By Lilia Guan

 

The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy made an announcement to the National General Assembly of Local Government in Canberra yesterday.

 

He said the Digital Local Government program would help local councils take full advantage of the National Broadband Network (NBN) through the development and upgrade of innovative online service delivery to homes and businesses.

 

"The program was a key component of the National Digital Economy Strategy (unveiled last month) and builds on the $23.8m Digital Communities and $12.4m Digital Enterprise programs," Senator Conroy said.

 

"The Government’s National Digital Economy Strategy set a goal that by 2020, four out of five Australians will choose to engage with the government through the internet or by other types of online service.

 

According to Senator Conroy, the program aimed to develop solutions that can be adopted by other councils and rolled out across the country as the

NBN rolls out, leading to a step change in the quality, availability and speed of local government services.

 

The Gillard Government will provide $17.1 million to assist local government organisations in the 40 communities to first benefit from the NBN with the three year program providing grants of up to $375000 (excluding GST) to eligible local governments.

 

Senator Conroy said grants will initially be available for the eight councils in the NBN first release sites in Tasmania and mainland Australia, including; Moreland City Council (Victoria); Townsville City Council (Queensland);  Kiama Municipal and Armidale Dumaresq Councils (New South

Wales);  City of Onkaparinga (South Australia); and,  Circular Head, Dorset and Sorell Councils (Tasmania).

 

Local governments can apply individually but encouraged them to partner with private sector vendors and/or form partnerships with other eligible councils, he said.

 

"Industry has an important role to play in working with local governments to develop innovative applications made possible by the NBN – ultimately enhancing the quality, accessibility and responsiveness of local government services," Senator Conroy said.

 

The Digital Local Government program was part of the Gillard Government’s National Digital Economy Strategy that aims to ensure Australia is one of the world’s leading digital economies by 2020.

 

The announcement came off the back of Senator Conroy’s address at IBM’s Smart Conference, held in Canberra yesterday.

 

The minister said government employees were are on the verge of an extremely important time in history.

 

“Never has there been an opportunity to so fundamentally change the way in which those services are delivered to end users to make government processes more user-friendly and more efficient,” he said.

 

“As the National Broadband Network rolls out across Australia it will allow new and innovative government service delivery models, reducing costs and increasing consumer satisfaction.”

 

Government News will have a full recap of IBM’s Smart Government Conference in the August/September edition of the magazine.