in terms of Internet bandwidth and computer power per population, now we’re not even in the Top 10. What are your thoughts on that? Is it important? If so, how should it be addressed? If not, why not?

What are your thoughts?